Tag Archives: silver bracelet

ID bracelet gets a refit

I had a stunningly good day’s hunting in the local charity shops the other day. One of the items I bought was this silver bead thingy, set with a tiny opal. I wanted to create a piece of jewellery out of it and settled on making it into a bracelet.

None of the spare bits of silver chain I had were any good – they were either too flimsy, too short or simply the wrong kind of chain.

Then I remembered I had this silver ID bracelet:

One end of the central panel was starting to detach from the chain and the panel itself was (a) scratched and (b) had a faint, illegible engraving on it, so the bracelet was no good from a reselling point of view. I clipped out the panel and replaced it with my bead, using pairs of jump rings of 2.5 mm diameter and 0.8 mm thickness. It was an extremely fiddly job, but I’m quite pleased with the result:

It can be worn on its own or stacked with other thin bracelets/bangles. Not bad for £1!

Broken amber earring is now… a bracelet

I debated whether or not to turn the broken amber and silver earring into a pendant, but couldn’t find a suitable jump ring (it needed a flattened, oval one rather than a round one IMO). So I hit on the idea of turning it into a bracelet. I had to break off the silver “pad” that would have been opposite the bit of the clip that clamps down on your earlobe. (This needed some care as silver is a soft metal and it was hard to make the pad shear off without distorting the rest of the earring. I just about managed it though.)

Then I filed down the two stumps where the pad had been and where the clip had broken off. I found a fine gauge silver charm bracelet, cut it in half, removed a few of the links on each of the two halves, and inserted the earring in the middle using a couple of small 0.8 mm gauge silver jump rings. Voilà!

Update: the 0.8 mm jump rings turned out to be too flimsy (nearly lost the bracelet while out shopping), so I substituted a pair of 1.0 mm jump rings instead.

Repair job: silver bracelet with hollow dangle charm

I paid £5 for this lovely hallmarked silver thing in a local charity shop the other day:

It almost certainly started life as a bracelet, but the fastener was absent. So I dug around in my box of bits, and found a toggle clasp. This clasp originally came off a Dower and Hall necklace that fell apart as soon as I got it home from the charity shop. It’s also hallmarked and has a nice, organic shape (rosebud finials!) that goes well with the bracelet. I used a couple of sturdy jump rings to attach the toggle, and now I’ve got a functional bracelet:

I’m still a bit puzzled by the bracelet’s age. The overall design and the style of the hallmark makes me think Victorian/Edwardian, but I can’t read the date letter – looks like a very worn “p” or maybe a Q. The rest of the hallmark is lion passant, leopard’s head (London) and maker’s initials GLC or GLG. Any suggestions as to who this is and when they were plying their craft are most welcome.