Downton Abbey

For some reason I enjoy stories from the U.K. Some of my PBS favorites have been Prime Suspect, Larkrise to Candleford, Among the brit-coms , Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances.  Poirot, Rosemary and Thyme, as well as the Miss Marple series are entertaining mysteries.

Since I'm a cable and dish network rebel there are many programs I don't get to view.  Thank goodness for HULU and others along with PBS providing its episodes on DVD.

I happened upon season one of Downton Abbey by chance when I visited my local library in search of video entertainment for a weekend. After the first episode I was hooked.  I can't say that I agree with the idea of class structure and hierarchy but I do enjoy seeing the beautiful gardens, cottages and castles. Since I'm viewing Downton Abbey  for entertainment I can overlook the snobby, snobbier, snobbiest attitudes.

Snobby people always look as if they are constipated or they've just gotten a whiff of something that stinks. I guess those two things would go together.

copied from http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/downton-abbey/images/23439226/title/downton-abbey-wallpaper

I enjoy the storyline of this series and the beautiful costumes and jewelry. They seem to have  funerals in nearly episode which  means there will be a lot of black being worn as well as mourning jewelry  to compliment the costume.

I got my inspiration from Mark Montano's Big A** Book of Bling. You can see a picture of of his Downton Abbey necklace masterpiece at his video tutorial .
Here's mine


The large and small almond shaped stones were once earrings. The 3 rugged
looking stones were part of a bracelet.

These materials are broken or found jewelry all of it given to me.  The necklace has black and clear plastic beads. It is an old piece of costume jewelry that belonged to my mother. The clasp tag has "Joan's Collectible's" on it. This is not from the Joan River's collection. Mom had this piece long before Joan River's line of jewelry. I've tried researching it but have not been successful in finding out whether or not it might have been part of one of the jewelry parties often done similar to Sarah Coventry or Tupperware parties.

The smaller almond shaped stones had  rough edges on their backs so I filed  them down. I cut out faux leather in the almond shape to cover the back.

Hot gluing the faux leather to the back of the stone

I attached each piece to the existing necklace with jump rings.

Voila'


My Downton Abbey inspired necklace

THAT'S  IT***

Update: Checked out Season 3 from the public library today. Whoopee!