Found all of these at a church tag sale. They were selling pins, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, scarf clips, tie tacks and the like for a quarter each. All items were packaged in individual clear Ziploc sandwich bags that had been stapled shut. Twice. Were they afraid of shoplifters? And if so wouldn’t it be just as easy to lift a wee clear bag with two pieces of tiny bent metal holding it closed? The world may never know.

A field trip to one of my very favorite flea markets (which is now defunct, boo hiss) yielded these groovy antique shoe clips, a rectangular locket, a black pendant and a spiffy brass bracelet with various glass stones and intaglios. The bracelet is particularly lovely and has become one of my new favorite pieces. The combination of colors and textures is just charming and kind of tacky yet fantastic. But perhaps the rectangular locket was the most interesting because it’s actually just the bottom piece of a pin made by Coro. The top part is long gone, however the locket will look great attached to a necklace. I’ve just got to add a jump ring and find the right chain. It’s also missing a couple of stones but I can replace those so that’s no big deal. The neato keen thing about it is that when opened you can see images of the four seasons. Looks like someone out there just up and glued them in.

And last but not least, my friend and I were at an estate sale in my old neighborhood when I came across a large stack of 1950s stretchy rhinestone bracelets! The seller wanted fifty bucks for the lot of them, which was probably reasonable, however I had no use for an entire armful of full on bling, nor did I even like all of the styles and colors. I also didn’t have fifty bucks on me. It was towards the end of the day and I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask the seller if she’d be willing to break up the set and just sell me a few. She agreed and I rolled out of there with these three aurora borealis beauties. The picture just doesn’t do their sparkle and color justice.