I come across hundreds of broken accessories that need a bit of tlc to get them looking their best again. Some are from my usual house clearance, and some are from customers who come to me looking to bring some life back to their old jewellery. To show you how restorations are done at Vintage Love, I want to share a customer story with you and show you the process from start to finish.

A customer came to me with a unique item, the kind I don’t usually work with, but I liked the idea of something different. This cross with a wooden base was made by her father and was quite sentimental to her. It came to me like this:

The two large stones are actually genuine amethysts believe it or not! As you can see, there is a lot of residue glue at the top and bottom which needed to be removed. There was a total of 5 missing stones in the piece, which I would need to find matching stones for. In general, there is a lot of build-up of glue and dirt.

The first job was to strip it of its stones so I could begin cleaning.

I soaked the cross for around 3 days as it was super dirty. After soaking, I used a variety of fine brushes and even steel brushes to remove the extra tough bits. It came out looking completely reborn!

The original gemstones underwent the same cleaning process and now had to be fitted back into place. Now they were nice and shiny again, I could begin my search for a match. I have a lot of gemstones in my collection but sometimes I must source new ones for the best match. I managed to find two very similar stones but I had to shave off the back of them slightly so they fit into the holes perfectly.

Now, I had to put the stones back into the cross. To do this, I used a resin glue (as the cross was made of resin) and let it cure for 3 days. Finally, a quick tidy up of any excess glue and the piece was finished!

I think the end result looks fantastic and I’m very proud of how it turned out. I managed to reuse all the original stones so nothing went to waste. I love taking on unique challenges. You can contact me for any enquiries regarding a restoration on my social media or click here to submit a form.

Thanks for reading. If you have any follow up questions (or questions in general), please do not hesitate to Contact Us.

Tune in regularly for more blog posts.

Thank you for reading! – Trine x