Remaking Jewelry -Something New from Something Old

I am 100% woman - if it glitters I like it - well - almost always. I have liked jewelry since I was a small girl and I have collected a few pieces. But since I can't afford the really expensive stuff, I make my own.

I was in Skagway, Alaska when I actually paid for my first piece of broken jewelry. They glittered and I had to have them. I took them home and looked at them a lot before I decided how I was going to get to wear them. I broke the one that was not broken and made a pair of earrings out of the usable pieces.

Those were the first, but definitely not the last. I went camping with my Dad a few years ago and bought a jar of junk for $3.00 at a garage sale I found along the way. I was excited about my jar of junk. I went back to the trailer and dumped it out on the sofa - for the first time. I spent a lot of time dumping that jar and sorting and throwing and remaking.

It was so much fun that I started looking at jewelry at garage and estate sales. And I made a point out of buying the broken pieces - not all of them because some are just plain junk, but I have found a treasure or two tucked in among what other people would consider junk or not worth it. On the other hand I have left broken pieces that I thought were priced beyond what was fair. At one estate sale, there was a necklace that I rather would have like to have, but it needed to be restrung and a new clasp and the price tag was an unchangeable $35.00, Another time I paid $21.00 for one in the same shape - that was an odd piece in that it had both old glass beads, old plastic beads and a few quartz and stone beads. I wanted the beads more than the necklace. So I bought it and took it apart, bought some cracked crystal beads and pearls to add. I took the old plastic beads and made two other necklaces using combinations from other broken necklaces and odd beads that I had picked up.

I have bought long broken chain style necklaces and taken off enough to make matching earrings before putting the original back together.

Single earrings are a challenge. Some can be used to create a necklace and some I have made into pins. I have lost my share of earrings - a few favorites and I just couldn't bear the thought of tossing out that one. I had quite a collection of those before I started making my own jewelry and discovered that I could remake what I had into something I could still get some use out of and still enjoy wearing.

Last Halloween, one of the girl in the office wore a necklace that I noticed and I kept thinking about - I could make one like that. Several days later, I asked her if she would mind if I borrowed it for a few days so that I could use it as a pattern. "I don't like it!" She said. "But you can certainly borrow it, I don't wear it. I suppose I should, my husband bought it for me." She brought it in a few days later and I had it for a week. It was a combination of large gold colored metal circles and beads. I couldn't find the exact style of metal circles, but I preferred silver anyway. I took both necklaces to work. The girls who had loaned me hers fell in love with mine.

"You really don't like yours?" I asked.

"No. But if you will make me one like yours, I'll pay for it."

"Do you mind if I take yours back and make a few changes on it?" I asked.

"Oh, of course. Do what you want with it!"

So I took hers back home, removed beads I thought were ugly and replaced them with others. Then I took several more beads and made a bracelet of beads using the ones I had taken off the necklace. I made another necklace of silver - different beads than mine - and took both back to work. I wouldn't let her pay for the new one because she had let me borrow hers to begin with. And to make matters even better, she really liked her redone necklace and even liked the bracelet as well and often wore both to work.

The whole thing is a challenge for me - to take something broken or ugly and remake it into a usable thing of beauty that others see and appreciate without ever knowing what its origin was.