Historical Vintage Costume Jewelry Designers

Today I went through a lot of vintage and "junk" jewelry looking for items to use in the green line I'm developing. I came across a really unusual pair of earrings signed Vendome. I searched for similar earrings online and found this excellent video about historical costume designers. Enjoy!

Join Me in Voting for Kiva

Kiva is a micro-lending organization. I think it's a great way to help working people achieve success and better their lives and the lives of their families.

Tutorial Monday is On a Break

I'm taking a little break from reviewing tutorials. I'm leaving for Shreveport for Red River Revel tomorrow and have too much to do. Back later!

Designing Dilemma

I haven't posted much because I'm getting ready to go to my biggest show of the year, Red River Revel in Shreveport. It started Saturday, but I'm doing the second half so I will arrive on Tuesday and be in the booth selling (hopefully) Wednesday through Saturday, then drive home Sunday. It is a great show, lots of fun, great volunteers helping in the booths, but very exhausting because of the long hours. A few days ago rain was predicted for the entire time I'm going to be there, but now it's just looking like it will be raining during setup and take down. Take down is Saturday, which is usually my best selling day. DRAT. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be better than that. Please, please, please.

Also, I seem to be in the process of completely changing my jewelry style. The consequences of this is that right now almost nothing I do satisfies me. I feel rather like my brain is exploding with ideas. I have several pieces which I need to finish for this show that aren't finished yet. I keep harrying off on experimental projects which really need more work before I'm ready to sell them. I don't have nearly the amount of jewelry done that I usually have before a show.















Speaking of experimental projects here is a bangle bracelet that I've been working on. I bought soft copper 1/4 inch tubing at Lowe's. I was going to make copper beads. I went to Home Depot for a tube cutter and found a cool thingie to bend the copper tubing with. I'll post more on it the tool thingie later. The beads went right out of my head and I started playing with the tube bender. The bending worked pretty well, although I did learn a thing or two that will help me next time. This bracelet is the result. It's not finished yet. I am going to wrap wire around the ends of the copper tube, and rotate the copper wire leaf a quarter turn. Then I'll antique the silver and brush the copper to shine it up. Or maybe I'll just antique all of it with liver of sulfur.














One of the things I like about it is it fits on my forearm and stays there comfortably.



















For way too long now I have been in the process of moving all my jewelry stuff from everywhere in the house to one room. Of course, I'm also still trying to get rid of the stuff in that one room so progress is slow. In the mean time, I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING. I'm stuck in that stage of organization where everything is completely disorganized.

Enough complaining! I'm going to go work on some jewelry.