I thought I would share with you some gadgets/tools that I find useful when I want to make temporary adjustments to pieces of jewellery.
The first item is a necklace extender. A lot of antique necklaces can be quite short, only around 30cms, and may not be easy to extend. One solution is to use a chain extender, like the one pictured below. It is just a small length of chain with a ring at one end and either a ring or a spring ring clasp at the other end. You simply clasp the spring clasp or the jump ring on one end of the necklace and use the original clasp to join the extender to the necklace.
The next gadgets are ring adjusters used to reduce the size of the ring if you don’t want to have the ring permanently altered. One is a metal adjuster, a flat bar with bent prongs. It is fitted over the base of the ring and then the prongs are bent around the band. They come in different sizes and can be found in gold and other metals. You can see one attached to the ring below.
However, the ring adjusters that I use the most are plastic coils, which come in different diameters to fit different sized bands. You just wrap the coils around the ring for about one-to two centimetres and then cut off the rest of the coil. Very to use and easy to remove and re-use.
The last gadget is something I only discovered a few months ago. It is a brooch converter, pictured at the top of the post. There are beautiful antique brooches around but they can be difficult to wear. They look good, for instance, on a blazer or jacket, but not so good on jumpers or thin tops. These little items allow you to temporarily convert a brooch to a pendant. The converter is a simple tube with a loop attached to the middle of the tube. You simply slip the tube over the brooch pin, centre the tube along the pin and then feed a chain through the loop. They come in different tube diameters and lengths. I have only found them in gold-filled versions or in plated brass, but not solid gold. They are great little items.
navette jewellery 