I just published a tutorial over at the CRAFT: blog on how to mend broken jewelry, from re-attaching clasps to linking a snapped chain back together with a bead or charm!

tools + materials photo from Button It Up by Burcu Avsar + Zach DeSart

I hope it’s helpful if you’re wrestling with a jewelry repair — it includes written instructions, some detail photos, and two videos I’ve made. And one of them, which shows how to open and close jump rings to securely attach a clasp or turn a charm into a pendant, is brand-new!

I’ve been swamped this year with a new book, a new baby, and my usual freelance jobs, so it’s been slow going uploading the handful of videos I filmed for Bead Simple last spring… I’m much more of a crafter than a filmmaker, to say the least, and wrangling file sizes and formatting are kind of an obstacle course to an amateur like me. I’m sure any 14-year-old would whip them up in a flash but it’s taken me awhile! I hope you like the new one, though — I put it on the technique videos + patterns page and it is on YouTube right here too. More to come one of these days, I promise.