Thinking Outside the Box

Husband and wife team Joe and Cindy enjoy re-purposing items into jewelry and home decor. Their unique bullet jewelry is the most popular.
Joe and their children, Adan and Nova, do a lot of hunting and target practice while visiting Joe’s grandparents’ ranch in Golid, Texas. Afterwards, the casings are always picked up so the plastic hulls and brass won’t hurt the environment. These spent casings were always kept in boxes in the garage at their home in Cypress, Texas.
While at a gun show, Cindy saw a pair of shotgun shell casing cufflinks. She then wanted her own bullet jewelry! Cindy had Joe cut the ends off some of the casings they had stored in the garage, and with that made her first pair of earrings. “Surely other women would wear these,” so Cindy posted them on Facebook and the orders started coming in. Requests for bracelets and necklaces gave Cindy the creative challenges she loves. A wide range of custom orders came in from classic to bold designs.

Cindy and Joe grew the business by attending several craft shows a year. Four years later, they opened Repurposed Relics of Texas on Etsy. All of the jewelry is created with multiple calibers of handguns, shotguns, and rifles with all shots using their own guns. Some custom pieces are made using the clients own casings, usually sentimental ones they’ve used in hunts. Joe prepares them by cutting the ends using a band saw or drilling holes in them, depending on the piece they are making. He then gently polishes them. This process takes about 10 minutes for each casing. Turning the prepared casings can take up to three hours for more elaborate pieces. Each jewelry piece or home decor item is created individually and is unique in design.
Cindy’s favorite style is the embellished rifle casings. They almost tell a story with their different charms, such as feathers and arrows. Colorful crystals and rhinestones are also used in this popular design.
You can find Repurposed Relics of Texas on the web at etsy.com/shop/RepurposedRelicsTX or facebook.com/RepurposedTX. You can also reach Cindy at RRofTexas@gmail.com.

Thinking Outside the Box