I've had this necklace since the 70's. It combines my love of fossils with my love of jewelry.

The pendant is made of fossil walrus ivory and hand painted with a bee sitting on a thistle. The 18 inch chain is made from sterling silver.

What is really cool about it is that a similar image is on the storage box.

Fossilized Walrus Ivory Pendant

I found this in an old trunk from my grandmother's estate. I was helping my parents clean out their garage where my grandmother's things has been stored since her death. Also found some Victorian porcelain that I claimed for myself.

Art Nouveau Belt Buckle

Laurel Burch Swan Necklace

I bought this for my mother in the 1980's and it has come back to me through her estate.

I have to admit that I don't really want to sell this one. I have been searching the net for a couple of years and have been unable to find anything at all like it. I have asked at the eBay boards and they didn't know anything about it either. This is quite unlike her usual style, but there is no doubt she made it. It is marked on both the main swan panel and the extender.

Unique Laurel Burch Swan Necklace

Rebajes Copper Necklace

Another of my mother's necklaces. This one has always fascinated me because of the way the the copper leaves are formed to join together. From the 1950's, the necklace was made by the Modernist master Francisco Frank Rebajes.

Rebajes was a forerunner in producing copper jewelery. He was born in the Dominican Republic in 1906, and emigrated to New York in 1923 when he was 16 years old. In 1932 he was out of work, and collected some tin cans, took them to his friend's workshop and fashioned the scraps into animals. He displayed his work outside on an ironing board at an Art Festival, where Juliana Force (Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art) saw it. She liked his work and purchased the whole lot on display for $30 - a lot of money in those days!!

With this windfall, Frank Rebajes' rented his first workshop and store. His pieces were signed simply "Rebajes'". In 1942, he opened his first retail store on Fifth Avenue in New York, employing forty workers, and a National sales and distribution network was set up. His work was featured in Saks of Fifth Avenue, and was advertised in top fashion magazines. The rest is history!!

In the early 1960's, he sold his workshop, and moved to Spain, where he lived until his death in 1990.

Modernist Rebajes Copper Leaves Necklace Signed

Lucky Dragon Necklace

My Father probably brought this lovely necklace back from one of his trips to the Far East while he was in the Air Force. It is a lovely combination of carnelian and cloisonné beads with a carved carnelian dragon for the clasp,. The beads are hands made as there are small variations in size and shape.

Vintage Carnelian Oriental Lucky Dragon Necklace

An Unsigned Beauty

I can remember Mom wearing this brooch on one of her formal dresses. (I need to see if I can find a picture of her wearing it.) She also wore long dangling clear rhinestone earrings. The dress was red and gathered at the bust line. She wore the brooch where the material was gathered.

After many years, this brooch is still bright and shiny, due to the heavy rhodium plating. All of the rhinestones are in excellent condition.

Vintage Rhodium Plated Clear Rhinestone Brooch

Amber or Plastic?

I bought this bracelet on eBay a year or so ago because it liked it, not because it was sold as amber. At least I didn't pay amber prices for it.

However, it probably does have amber as its base. My guess is that it is made of reconstituted amber, also called melted amber. Basically it is amber that isn't usable for normal jewelry that has been melted, claified and mixed with a modern resin. Amber is chemically a resin, so it is difficult to identify he real stuff from the fake.

So, do I call this amber? Or do I call it plastic?

As usual, I have this for sell in my Bonanzle booth.

I've been Lazy and a Spice Jar

It has been over a week since I blogged, so time to get my act together.

Actually, I've only been lazy about posting on the computer. Instead I've been working on the house and yard, getting ready for winter. Most of the state actually had a hard freeze last night. Of course, the Cape stayed a lot warmer, and with any luck at all we won't get that cold for a while.

Today I am promoting a cloisonne ginger jar that I bought when I saw the Imperial Tombs of China Exhibit at BYU in 1995. The jar is made of a type of cloisonne called Plique-a-jour.

Plique-a-jour (French: open to light) is an enameling process. The enamel, like cloisonne, is laid between thin raised metal lines and heated. However, unlike cloisonne, There is no metal under the wires.The finished piece has transparent enamel held between the thin metal wires. It is different from cloisonne because it is translucent. The technique is designed to produce an effect of a stained-glass window in miniature through the use of translucent enamels. Developed in France and Italy in the 14th century, this technique has been used largely for making vessels, jewelry.

Click here to see the jar on Bonanzle.

Too Much Rain and a Pair of Vases

We were hit with over 2 inches of rain yesterday. The Cape has been rather dry so it was needed in general. But unfortunately, I had seeded and fertilized the lawn just 2 days earlier. Now our street has a haze of seeds and fertilizer and the lawn is still bare.

I haven't had much luck in identifying this pair Japanese bronze vases.

They are a set, but not identical: the pattern is mirrored and differences can be seen if you look closely. Unfortunately, there are several chips in the patina. The gold and silver don't look like inlay work, though there is some relief to the design. It is more like foil was applied before the patina was applied.

Japanese Damascene Vases

Taxco Mixed Metal Earrings

I'm moving slowly today. Yesterday I reseeded the front lawn, and my muscles seem to be objecting to the exercise.

Today I am going to highlight a lovely pair of mixed metal clip earrings. These are from Mom's jewelry box and were probably bought in the '80s.

The earrings are made of sterling and brass. A large silver dome is surrounded by a brass rope on a decorated scalloped silver rim. They were made in Taxco de Alaarcon, Mexico, by Javier Molina Torrescano. Taxco is well known for its silversmiths.

It seems to be working!

After visits to my booth slumped for the last month, my stats jumped almost 200% yesterday! So something I'm doing must be working.

I am going to try to update at least one item each day. It would be better to add a new item daily, but I'm not quite that ambitious yet.

Here is a link to my updated item for today: Artisan Seraphinite Necklace and Earrings.

Seraphinite stone belongs to Chlorite Group of minerals. This type of stone is commonly colored deep forest green to green-black with silver-colored inclusions of Mica. The Mica inclusions display a chatoyancy, giving Seraphinite a moving sheen. The prime sources are Siberia (Bratsk and Baikal region), and Russia. Chatoyancy is the optical effect that most people know in Tiger's Eye stones.