How to Repurpose an Outdated Engagement Ring

There is nothing additional specific than a household heirloom packed with sentimental reminiscences and this means. But if mentioned ring is sitting down in your jewelry box due to the fact it’s not your fashion or feels outdated—or probably it is really your have engagement ring that you’ve outgrown—it’s time to give it a new life. The good news is, updating your engagement ring or wedding stack above the a long time is absolutely regular. You’re in all probability not carrying the exact vogue variations you wore five or fifteen a long time in the past, so your ring choices may transform just as your closet does. Soon after all, jewelry should really be worn and savored, not packed absent! 

“What’s so lovely about repurposed jewelry is that the wearer receives to love an outdated piece that has sentimental value, but in a way that speaks to their own private design and aesthetic,” shares luxurious jewelry designer and diamond pro, Stephanie Gottlieb. “It honors the unique and the new wearer at the extremely identical time.”

If you’re on the lookout to enhance an old ring or make a custom style with things from a spouse and children piece (and have the acceptance to do so), there are a several guidelines and very best methods you will want to know ahead of heading to the jeweler. We’ve tapped Stephanie Gottlieb, a whole pro at ring revamps, to share some of her wisdom relating to reviving outdated settings, stones, and so a great deal far more.

How to Give Your Outdated Ring a New Existence

So you’ve bought the ring, necklace, or brooch you want to transform—what now? It can experience tremendous frustrating to land on the fantastic ring, but you really don’t have to rush to figure it out. Gottlieb endorses initial scrolling via Instagram and Pinterest to see what catches your eye, then saving the designs that spark pleasure as references for your jeweler. After that, it truly is only a subject of refining a couple of critical things.

Zero in on your design and style alternatives.

“We inform our clientele to consider about how considerably change they want to make,” Gottlieb says. “Some of our purchasers want to totally adjust the seem and feel of the ring, and generally they want something much less common, or considerably less ‘bridal’ feeling as they enter a new period of their daily life.”

Question yourself, do you want a a lot more glamorous ring? Something straightforward? Are you drawn to platinum or yellow gold? According to Gottlieb, you should figure out individuals design and style specifics before starting the procedure, together with whether or not you want to include coloured gemstones or side stones, deciding if you are going to be wearing it with a band, and deciding upon between a regular or trend-forward aesthetic.

Emphasis on larger and more worthwhile stones.

If you’re bringing in a loved ones piece that feels out-of-date or just isn’t your vibe, Gottlieb states it is best to emphasis on reusing the much larger stones. “We target the structure on accommodating the additional worthwhile elements from the piece, and then come to a decision if the smaller sized (usually pave) diamonds can be used to aid the new structure or potentially are far better suited for a different piece like a new marriage or stack band,” she clarifies. “It’s constantly important to take into consideration the high-quality of the stones to make guaranteed that nothing at all is chipped or weakened just before coming up with a new piece for these stones.”

A well known method has also been to recreate the unique look of your ring, but with a extra fashionable location, like adding side gemstones for a 3-stone design. Question your jeweler what they would advocate and get artistic with the course of action “Over the a long time, systems and approaches have enhanced, so fashionable jewelry models are normally a lot more refined and much less clunky than older items,” she adds.

Will not be worried to use multiple jewellery parts.

You can conveniently incorporate pendants, pins, necklaces, and earrings into a new ring also. Did your grandma have a unique necklace she usually wore and you’d like to contain that in your piece? It’s totally probable. “What we usually do is remove all stones from just about every piece, assess the high-quality, and match stones that will function properly with each other,” Gottlieb explains of the system. “You’d be surprised by what we can build from stones taken from several distinct parts. Matching the top quality and scale is the most vital consideration when mixing stones.”

Important Jewelry Criteria to Try to remember

There are a couple points to note ahead of you hand around your piece to be revamped. “We normally do not reuse metallic from an aged piece of jewelry,” says Gottlieb. “It tends to produce a new gold substance that has a good deal of porosity, which helps make it fairly challenging to perform with and unstable for each day wear. Any stones with apparent chips, cracks, or abrasions are also usually avoided.” Also, if repurposing a household heirloom would finally harm the piece too much (and in transform crack your coronary heart) it’s possibly greatest to reconsider. 

Gottlieb notes that diamonds are the best to get the job done with for the reason that they withstand put on and tear much better than softer gemstones. Even so, parts created of modest pave diamonds aren’t usually really worth the revamp. “Much of the value and expenditure of creating a pave established piece is in the labor to set all of the compact diamonds,” she describes. “The diamonds on their own normally charge the very same sum of funds to replace, so you’re much better off buying a new finish [ring] than hoping to rework a piece that takes advantage of heaps of very little stones.”

And for brides rocking a relatives heirloom as an engagement ring, but wanting to give it a refined up grade, Gottlieb notes that several of her clients are pairing their aged rings with a different gemstone or diamond for a “Toi et Moi” search. “This is especially frequent when a bride doesn’t love the diamond form she inherits for her engagement ring,” Gottlieb shares. “She can pair it with the diamond condition she does prefer, and get her ‘something old’ and ‘something new’ all in a single.”