Vintage Brooch Re-purposed

This vintage brooch with its unusual color combination of brown, green and pink, was in a stash of a customer's mother's jewelry, entrusted to me to make into something wearable...

 It just didn't fit with the other brooches, which mostly went into one large, "statement" piece...

So this week I took beads from another piece from the same customer - a set of various glass beads knotted onto gold-toned cording - and use the best ones to make the square brooch into a wearable necklace.

Not all the beads here were created equal - some were made of colored glass, others were clear with a color coating, which was coming off. But there were plenty in the brown and green shades needed.

In my own stash, I found a near perfect matching earring - just had to replace one bright green rhinestone with a deep pink and I had a perfect match.

The strung beads on the necklace were augmented with a large Swarovski crystal and a few other vintage beads.

The clasp was custom made from shiny brass wire to fit the scale of the piece. Sure hope Marjorie enjoys wearing her mother's unusual brooch.

Blue Moon

This new piece is going into the Arts on Grand gallery in Spencer, Iowa.....

It's fun to repurpose old costume jewelry - but I do get distracted by the tiniest of details. You would not believe the time spent in August just on rhinestones: researching the best prices for replacement stones, measuring, comparing colors with online photos, ordering and waiting, being disappointed in the quality from one vendor, ordering again....then popping off old or loose stones, cleaning and removing old glue, resetting or gluing in replacement stones! (I use 2-part epoxy - those puppies will not fall out!).

But IMHO (in my humble opinion...) you can't have too much bling on this type of piece.
This piece includes:

• large blue rhinestone brooch
• small blue and pearl brooch
• large pot metal shoe clip - all stones gone
• rhinestone circle earring with blue rivoli added
• moonstone sterling earring drop
• rhinestone ball bead
• silver metal stamped earring
• length of vintage silver metal, pearl and AB rhinestone bracelet
• pieces of beaded chain in silver with pearls and blue links
• vintage 2-hole rhinestone spacer bar
• 3mm blue Swarovski bicone crystals
• large blue Czech glass bead
• vintage pearls, crystal, and glass beads
• fine silver balled headpins
• silver jump rings
• silver craft wire
• vintage clasp
• pieces of rhinestone chain
• rhinestone earring (faux Diana style)
• blue, cream an crystal drops

I am getting the hang of the asymmetrical  design - the trick is to design on a dress form, not on a flat bench. Time is lost crawling around on the floor searching for dropped jump rings or beads, but it's the best way to create something that hangs properly on the neck.

Amber Sunset Necklace

One more necklace completed....called Amber Sunset. It's a sparkly confection of vintage jewelry pieces, chain, pearls and crystals.

Metals are all gold-toned. Crystals and rhinestones range from dark pink aurora borealis  to salmon to red. Length is about 18", although it fills up the neckline nicely. It looks heavy, but is actually quite comfortable.

Elements include:

• part of an amazing, vintage necklace with pearls and rhinestones
• large starfish brooch with pink rhinestones, white antiquing and iridescent cab settings
• double heart pearl and rhinestone brooch
• leaf dangle with stone
• large gold-tone metal flower brooch
• gold sunburst vintage earring
• salmon lucite cab in gold setting earring
• vintage round brooch with red and orange rhinestones, pearls
• lucite/foil earring setting
• Swarovski Siam crystal bicones
• Pink AB vintage crystal beads
• Red Czech crystal beads
• Vintage pearl beads
• Various reclaimed pink dangles from vintage jewelry
• Vintage double ring twisted Gold plate chain and findings
• New rhinestone clasp, brass wire, headpins

Currently on display and available at Eclectics, 7015 Oak Street in Kansas City, MO. Find us on Facebook at Eclectics Gallery.

Whoo-Hoo!! Sold it, Jan. 27, 2012! Thanks to whoever you are - please wear it lots and tell everyone to check out Eclectics.

Weddings.....

Just spent the weekend at the best kind of wedding - someone else's daughter! Got to be part of the wedding "in crowd" by virtue of Dale playing for the service AND daughter (Laura) being in the wedding.

Without going into TOO much back-story, the bride (Rachel) was in college with Laura, was in Laura's wedding and we've gotten to know her well over the past 8 years. Rachel is a professional church worker (read: not rich) AND on the board of the Haiti Mission Project, has spent time in Haiti including since the hurricane and in fact was marrying a Haitian man (read: not the type to spend $20,000+ on wedding stuff).

She picked a lovely, simple asymmetrical dress from a well-known bridal chain and Laura asked if I couldn't please make her something to wear with it. Her colors were navy blue (which the bridesmaids wore) and sparkle, so we planned to loan her several rhinestone bracelets to wear to bling up her dress. The one-shouldered top was perfect for an asymmetrical statement necklace, using ivory, rhinestones and pearls.

The result (shown below) used 3 strands of vintage faux pearls, a partial rhinestone necklace (plus some additional lengths of rhinestone strands) and a stand of clear beads. Other items included were:
silver metal filigree with crystal rivoli (from an angel brooch)
a pearl and rhinestone earring
a gold flower earring
a gold-tone earring with white metal flowers with rhinestone centers

 a rhinestone rivoli pendant

a blue glass setting and a couple blue faceted dangles
a link from a broken silver bracelet
several blue pearls, faceted crystals and lots of ivory pearls, with brass balled headpins and s few bead caps adding touches of gold.

It was great fun to create and the bride loved it. She looked stunning. And everything in the necklace was repurposed/reused.

Statement Jewelry

Ha! It worked! Starting a new medium (foiled & soldered glass pendants on fiber garlands) got me creative again. And guess what? My jewelry is bigger - literally. Not a tiny seed bead in sight.

Statement jewelry is in (for a couple years now....) and some of the outstanding designers I love are making totally amazing things.  I guess this one makes a statement too - as in "I love wearing jewelry!!"

Inspired by my garlands and seeing fibers used in various ways in jewelry recently (just about everywhere...) I went back to my wonderful stash of cream colored silk from making my daughter's wedding dress in 2003 and found yards of leftovers, which were used to make yards of bias strip to wrap cotton upholstery cord.

I added a strand of pearl beads from deconstructed multi-strand castoff, a strand of strung faux pearls and several vintage rhinestone jewelry pieces. One of them was an earring from my mother and the large blue centerpiece is a pin found recently in a resale shop. The rest were dug from my cherished bins of vintage jewelry.....

A few little sew-on individual rhinestones were added randomly to emphasize the blues below.

The "clasp" is a vintage silk-corded button toggle which slides easily through the looped cord at the back. This piece used as many sewing skills as it did jewelry-making techniques.
My husband thinks its "gaudy" but I'd totally wear this - and will, if it doesn't sell at Eclectics Gallery. However pricing is my bugaboo. I'm thinking this should be priced at $185.....it did take a long time to construct and it contains all those great vintage pieces....we'll see.

It's Spring Down Under!

In the midst of our wintry weather and bare trees, its hard to imagine setting up little faerie gardens in the back yard . . . but that's what's happening in Australia. I recently sold a couple of my faerie garden gates to Etsy customers from Australia. Perhaps simple things just make me happy, but it was a thrill to ship off my handiwork to the Land of Oz!

The first gate went to a creative mom, planning a faerie birthday party for her 6 year old daughter - complete with faerie invitations, costumes and a new gate for the real faerie garden in their back yard. Check out their wonderful faerie birthday party and more at http://liscassey.blogspot.com/. (Lissy's a scrapbooker and a VERY creative mum!)

The gates are about 4" x 5" and usually made from copper, steel and/or brass tubes and wire. Sometimes I also make wooden gates, like the faerie beach-house gate below. I used recycled slats from a salvaged old rolled blind that I just couldn't throw away when we moved cross-country. Dale thought I was dingy, but those thin wood slats work just great and are better off in a faerie garden than in a landfill in Calfornia!