In my article Thrift Shop Junkie: Oakland & Berkeley California, I describe how I found a pair of clip-on vintage earrings at a Creative Reuse shop. The beads in the earrings are fabulous, and because I spent years in the bead and jewelry supply industry, I knew that classic styles of glass beads meant that they had originally been made in what is now the Czech Republic. In this article, I show you how I repurpose the beads into new earrings that reflect a current style.
Original Vintage Earrings
Here are the original earrings – with three styles of glass beads, some very small brass beads, all attached to brass clip-on earring bases. Ouch!
I used my loop to examine the brass earring backs. I wish there was a way to show you a picture of this, but it was just too small to capture. The clip back has hand etched letters that say “Made in Western Germany”. So these earrings pre-dated the fall of the Berlin Wall!
Coming Up with a New Style!
I am fond of long dangling earrings. I had enough glass beads from the original vintage earrings to design several different similar but different dangles. I had three styles of glass beads, then I added some brass ‘daisy’ spacer beads and some tiny brass tubular beads to make six dangles of various lengths. In my case, the shortest of the dangles came directly from the original earrings – I was able to reuse the brass pins they were already fastened to.
To form the dangles into an earring, the only thing you need is a short piece of interesting chain where the links are at least 4mm x 5mm in size or a bit larger. I used brass eye pins to form all the dangles.
Here you can see one of the original vintage earrings on the left, and my new earring style on the right. The round object above the vintage earring is what the clip base looks like after you cut the dangles off. This perforated base style was very common in the period when these were made.
Obviously, when you are working with vintage pieces, you need to design something that works with the beads and jewelry components you have. If you only have a few focal beads, you can supplement other related beads – from your bead box or salvaged from other vintage finds.
Details for Earring Making
I selected new brass eye pins – but I found some in an Antique Gold Plated brass that seemed to match the original brass color nicely. My pins were 22ga and 1.5″ long for this project. My earwires were sourced from other thrift jewelry, but brass earwires in Antique GP are a readily available jewelry finding.
Above is an exploded view of the pins and beads I used to create the bottom center dangle for my new earrings. Note that for the three dangles that are attached at the bottom on the 6mm jump ring: I’ve used my smaller brass separator and tubular beads near the top of each dangle so that they will hang nicely in a group. If you use the bigger beads at the top of the grouped dangles, they stick out awkwardly.
If you are having trouble finding similar eye pins online, I feel your pain. So much of what is available is plated with some shiny finish that is going to flake off in a short period of time. I like to pay a little bit more and get my findings from brands that I am familiar with and that I know have well made products, so here is a link to pins similar to what I am using – these are 2 inches long instead of 1.5 inches:
These are nicely made eye pins formed from 22ga brass. This 'medium sized' gauge is what I tend to use with most glass beads for jewelry. The pins are 2 inches in length and you get 50 in a package.
Note that wire that you cut from an eye pin or head pin can sometimes be formed into another shorter eye pin using round nosed pliers if the piece is long enough.
Repurpose Vintage Jewelry : A Set is Born!
What drew me to these vintage earring in the first place was that I’d been looking for this color of bead for two years. I had found a Gaspeite necklace at a great upscale thrift shop near Del Mar, California (someday it might be featured in a Thrift Store Junkie article). I’d redesigned the best part of the necklace along with some leather, sterling silver wire and a clasp, but found that I never wore it because I didn’t have earrings to match. Finding Gaspeite beads is incredibly hard, even when going to the big bead shows that come through town every year.
Here is the finished set – I am delighted with the color match between the natural Gaspeite semi-precious gemstone and the Czech glass. What do you think?
The next time you’re in a thrift shop, check out what jewelry is available. Even if you wouldn’t wear the thrift shop jewelry in it’s current state, the beads and even findings like clasps and jump rings can be repurposed into new jewelry pieces. Some shops consolidate unsold jewelry into bulk bags at incredibly reasonable prices. Pick out the good stuff and re-donate what doesn’t appeal to you!
Table of Contents
On this article, I’ve focused on redesign and repurposing vintage jewelry, but if you came here looking for tips on how to assemble your own earrings, please visit: Make Earrings – It’s Easy! for instruction on how to form loops in your pins, attaching open jump rings and more.
