Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Beads, and Anything Else, for That Matter

While I don't want to advocate hoarding, or hanging on to things better left behind, I am a big supporter of keeping those little things that mean something to you - or to someone else. Maybe it's a tiny part of a formerly huge earring, or some of those Lucite hoops from the 60's. Stash them away somewhere, and eventually, an idea will come to use and you'll want to be sure to include them in your project.

As I mentioned above, I was an avid collector of what could only be called "junk jewelry" I suppose, although there were a few huge, complete and in good condition rhinestone pieces given to me by various relatives, just because they had gone out of style. Sometimes, since I've long ago "repurposed" them, or gave them to friends who also made jewelry, I hope that none of them were stamped with names such as "Miriam Haskell" or Schiaparelli" or "Chanel." But, if they were, oh well, I used them and learned from them.

In the very early days, to diassemble pieces, I used a somewhat-rusty pair of basic pliers from dad's toolbox and an ancient pair of scissors that were strong enough to cut wire or thin metal, but not much else. To make my beautiful new pieces, I used colored telephone wire, old embroidery floss, and the wire from an old lamp cord to re-wire them into wonderful new objects. I used some filigree I made by folding chicken wire into progressively smaller squares then squashing those squares in the vise on my dad's workbench. I finished the raw edges with a thin strip of duct tape covered by a strip of some really thin, silver-colored metallic tape I found in the garage. I wish I still had some of that; I don't even know what it was called. By the way, working in the garage was the bravest thing I did at the time, as the garage was known to be filled with spiders.

I was an artist ahead of my time, though, because that was long enough ago that then, I even wore masses of impossibly tangled, tarnished, faded, rusted and broken bits of necklace chain, some of which I had held together with the lampw cord wire, little safety pins, and decorated with Cracker Jack toys. Think of what they could sell for now! And my teacher made me take them off when I wore them to school. Some people have no concept of the artwork of the the avant-garde!

In fact, some of my critics were downright cruel, calling my "found object" art "junk" and described as "belonging in the trash" by some. However, I was not deterred. As time went on, I began using better quality objects, re-purposing older jewelry using more sophisticated technique for their disassembly than just busting them up with the old pliers and tying them to chicken wire bits.

Now that I am an adult, my critics are no longer quite as cruel, although my methods have changed but little. Now, I bust up old jewelry using new, ergonomically correct pliers and wire them to new, purchased pieces of filigree. That is unless I need a certain shape, then I use my old favorite - chicken wire. This time, though, I still enclose the edge with duct tape, but then stitch a lovely piece of ribbon or fabric over the tape.

Yes, my old technique was sloppy, and ended in more than a few broken stones, seriously bad art, and a brave mother who wore each and every piece I made for her (bless her soul), but the basic idea is still much the same - don't toss broken jewelry, don't overlook interesting "things"; be they old toys, bits of rubber, tiny cake decorations, tiny old toys, miniatures, game piece, old playing cards, Cracker Jack toys, or anything else that catches your eye. If you look at it later thinking "what was I thinking?" you can always toss it, although, I must admit, I've never yet done that.

Remove or keep the good parts, and as for the the bad parts, well, stick them in a sack and store them in the garage, unless they are just too broken, mildewed, very rusted or really not able to restore. Those, you may toss with alacrity. But those "in-between" piece, you might want to store in a sturdy box. You may want to look back through them again someday, and when you do, you could find that you accidently overlooked a treasure!