Upcycled Jewelry

There’s another term that’s come to the forefront, especially in handmade, homemade and handcrafted jewelry. It’s called “upcycled jewelry.” Everybody kind of knows what recycled jewelry means, when you’re using pieces or scrap that have come from somewhere. Upcycled jewelry is something we’ve been doing forever. If you made a piece 6 or 7 years ago and it just got shuffled to the back because it wasn’t your greatest design, you can bring it forward. You make it into upcycled jewelry because you rework it. You haven’t purchased new materials, you’re just taking it up a notch design-wise. So that’s a form of upcycled jewelry, but a lot of jewelers are even using other people’s jewelry as well. A lot of people are scrapping their gold now. They are up-cycling their gold and stones by taking them to a jeweler and having us make them into something new. With upcycled jewelry there are no precious stones taken from the Earth, and still you come away with a whole new piece. There’s a legal term, although it’s not really in reference to upcycling, “a new compilation of pre-existing materials.” For me, that’s what upcycled jewelry is.