Top 5 Tips to Know About Repurposing Your Heirloom Jewelry
Doing a closet clean-out for New Year's? Or maybe you received some family jewelry over the holidays? Are there items that are old, damaged, worn out, or simply not quite your style? Redesigning jewelry is a wonderful way to honor the history of the piece while adding your own personal design sensibilities to create something you'll want to wear everyday.
This process is not as intimidating as it might seem- we have extensive experience doing this kind of work!
Sometimes there will be stones leftover, like in this ruby and diamond set.
Tips to keep in mind:
-
Make a Plan
Decide if you’d like to keep the same style and stones of a piece, or if you’d like to create something entirely different. You can creatively integrate your history in many ways. If an older item is too damaged to repair, you can take a unique approach for a new piece. Metal can be melted down for use in a new ring, or perhaps there are stones from an older necklace you’d like to incorporate into the side stones of your ring.
There are so many variations when it comes to all types of jewelry that the options are practically infinite! Before beginning this process, find pictures of styles and elements that you would like to incorporate into your design. Have a loose idea of what you would like, and then you can work together with your jeweler to determine what is possible.
-
Be mindful of metal security
In older jewelry, it can be difficult to identify the metal and if the stone might be secure. A trusted jeweler would be able to identify this and walk you through ways to ensure your stone is secure.
-
Prepare for the unexpected
Whenever working with an older piece of jewelry, you might encounter some challenges. Without knowing the history of an item, it’s hard (for a non-professional) to establish the history of workmanship on the ring- for example, is the ring has been re-sized multiple times, or prongs added or removed.
-
Write It Down
Consider writing down the information and taking lots of pictures of the piece. Many times, family stories and myths get intertwined with the story of a ring or necklace, and passed down through the generations. But memories can be fickle- write down the history so that it will not be lost with the refurbishing of a piece! That way moving forward, everyone will know the full story of your meaningful jewelry.
The change can be small, you don't have to overhaul the whole piece. Here, we added a larger center diamond to this sapphire pendant.
