Vintage Jewelry. Inspired by Michelle Buchanan

Michelle Buchanan, in her wonderful blog on her vintage books and jewelry, inspired me to take these photos of some of my older pieces. All are costume jewelry of various eras, but done at a time when you still saw hand crafting and exquisite detail. The one pin with a stone at the end is amber. It's probably from the sixties, just guessing based on when my mother wore that style. I found the peacock pin at a consignment shop back in the eighties. It was crafted sometime around the fifties. Its size doesn't show, but it's large and I used to wear it on the lapel of jackets when I dressed up. The butterfly comes to me from my mother. I don't have an approximate date on it, but I'm guessing fifties or sixties at the latest. The one of the tintype boy is turn of the nineteenth century, but no-one in the family knew who the boy was. That one was hard to photograph because the tintype is so faded now and also because about any angle to get light onto it produced glare.

Thanks, Michelle, for the inspiration. (Click to Enlarge)