How to Make a Vintage Collage Brooch

Condense your vintage jewelry collection.

Vintage jewelry has an old-school charm, but it's often difficult to make vintage jewelry work well with modern fashion. One way to update vintage jewelry is by using it in the creation of new jewelry crafts, such as a collage brooch. Collage brooches layer together collected parts from a variety of old jewelry pieces, creating a one-of-a-kind piece of personal, wearable art.

Things You'll Need

• Wooden craft disc
• Vintage jewelry pieces and parts
• Black acrylic paint
• Silicone glue
• Bar pin
• Jewelry blacking
• Rags
• Wire snips
• Needle-nose pliers

Instructions

1. Paint the wooden craft disc with a layer of black acrylic paint.

2. Remove interesting detail pieces from your collection of vintage jewelry, such as pendants, portions of smaller brooches or dangling pieces on earrings. Remove jump rings using the wire snips. Pull bar pins off the brooch pieces using the needle-nose pliers. Assemble a collection of pieces that are small, medium and large relative to the size of the wood piece.

3. Select pieces from your collection for the brooch and arrange them on the wooden piece to find a design you like. Sample different combinations of items and try asymmetrical designs, or placing pieces so that they overlap. If you like, try a common design concept placing one large object as the centerpiece, two smaller objects spaced out in a triangle shape and filling in the blanks with smaller objects, beads and rhinestones.

4. Coat the wooden disc in a thin layer of silicone glue. Spread it in place with a craft stick and cover the entire piece of wood. Attach the pieces to the craft disc using silicone glue; start with the largest objects, move to the smaller ones and fill in beads and other tiny pieces by sprinkling them in place.

5. Let the glue dry and cure for at least six hours.

6. Apply the blacking solution to the brooch using a craft brush. Work the solution into the cracks and crevices of the objects.

7. Wipe away as much of the solution as you can using a dry sponge. Use a clean, dry brush to wipe black into or out of certain areas if you don't like the way the blacking naturally lies after sponging. Let the blacking dry according to manufacturer's instructions.

8. Glue the bar pin to the back of the wood disc using silicone adhesive. Let the glue cure for 24 hours before wearing.