I’m a big fan of Busy Philipps.

I follow her on social media; I watch all of her Instagram stories, I bought this matching headband-and-mask set because she was wearing a matching headband-and-mask set from the same designer, I watched her show, I listen to her podcast… I’m on board.

I’m also obsessed with the cute, beaded necklaces she wears:

They were made by designer Irene Neuwirth and they’re lovely.

They’re also bananas expensive. $4k. $8k. $16k (?!?!?!?).

When I investigated them on Irene’s website, I blew them up on the screen to get a better look at them and saw they were knotted between the beads like people do with pearls. So, I started Googling.

That led me to this very helpful tutorial by Elaine at Temporary House-Wifey, who also was admiring Busy’s necklaces and also didn’t want to lay down eight or sixteen grand for one so she also decided to make her own.

Elaine actually ordered opal beads from Etsy to make her necklaces, which are beautiful, but as a poor college student, I can’t even afford those. They’re like $30-$40 a strand and I feel like you’d need two strands at least. So, I took myself to one of my happy places: Michael’s.

They have these kind of perfect white glass rondel beads:

Michael’s nearly always has them on sale, so they’re usually under $5 a package and it takes about two packages to make one necklace.

And while they’re not opal, from far away, Busy’s necklace looks white and no one is getting super close to me these days (pandemic!) so it didn’t make sense to spend big money on real opals.

I followed the tutorial that Elaine included in her blog post, from a site called Spoilt Rotten and if you’re interested in making a necklace like Busy’s (or learning how to make knotted beaded necklaces in general), I definitely recommend this tutorial because it’s super clear and easy to follow (despite the camera work, which can be a little disorienting):

I’m SO happy with how it turned out!