This post is sponsored by Quick Jewelry Repairs. All thoughts and opinions and beautiful jewelry are my own!
In a world full of Amazon wishlists, we’ve taken the personalization out of gift giving. We put our desires on an electronic list, someone makes a purchase, and send it directly to your house. No human interaction required!
But my favorite gifts are the ones that are unique and sentimental. The types of gifts that would never end up in a future yard sale pile because I have too many emotions attached to it. Actually, that pretty much describes my whole house, but I’m working on it.
Let’s talk about where we find the most sentimental things in our home. In mine, it’s my jewelry box. I used to spend hours pouring over my grandmother’s large collection of costume jewelry. And I would investigate every detail of the velvet lined mother-of-pearl jewelry box that my mom had (she has since given me that box!). Now my jewelry box contains so many sentimental things like the necklace my great-great-grandmother purchased on her way over to America, the bejeweled American flag pin my grandmother wore on her lapel, and the tiny gold cameo ring from my mother that doesn’t even fit on my pinky!
This is the necklace my grandmother is rumored to have bought on the steamship S.S. Bremen on her way to America from Germany.
Some of my grandmother’s costume jewelry
A few years ago, my mother gave me her cameo ring that she word all throughout my childhood.
Although I don’t have a daughter, my son recently discovered the magic of exploring your mother’s jewelry box and all of the memories that are tucked away. I showed him the plastic beads I got in first grade when a classmate went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I showed him my high school class ring made from “silvertone celestrium,” whatever that is! And I pulled out a ring that I had purchased years ago in a little antique shop in downtown Baltimore.
Before we moved to the Baltimore area, we’d travel here a few times a year to visit my family. Occasionally, we’d play tourists and on one such occasion, we visited a tiny little antique store in the quaint and historic area of Fells Point. Most of the unique finds were well out of my budget but I did spy a clearance table with FINAL SALE items on the table. For a mere $2, I picked up a gorgeous little ring that was said to have come from Bali.
Can you see the break in the metal on the side of the ring? Perfect candidate for quick jewelry repair.
It was this ring that my son saw in my jewelry box and exclaimed, “Is that amber in that ring?” I’m sure he had visions of retrieving dinosaur DNA from the amber but it reminded me that I hadn’t worn the ring in years. When I pulled it out, I remembered why and also remembered why it was so cheap.
There was a break in the metal on the side of the ring. I didn’t mind it being imperfect but I had always wished that I could fix it somehow. It’s not a high-end ring and I didn’t even think of where to begin for a jewelry repair like this.
It turns out you can get your jewelry quickly repaired in New York City without ever really leaving home. Quick Jewelry Repairs is a business that’s about as self-explanatory as they come. On their website you choose which jewelry service you’re looking for:
- Ring sizing
- Engraving
- Stone setting
- Prong repair
- Jewelry maintenance (like cleaning or polishing)
- Metal work
- Watch repair
- Appraisal
And if you don’t see your desired service listed, you can contact them to see if they can help you. For my Balinese amber ring, I needed some metalworking done by way of a service called “reshaping the ring.” It’s a relatively inexpensive service but it all depends on the type of metal they are working with. I’m not even sure what my ring is made of but I’d guess it’s simply sterling silver.
After my ring repair was registered (along with a photo of the piece needing repair), I was emailed a shipping label. I packaged up the ring and sent it off to NYC! And a few days later, I received my beautiful ring looking as if it should have been gracing my finger for years.
The Quick Jewelry Repair return package comes in a sealed tamper-evident box.
My repaired ring cam back looking all around better than before I sent it!
Can you see where it was repaired? If you look closely, you can but the point is that you easily can’t!
With Mother’s Day coming up, it might be time to look in your jewelry box. Find a piece of jewelry that’s been unworn for years because it needed repair and get the work done. Then you’re ready to pass it down to your son or daughter or even daughter-in-law or gift a family heirloom to your mother.
Time to grace my finger with amber again!
Now that I know how easy and safe it is to send off my repair, it might be time to finally get my wedding band resized. I’m sure my husband thinks I take my naked finger with me when I travel to “keep my options open” but it’s really simply time to admit that my fingers aren’t the same size they were 18 years ago!
