Life is What Happens...

Well, since my last post month's ago, life happened. It's funny how just a few little words can have deep and lasting changes. In my case, the words were "they sold the golf course."

Now let me explain. We lived in a lovely condo complex with woods on one side and a golf course on the other. The traffic on the corner was moderately busy during the day, especially when school opened or let out. But the second we heard those words, and discovered they were going to put up moderately priced units where the golf course was, we knew what was coming. And so, we started a house hunt.

We quickly found our dream house and were successful in purchasing it. But in our innocence, we didn't realize how much work and time that would entail. Additionally, we were anxious to put our condo on the market and get the best price possible. In order to do that, we had to store 75% of our belongings to do some renovations and stage the house for sale. It took over two months, and during that period anything we wanted was always in storage. This included a good portion of my business.

As soon as all the work was finished, we put the condo on the market. A week later our new house closed. Of course, we wanted to make all the changes possible in the new place before we actually moved, such as painting, etc. In the meantime, the condo was professionally staged, so we couldn't actually live in it for fear we would mess it up. For close to a month, we lived in the basement of the new house during the day, and slept in the condo at night.

But in the end, it all paid off. The condo sold in two and a half weeks. There were multiple bids, and we were able to get our full asking price. At last we were able to move our furniture - and beds! - into the new house and retrieve our items from storage. We're finally unpacked, organized and living in just one place.

Going forward I plan to post to this blog on Tuesdays and Fridays. On Friday on next week, I'll share some interesting facts on the development of plastics in costume jewelry. Hope you'll stop by!

eBay and the Lemming Factor

In the last week or so, a blog guest post by Keith Rabois on Techcrunch has been circulating about the fact that eBay may have lost its mojo. That it isn't fun any more. He's entitled to his opinion, but I think he's looking at it in the wrong context. What's going on with eBay right now is something I call the Lemming effect.

What's the Lemming effect? Very simple - it's all those people who have to run out and get the latest and greatest and newest so they can tell all their friends they were first and smartest. Only in the end they basically fall on their faces. For example, remember all those people who lined up for the first iPhones? And remember how they ended up paying a higher price? Or all the people who seem to line up for Microsoft's newest operating systems? And then suffer from all the subsequent glitches that are fixed down the road?

When eBay was new and pretty and shiny, telling your friends you had to stay up unitl 2:00 a.m. for an auction to close was cool. Or scoring a really good deal like $400 for a new Apple computer.
Nothing has changed at eBay, and I guess all the uncool people are still doing that. But the lemmings have moved on to MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter or whatever other shiny object they see. So even though the lemmings have all jumped off the mountan, the mountain still remains. eBay will probably be around for a long time to come. There just won't be as many people bragging about it.

Fourth of July Fireworks

I love the fireworks on Independence Day. Quite frankly, I wish that we had fireworks for more holidays. Fortunately, I have lots of sparkling jewelry too wear! Take a look!

You Don't Need to Follow the Crowd

If you don't want to look like everyone else, consider wearing vintage costume jewelry. A pretty rhinestone bracelet, and unusual pendant or even an old-fashioned cameo can set you apart. Here's a few pieces that will set you apart from the crowd.

Made in Japan

Did you see the movie Hairspray? Do you remember the jewelry that was worn by Michelle Pfeiffer as Velma Von Tussle? She wore these wonderful strands of beads and matching clip earrings with her dresses. Of course, that movie was set in the mid to late 1950's.

Many beautiful beads came from Japan after the war years. Necklaces were made of two, three, four or five strands. They were mostly chokers so that they would show below the open V collars that were fashionable then. The beads themselves were all different sizes and shapes and could be made of glass, plastic or crystal. They pretty much all had hook style closures.

The beads themselves were in a rainbow of colors. Some sets were a single color, like the white and peach color beads here. Or they could be monochromatic colors, like the browns shown here. Contrasting colors, such as black and white, often mixed with crystals were also popular. There was no end to the many beautiful combinations that were available.

A lot of these sets can be found today and many of them are just as incredible as they were then. These beads can still be worn today even though they are more than 50's years old. Of course, a lot of modern crafters have discovered all this wonderful beads and many modern pieces have also be made by recycling these old beads. Either way, they always make interesting pieces of jewelry to wear.






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Why Buy Screw Back Earrings

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was sad because someone was making a pair of cuff links from a pair of vintage screw back earrings I had sold them. But there's another way to look at it.

Many of the screw back earrings I sell on eBay are are 50 to 80 years old. They were designed by excellent designers and the
materials used were of a much higher quality. That's why they are still around today.


Rhinestones in particular were often better made back then. Often the stones were made of glass rather than plastic. Today's rhinestones seem to darken quickly and the finish tarnish.

That's why many crafters take old screw back earrings and turn them into pierced earrings. They are very easy to convert. Just snip off the screw portion and add a pierced back. The result is often a beautiful and unique earrings. And a small piece of history is given a new life.

Do You Remember Screw Back Earrings?

I sell a lot of earrings on eBay. Most of the earrings have either screw backs or clip backs since I sell vintage jewelry.

Screw back earrings were popular from the 1930's to the 1950's. Clip earrings were popular from the 1950's into the 1980's and remain popular today.

Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a customer who was unfamiliar with screw back earrings. She asked me how you were supposed to wear them. She had a hazy idea that maybe you screwed them through your ears. Ouch!

1940's Jewelry and Retro Modern Style

During the 1940's, many materials previously used in jewelry design were required for the war effort. Pot metal, silver and platinum became not just scarce, but in some instances illegal for use for commercial purposes. So designers turned to other materials and developed new designs as the war effort continued.

Yellow gold and rose gold, set with just a few clear and colored rhinestones, which had become scarce, replaced earlier materials. Art Deco, with it's geometric designs, was replaced by the more curvilinear Retro Modern style. Large cocktail rings, oversize bracelets, snake chains and bright, bold brooches with a single massively cut rhinestone became fashionable. The bracelet above is a perfect example of retro modern style from the late 40's.

Crafters Versus History

Recently, some one purchased a beautiful pair of reverse carved lucite earrings from me with lovely red roses inside. The buyer wrote me a nice note expressing how happy she was with the earrings. And then she let me know that she planned to take the earrings apart and turn them into cuff links.

Of course, the buyer can do anything she wants with her purchase. But I couldn't help but be suffer a small pang because a another piece of vintage jewelry was once again being lost to an eager crafter.

Of course remaking and modernizing the old to make something new has always been done. I bet if one were to look carefully at the cave paintings as Lascaux, there would be traces of someone who made changes too!