Your favorite, delicate and fancy vintage china plates break in to pieces and you feel so bad about your loss of lovely plates. But that is not all it for these plates. Vintage china plates can fashion a fantastic DIY jewelry. This broken china plate jewelry like bold, stickling pendant to delicate earrings. All you need is some shattered glass and some jewelry material.
Materials required
1. Pearls or other accessories
2. Broken or chipped plate with a patterned center
3. 6mm jump rings
4. 1/2" to 3/8" copper foil for stained glass
5. Flux remover
6. Lead free silver solder
7. Flux and flux brush
Tools
2. Glass grinder
3. Xacto knife (optional)
4. Opaque paint marker
5. Tile saw
6. Popsicle sticks for burnishing foil
7. 2 mini vise clamps
8. Inexpensive flat nose pliers
9. Stained glass soldering iron with 1/4" tip
10. Sal ammoniac bar to keep tip clean
11. Sponge with sliced grooves
12. Heat protective apron for soldering
13. Protective eyewear
14. Protective clothing for tile cutting
Directions
1. Decide what you want to make. Pendent is the easiest thing but you can also make bracelet, ring, or earrings. Make what you like in jewelry.
2. Let’s assume that you have decided to make a pendent. Prepare your china and create a hunk of china. If you don’t have broken china then find a plate that is old or the one you are not using so much and break it yourself. You can as well affix to the pattern on the broken china hunk with paint, glued-on gems or other prettifications as you see fit.
3. Set something that can hold the broken piece. Take the china hunk and wrap it with wire on some kind to back it. Jewelry things are sold at craft stock, or you can create your individual using parts of old jewelry or hardware that suits the use. The jewelry, for example, is going to want an easy ring from which to hang up on a chain. You can still stick a tiny jewelry band; they do sell at craft stores, on the back of the piece to fix to things. Wire covered around it also works, if you don’t mind the look of the chain.
4. Fix a broken vintage china pieces to the other jewelry. For pendant all you need is loop the chain from the hook you have set and you are ready to go. For more designed necklaces or bracelets you will need to attach different small parts of china to gather into chain. If you want to make earrings then it can be made by gluing or hooking in the dangling earring hooks or earring backs.
5. Remember this jewelry is of course very delicate and it can get hurt or broken easily. So be careful with it, do not bang it around or don’t wear it while heavy workouts.
StyleGuru quick tips
1. When you cut you will lose about 1/8" of the material of your plate. Try to set your cut line approximately 1/4" away from the design you want to display as your jewelry.
2. Diamond blade is not so sharp so you will not have fear to touch it.
3. Your round plate or bowl is also very easy to cut.
4. The saw knife blade works by cutting away tiny pieces of your part. These small dust size pieces will be washed away for the most part. But as you get damp some will get onto you and your clothes.
5. This is a soggy saw so you're going to get wet. You may wish for guard your work exterior and nearby area with plastic.
6. Wear defensive clothes and eye gear. Don’t wear baggy fitting clothing or jewels when working the tile saw.
So now on if you ever break your fancy vintage china. Don’t get upset instead of cut it and hang it in your ears or wear it around the wrist or make a pendant to complement your clothing.
