Repurposing Components for Jewelry

We all have bits and pieces made for one purpose that pile up unused. Sometimes it pays to get those back out and reconsider them for a new project.

I have a nice stash of torch-fired enamels on etched copper that didn't fit into my silver clay rings. That was before I realized I needed to change the order of steps in my process to make things work out better. I dreamed of making them into earrings or a bracelet, but that would have been much easier if I'd drilled holes in them prior to the enamel application.

Last week when I made some marquis shaped earrings that came out big enough to stretch my lobes to my shoulders, I stared at those wondering what I could do with them. Then I dug out the enameled discs, which just happened to fit. Aha! How to mount them? Resin was a possibility, but I wanted to try out the concrete I'd learned in a class at Bead & Button with Robert Dancik.


One thing led to the next. I needed to hang the new pendant. I auditioned my chains and was nonplussed. Then I remembered the olive green rhyolite beads I bought at B&B. Perfection. I wired those up and added some jump rings to connect everything. Then I needed a little something to fill the void of silver wire at each jumpring. I hobbled upstairs an extra time (in my one time per day world) to dig through my bead collection. Voila! The green pearls I HAD to buy in Kona, Hawaii, knowing that I'd need them somehow, someday, popped out of the box.

Too many hours later, a necklace was finished. Whew. Of course, there was originally a PAIR of earrings, so there's another sitting on the work table.