Somehow my hand got snagged on Babs' necklace as she abruptly moved, and the force snapped her brand new necklace in half.
I felt terrible about my part in ruining her brand new gift, and decided to see if I could fix it.
I was sure I could once I saw what actually happened to it. It didn't involve any broken metal or snapped pieces, but two different bits of wire that held it together opened up from the strain on the chain. This, I figured, could be fixed with just a little patience and pliers.
No, I didn't take a picture of it before I fixed it, because I only thought about sharing this after it was done. But I do have a picture of it all fixed now. I'm proud of myself for that, but even more so, I'm happy that Babs can't blame me for ruining her brand new emotionally charged necklace.
One side only opened slightly so I hooked the chain back onto it and closed it with the pliers so the chain couldn't come off easily again. The other side nearly completely opened it up so I had to reform the loop. It was a little bit more of a process because I first had to bend it upwards into an L shape before I could hook on the chain and bend it closed. But I managed after less than 5 minutes, approximately.
Voila.
Does the fixed necklace look exactly like it did originally? No. Slightly different, because my loop is accidentally facing a different direction and isn't as round, but close enough.
Babs is happy.
That's all that matters.
Have you ever fixed jewelry before? How did you fix it? Was it something expensive or sentimental? When your jewelry breaks what do you do with it?