Many people enter my shop with broken beaded jewelry. Some pieces are family heirlooms while others are jewelry items that were picked up on vacations in other countries or in a department store. The common denominator is a favorite piece of jewelry is broken.  Many customers enter my shop with broken jewelry and one of the first comments even before they remove the jewelry from the bag is "it's a really cheap piece of jewelry, but it's my favorite…" Many are hoping that this comment will help determine the cost of the repair, but that's not how the cost of a jewelry repair is determined. There are several factors that will determine the cost of a repair. Time, labor and materials are just a three factors.

Sometimes the most inexpensive piece of jewelry can cost more to repair than an expensive piece of jewelry. Just this week a young lady came into my shop with a waist necklace that was made of hundreds, if not thousands of tiny seed beads. She wanted this item made longer by 3 inches. She brought an identical piece that she wanted me to cut and then join the two together to reach the desired length. The size of the beads alone was enough for me to pass on the job and the fact that she wanted it joined rather than restrung (which would have been the best repair option) was enough to give me bead-exploding nightmares. At the time, I was in the process of completing another difficult repair, but it was like I was hearing an inaudible challenge emitting from this tiny beaded foe. But being the bead conqueror that I am, I took the job and attacked the repair right away. Needless to say I repaired the item beautifully…. 2 hours later and a long lecture that went something like this" I will never ever take a job like this again". The lecture was long because I repeated it over and over the entire 2 hours. But I enjoyed the challenge. The next time a customer enters my store with a tiny beaded disaster will I turn the job down, probably not, especially if I can the challenge.