Prong modifications

I found a necklace the other day that was close to what I want for the gala ball–sparkly rhinestones with pearls set in silver colored metal. The design was perfect, but a handful of the rhinestones were baby blue. Wrong color.
It was not a very cheap piece of costume jewelry (but neither was it too expensive compared to some I saw) so debated a bit, but in the end I bought it. I also picked up nine clear crystal rhinstones.
This afernoon I customised the necklace. It took about an hour and a half to carefully pry up the prongs, slip out the blue stones, set the clear ones in and attach them. I chipped most of the blue stone taking them out, but none of the prongs broke. And now I have exactly the necklace that I wanted.