Category Archives: Vintage plastic

Pink perfection – Lola Rose bracelet, Buch and Deichmann bangles, & N.E. From silver ring

I bought the Lola Rose bracelet first, several years ago. It was part of a bundle of Lola Rose stuff that I found in a local charity shop. Since then I’ve sold most of the other items on but I kept this rose quartz heart bracelet, because I love rose quartz. Then a few months back I came across two pink Buch and Deichmann bangles. B+D is a Danish company that now makes eyewear, but back in the ’70s and ’80s they sold a range of attractive jewellery and hair accessories. Designed by Ketty Dalsgaard, these were made of nylon in a range of gorgeous colours, and were lightweight and tactile. The colour of the bangles is the perfect match for the bracelet, and they all sit happily on the wrist without clanking or scratching each other.

To complete the pink ensemble shown in the pic, the silver and rose quartz ring is by another Danish designer, Niels Erik From. I bought this in another local charity shop for £1. Yes, £1. You don’t get bargains like that very often.

Is this necklace butterscotch amber? No, it’s Bakelite!

I won a box of jewellery bits ‘n’ bobs at my local auction house last weekend. It was mostly a load of broken glass and plastic necklaces, many of which I’ve put aside to donate to the charity shop. But I’m hanging on to these, at least for the time being:

They may form the basis for a craft project or two, or (more likely) I will sell them as a vintage supplies lot in my Etsy shop.

However, here is the main reason for my bid:

At first I thought it was butterscotch amber but the colour was too regular and the surface of the beads was too smooth. So I came to the conclusion that it was Bakelite. I restrung the necklace and replaced the broken clasp, and listed it in my shop.

There were a few things in there besides the beads, namely some cheap earrings and one or two tiny pendants. Including this St Christopher:

…which turned out to be 9 carat gold, and is also now for sale in my shop.

A new take on the button bracelet

This bracelet is something I made a while ago, as an experiment. I had this gorgeous, translucent Art Deco plastic button in a striking shade of cerise, with a gold-painted geometric motif. I wanted to incorporate it into a bracelet, but I couldn’t think how to make it work. Then I hit on an idea – make a button bracelet that only needed one button, and make the button act as fastener and focal point at the same time.

So I got a length of that cord stuff that is used to make piping for cushions, and covered it in black velvet. Then I bent one end back into a loop, and sewed the button at the other end. Bingo. It’s extremely comfortable to wear and can readily be stacked with other bracelets.

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Teal and orange button bracelet


Every so often, I think about my button stash. It’s now vastly depopulated, thanks to a massive downsizing project that took place seven years ago. (In fact, the reason I joined Etsy in the first place was to sell my button collection.) However, I’ve held onto a few buttons, and sometimes give in to the urge to buy more (not that the really good ones turn up in the charity shops all that often, which is probably just as well).

I recently made the bracelet on the right, from a selection of 1930s – 1950s plastic buttons. What’s nice about it – IMO – is the colour of the buttons: teal blue alternating with burnt orange. The button I’ve used as a fastener is Victorian and is made from metal, enamel and mother of pearl.

If you look at the bracelet when it’s laid flat (see below), you’ll notice that the buttons are bunched up close together, so that they overlap slightly. This is because when you put the bracelet round your wrist, the curvature makes the edges of the buttons separate slightly from each other – i.e. the overlap disappears.

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If you want to look at any of these pics up close, click for biggering. Then click Back to reverse.

Bakelite, Prystal? Or not? Vintage plastic necklace


A while ago I found this necklace (below) in a charity shop. I gently cleaned it using an old toothbrush, unscented soap and tepid water. It’s come up looking very nice and the appearance of the beads, together with the style of the findings (which are sterling silver), makes me think that the necklace is more than a few decades old.

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On looking at the egg yolk yellow, round beads, my first thoughts were “amber”, followed by “Bakelite”. But I was puzzled by the clear orange barrel-shaped beads – obviously they are some kind of plastic, but what? I put the necklace away and several months later while randomly searching the Internet, I hit on what I thought might be the answer when I found the site Gale’s Bakelite Guide. The orange barrels could be made of something called Prystal, a clear form of Bakelite that was manufactured in several colours.

The Guide also lists several ways to test for Bakelite, the most reliable non-chemical one of which is to run the item under hot water. A formaldehyde smell is a positive result, while no smell at all suggests that your item isn’t made of Bakelite at all but some other plastic like lucite/acrylic.

I duly ran the necklace under the tap. Was there a smell? No. So I am listing it on Etsy as “vintage plastic”.