Vintage Earring Repurposing Project- Before and After

One of my neighbor friends was nice enough stop at an estate sale on my behalf while Fermin and I were out of town last weekend.  It was one I had been eagerly awaiting in our neighborhood, but as I was leaving town, I saw that it was going to happen while I was away. Yay for good neighborfriends!

She totally scored and got me a couple of small baggies full of vintage jewelry.  My favorite pair of earrings were these, pictured on the right.

vintage button earrings

As soon as I saw them, I put them on. I forgot to take out my pierced studs I was already wearing. My earring and the clip of these vintage earrings got tangled up and stuck together.  PANIC. I was so afraid that I was going to rip my earring right through my ear while Fermin was assisting my struggle to separate the two earrings.

Finally, I was free.  But my ear was sore and I was just freaked out.  When I tried to put the clip earrings back on, it sort of hurt.  I'm not sure if it was just due to my "incident" with the earring entanglement, or if the clips were just painful (as they so often are), but I decided to repurpose these earrings so that I (or anyone else) never had to deal with those stupid clips again.

First,I snapped off the clips and filed them down.  Then I noticed, either I had knocked the pearls loose, or they were already coming lose on their own. I decided to get out the handy E6000 I so often use for vintage jewelry repair to secure them down.

jewelry repurposing and repair

Then I wire wrapped a vintage pearl bead from my stash and used it as a connector between the button shaped earrings and the pierced ear wires.

adding a pretty little pearl...

 I'm so happy with the final result.  They look so much cuter on the ears now that they are dangle earrings.  As clips, they not only caused me pain, but got lost in my hair and didn't really show up.  Now they still have the charm of vintage, but with an updated look and a more comfortable feel!

repurposing complete!

I just put them up for sale over in the Resparkable Vintage shop- Go check out this link to see them and find out more.