I find it incredibly hard not to keep broken and discarded necklaces, bracelets and earings in the hope of giving them new life. The little baskets on the counters of charity shops are usually filled with tat, but you can find a few gems too. You can put pretty much anything on a chain, using safety pins if nothing else. I also can't really walk past a 20p gumball machine if it offers jewels of some description. In Manchester we usually use buying tonic as an excuse to have a go and get some 20p gems from the newsagents.
