Breathing New Life

The past couple of days I've been working on some custom pieces for a customer using costume jewelry passed down from her mother. As Mother's Day presents to her siblings, the customer had me transform these sentimental pieces of jewelry into new, modern designs that would reflect the style of her siblings.

For this first necklace, I took a darling little stone bird bead from a pair of clip on earrings and transformed it into a playful necklace inspired by nature. The inspiration bird bead hangs above an antique brass branch from which I added a glowing citrine leaf briolette.

It's difficult to really capture the facets in the leaf-shaped citrine briolette, but it is truly stunning in person.

For this next necklace, I utilized a screw back earring with a beautiful, soft blue detail. I turned the earring into a pendant and added a bold and beautiful blue quartz briolette.

The design is simple, allowing the beautiful colors and details of the pendant to really shine. I think the color is mesmerizing.

I love breathing new life into heirloom pieces such as these. We keep and cherish the costume jewelry of our mothers and grandmothers but don't often wear it ourselves. It's nice to transform something so sentimental into something practical that we can not only cherish but really wear and enjoy.