I almost never buy jewelry, why should I? I usually just make my own. But once in awhile I see something that catches my eye. We were on vacation earlier this year and my daughter and I were shopping one afternoon. We found these nifty little bracelets called 'Gingersnaps' - they have a little piece in them that you can 'snap' different charms into. Aww, now who doesn't want a sparkly turtle? So, I bought one, made a nice, inexpensive souvenir from our trip.
I wore it one day while we were still on vacation, then packed it up and brought it home. When I opened my travel case - it was broken. Dang it! I hate when that happens. But, serves me right for buying 'cheap'. So I fiddled around with it a little bit, decided that I could probably glue it and it might hold up for awhile. OR - I could make something else out of it, something better, something sparkly and unique!
So, I took the whole thing apart, kept what I thought might be useful for other projects - waste not want not! I dug around in my stash of beads and such until I came up with a color scheme and some beads that I thought worked well together. I ended up with this...
A little more my style... I love the colors and I prefer toggle clasps to the lobster claw that was on the original piece. I also really like that it looks like a watch but it isn't. Win - Win situation for me, I still have a souvenir from my vacation, I can still get more of the little snap on charms if I want something different which is a pretty cool feature and I ended up with a one-of-a-kind piece that I love!
Moral of the story, don't throw away old or broken jewelry. The components can usually be worked into something new that you can continue to love and wear!
