Giving a Gift of Recycled Jewelry

The holiday season is a time for glitter and glitz, and often gifts themselves glisten. Jewelry and jeweled items are popular holiday gifts. But with economic factors meaning that many people are cutting back, does this mean an absence of jewelry this year? Not necessarily. Especially if you consider recycling jewelry.

Gifting What You Have:

Are there pieces of jewelry you own that you don't wear anymore? Consider passing them on a family member or friend. BlogHer fellow CE Elena Cantor twittered:

I love pins so if I were to regift pins to friends they would know I'm giving them something I really love. Share the backstory.

I love this idea! If you select an item to gift, include the story of the piece. How you came to own it, special places you might have worn it. Pass on object and keep it's history alive.

Recycling Jewelry:

It's more likely that many of us would look through our jewelry boxes and find a number of items that are somewhat the worse for wear: necklaces in need of restringing, pins with broken clasps, bracelets that are out of style, earrings your tired of. How about taking these items and turn them into something completely new.

Here are a few suggestions:

Gather photos of you and a friend and print them out to make a 2009 calendar. Choose some of your earrings to dress up the photos.

Completely take apart jewelry pieces that aren't working, then:

• If you have saved some chain (say from a broken necklace) turn it into a charm bracelet. Use a clasp you've salvaged and some of the dangles and beads from pieces. Attach them with jump rings.

• Choose several necklace motifs and perhaps a few beads, wire wrap them onto plain napkin rings to make a set that looks like you spent a fortune.

• String some beads and baubles together, then tie on the center of a piece of 10" ribbon. Tie the ribbon around a book to use as a bookmark.

• Glue interesting piecing onto a picture frame to give it a customized look.

Buying Handmade Recycled Jewelry Or Inspiration:

WhipUp points to several Etsy ecocrafters.

Greater Yesterday has the idea. The Etsy shop specializes in remaking jewelry from vintage parts.

Kathy Cano-Murillo demonstrates making charm earrings in this video at MyLifetime. Recycle some of the baubles or charms from other pieces, or like her use scrapbbooking or other supplies to create your earrings.

Crafting a Green World's Juliet Ames gave instructions for a Junk Mail Jewelry. Turning junk mail into paper beads is a whole different way of thinking about recycled jewelry.

I also blog at: Weight for Deb and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.