I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while now a few ideas for some modifications I wanted to make to some jewellery, and recently I decided to actually do them. My ex used to make jewellery, long before I met her, and had a box of ‘odds & sods’ which she left when she moved out, which I thought might be useful.
The project was to take the charms off a “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” Rainbow Dash charm bracelet, and use them to make a pair of earrings and a necklace. I like the charms but find the bracelet a little chunky, and thought that they would really work as a pair of dangly earrings and a subtle pendant necklace.
Using two pairs of needle-nosed piers, I gently opened up the rings that held each of the charms to the bracelet. Then I attached standard earring hook wires to make the earrings and then closed up the rings. It was ridiculously easy. Then, to make the necklace, I removed the pendant from one of the necklaces I was throwing out and attached the charm to it instead. Again, it wasn’t really rocket science.
I’m quite pleased with how this ended up.
This charm bracelet, and the matching necklace, are part of a bulk order I made from Claire’s USA, at a time when Claire’s UK weren’t stocking them yet, and I bought a number of each (5 or 6 of each, I think). The plan had been to get them up on eBay and cash in, but I was a bit lazy and never got round to it, and now Claire’s UK are stocking them and I’m a little stuck with them. So I might actually repeat this conversion and see if it generates interest on eBay in this form. It’s worth trying at least once to test the water. If it sells well then I can repeat the process, and if it doesn’t then I may as well hold on to them until they are out of production. We’ll see.
The second project was to convert a bracelet into a necklace. Back in January I bought a lovely earring and jewellery set by Pilgrim from Amita Vetta of Love That Jewellery, and although I love them, I really think that the bracelet would make for a much better necklace.
After looking closely at the bracelet, I could see that one side would be trivial to convert but the other side (the side with the lobster clasp) would be far more problematic as the bracelet attaches directly to it via thread.
Snipping the thread and carefully retaining the beads, I rummaged through the “odds & sods” box and found some wire. I also found an eye rod, which looked useful.
After a bit of trial and error, I came up with a fairly passable solution using the eye rod. Unfortunately, I was a little clumsy with bending it round the loop of one of the flower ‘petals’ and ended up breaking it on one side (you can just about see it in the pic) so carefully bent it back into shape and attached the rod to a different petal instead.
The chain I took from another necklace that I don’t like any more and the ends of the necklace easily attached to the two ends of the bracelet. Then as a final touch I attached the “Pilgrim – Danish Design” tag to the end of the necklace.
The end result is something I’m pretty happy with, although the asymmetry of having a rod on one side, and thread on the other side, is a little annoying to me. I may yet revisit this necklace and re-do it, but for now it will do.
The earrings of the set use posts, and these tend to pull my ears and make them sore, so I made a visit to a craft shop to get some more ear hooks (since it turned out there were only 3 in the “odds & sods” box) and whilst I was there I bought some round nosed pliers. What a difference those made – a real case of a job being so much easier when you have the right tools for the job. It was a simple matter to snip off the post fittings (which turned them into a handy set of stud earrings) and then attach fish hooks using the round nosed pliers. Job done.
I quite enjoyed doing all this, so it’s possible that I may do more. When I visit Antiques & Collectables shows there are often entire boxes of loose jewellery to rummage through, which are sold as essentially “for spares or repair”. Also you often see loose charms from charm bracelets, which might lend themselves to earring-making too. Something to ponder on, I think.
2 thoughts on “Jewellery making”