Since I prefer not to hastily declare any adjectives before I get a feel for things – in this case, this new year – I waited until it was after tax season to say anything. That’s what we are supposed to say, so I’m going ahead with it for the sake of social grace, however belatedly.
I’ve been working on this post for months. I’m really not happy with the state of things, so I’m feeling very quiet these days. I’m not going to get into that, but if you pay attention to anything at all, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. On a more personal note, I’m still trying to decide which direction I need to go. I want to keep doing the lampwork, but I’m feeling like I need a new path? A new format? A reset. Something. My website is still in limbo, and I haven’t pulled extra time out of my rear end to deal with that yet. But I will, eventually. My workmates, however, have been telling me about once a week that I need to start an instagram for all the silly things I wear. So, if you’re interested, check out @sarahdipitous_style for my fashion misadventures.
Buuuut… yeah. I’m trying very hard to stay positive. Silver prices are up however many thousands of percents. I’m hoping that bubble will burst after the hoarders have cashed in their stashes. Meanwhile I have enough fine silver foil to last me through many sets of Glimmer Strips and Mod Mirror Dots until the fine silver foil book prices descend from $50/per. Jeesh. And lately I’ve been finding amazing things at the thrifts. I decide I need it, and I find it within a week. Now, if that ain’t positive, I don’t know what ain’t’nt.
Firstly, a pyramid studded belt; but without a buckle, and the buckle was an odd size, so while I was trying to muster the wherewithal to hit Tandy, I found another belt with that size of buckle that was snapped in, making both belts useable. Oh, how I dislike shopping at Tandy, so thank goodness and perfectomundo. Except for one sticky little wicket – the studded belt is not leather. Which isn’t the end of the world, of course, but leather is preferable for longevity. It’ll do for now.
I’ve also been looking for more “vintage” things… I’ve always been a thrifter, my mother taught me well, and 30 years ago I was shopping strictly for 60s and 70s items… long wool coats with fur collars, polyester dresses and pants suits, hawaiian shirts, Grandma Moran style shoes and bags were at the top of the shopping lists and easy to find. I unfortunately gave them all away when I put on weight and began shopping exclusively at the Gap. Dumb. 30 years later, time and nature have had their way with most of these types of items, but occasionally one might find a very well preserved relic, such as a cropped, 3/4 sleeve broad tail lamb coat with a fur collar lined with satin and someone’s name embroidered into the lining… for $13. Yes, one did, and that one was me. February was as warm as June, so there hasn’t been much of a chance to wear it.
I also “discovered” the flea market… that is not to say that I knew nothing of the flea market, but as a dyed in the wool night owl for the majority of my life, rarely considering leaving the house until after 5pm, the flea market was not destined to be one of my regular haunts. Then Mom and I happened upon the once monthly Buchanan’s at the state fair grounds after a bead show a couple of years ago. It was Sunday and they were about to close up, so most of the sellers had gone, but I found a spectacular spoon ring lady, and more than one $1 junk bucket. (You guys may have deduced by now how much I enjoy a good rummage). There’s also a guy that sells sterling jewelry of all sorts for incredibly fair prices, even these days. All of this is to say, most thrift stores who do sell jewelry are pricing it way too high right now, and that’s where I had been doing most of my jewelry/jewelry component shopping for my entire adult existence. Even some antique stores have significantly lower jewelry prices than thrift stores. One of my favorite thrifts has a $99 price tag on a Joan Rivers brooch that was probably selling for $35 at Kohl’s 15 years ago. My day job has me getting up early, so it’s not as big of a stretch as it once was to get my tail to the better deals.
But creatively, I haven’t been doing much lampwork because whatever lampwork I’m trying to do is a two day affair, and I’m spread extremely thin between the job, my drudgery, and that of other peoples’. Lampwork feels very far out of my reach at the moment, in fact. Since I can take my time with designing a piece of jewelry and stick it in a bag or cigar box when I need to jump up and run, that’s been a low-stress way to be productive. I enjoy having a jewelry project in the works, it gives me something to look forward to after work, besides dinner and whatever series I’m watching. So here’s what I’ve been working on:
IVORY OWL: I found this lucite owl pendant at goodwill (way back when they still sold jewelry, so that tells you how long ago that was) and I finally had all the right stuff to make it go. I ruminate on most of my jewelry pieces for months, sometimes years, before I even start pulling the details out of storage. I acquired the faceted smoky quartz strands at the last bead show, I’ve had the picasso jasper for a couple of years, and found the wooden rondells at the thrift at some point. I thought the cooler tones of the browns were a good companion for the tone of the metal details on the owl. Every jewelry designer will eventually learn that for multiple strand pieces, the top strand must be slightly shorter than the bottom when you want to show off each strand, so I made the two strands a slightly different order so that they would fit together and hang nicely.
MIRROR HORSE: I picked up this pin/pendant last summer at an antique mall I had written off a decade ago for being too willy-nilly about era and new-ness of the contents. To say the least, I have broadened my horizons and honed my eye since then. It was near somewhere we needed to be, so we popped in and I was glad I gave this place another chance. They had some real gems and the people who work there are SO nice! I almost didn’t get the horse because, to put it plain, I am not a horse girl. Don’t get me wrong, I love and respect horses, but they are very large animals and you’d be silly to make one mad, so I tend to keep my distance in case they’re in a mood. (Why, yes, I’ve learned many of my behaviors from being a cat girl.) But. The fact that this can be a pin OR a pendant was what won me over, and it is quite a large piece and has stunning detail. It appears to be silver plated, which is fine by me. It has a sizeable bail, so for balance I had to add a bead to dangle from the back so that it didn’t pitch downward during wear. I had some various sterling and sterling plated beads in my collection, and cobbled together a cohesive strand for it to hang from. I agonized over the details for months – I had tentatively planned on stringing this up with several small hollow lampwork beads – until I acquired a beaded black plastic and silver plate necklace and noticed that the horse and the silver plated beads were very similar in tone. I chucked the original idea and went with the pure silver one, no regrets.
TWEETS & PEARLS: I took forever to finish this, I don’t know why… oh wait, right, it’s construction heavy, what with 18 crimps. Gaw. The thing practically made itself except for the making of it part. It all started with these earrings from work. Something about them makes me think of birds, and ya’ll know how I luvs me birds. They were on the $2.99 rack and too heavy for my earlobes, but I loved the colors and the design and I thought, huh. What if. So I clipped the posts off, filed down the scratchy parts and made something wearable from them. And it didn’t take me long to decide what to do: I made some very small glass foil beads to pick up the colors of the stones, and then I dug out the vintage swarovski rondells and some peachy golden colored pearls, plus some gold colored seed beads in various sizes, and voila! Two years later! Here it is. With a bird-themed clasp, even. When I remember to wear it, I get tons of compliments on it. Usually at work. “Did you get that here?” Umm, not exactly.
This one requires very little explanation – you might remember my numerous attempts to sell these red and white beads, ie, letting them hang out in my online shop for months or years (at this moment in time, I’m having a hard time telling the difference between the two) and then sticking them on ebay last summer. I swear, that’s not a guilt trip, just a memory jog. Anyway, I found the red plastic beads at the thrift, they were a perfect match to one of the reds, and whenever a button stack can be stacked, I’m gonna stack it.
LAPIS MET LAVENDER: I needed to do something at the torch just for meeee! I had already acquired these dark navy czech cubes at a thrift store or antique mall, probably 10 years ago, and they had lived in what I call my Thrifting Trophy Stash ever since. This trophy stash is a scrapbooking container stuffed to the edges with really cool jewelry stuff I’ve found secondhand, including fantastic plastics and glorious glass beads, many of which will be used in other projects or rehabilitated to its original design if deemed worthy. But these, THESE. These are special because they’re an unusual glass color, and they needed to live somewhere other than a trophy case, as it were. They teamed up nicely with these lavender faceted pearls I bought from a bead store closing 20 years ago – I didn’t even know the place existed until it was going out of business and everything was 90% off when I heard about it, which sounds about right for me. And that’s about it, besides the fabulous button stack. I swear I spent more time on perfecting that stack than designing the necklace.
MONDO DOTS: ooooh, this. THIS is my baby. You may have heard of Sobral/Jackie Brazil. I don’t know the exact details, you can look it up for yourself, but the story that’s stuck in my head is that these beads/jewelry components are made of “recycled bakelite”. I really think it’s just a resin designer, and wow is this stuff cool. The 9 Dippin Dots looking beads were a Sobral keyring, which I bought myself for my birthday, and made something with them that I could wear around my neck. I didn’t spend two years on this like I normally do everything else, but I did play around a lot with the pattern/construction and ended up doing something that LOOKS fairly simple but is in fact rather mathy for a mathophobe like me. I’ve had this clasp for decades, it’s very sturdy, but made for 5 strands. As you can see, there are only 3 here, so I added a lil sumthin to the lonesome 4. Added to the mix is turquoise, butter yellow enameled rounds, big hot pink lucite balls, plus orange and green czech glass accents. I have not yet had an opportunity to wear this monstrosity, but pictures or it didn’t happen. Pinky promise.
PURE COBALT: You know me and my bead crochet knot affairs. Sometime last year I got obsessed and hunted down an entire pound (equivalent to a smaller pickle jar full) of foiled SQUARE HOLE cobalt Czech seed beads. Most seed beads manufactured in the Czech Republic had square holes up until recently, and I don’t know what’s up, but I started noticing that the czech seed beads in craft shops were starting to have round holes. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? Well, square holes + foil = subtle sparkle. If you know you know, and if you don’t, you’re probably better off not worrying yourself with it. Anyhoo, I made a foiled cobalt button and (2) 2-holed beads (bricks) for the sake of a pure cobalt thing. These photos do not convey the stunning cobalt nature of this piece, and to be quite honest, it was a bore to make… but a joy to wear, especially layered with other interesting things.
BONUS: A sizeable aluminum curb chain. A heart shaped repeller clip. A big a$$ safety pin. Lampwork Gummies. Thrown together in 5 minutes. Am I feeling okay? Will be worn with the wrong thing soonish.
It’s been rough. We gotta stick together.
Love you guys – Sarah xo
the z-beads blog 
