Monthly Archives: March 2016

Victorian spider bar brooch


For a couple of minutes when my eyes lit on this lovely fellow (below), I thought I’d literally struck gold. However, on closer examination he’s almost certainly NOT made of real gold, just gilt. For a start, the pin is several shades darker than the rest of the brooch. And if you look reaaaally closely at the bar and the spider’s legs, you’ll see tiny irregularities in the gilt coverage/shading. But the amethyst stone looks real enough, and judging by the style (bar brooch with an old-fashioned C-clasp), the brooch is at least 100 years old. Creepy-crawly themed jewellery was huge in the Victorian era, and this handsome arachnid is typical of the breed.

amethystspiderbrooch

amethystspiderbrooch4

The wonderful world of Andreas Daub (A*D)

Selling vintage jewellery as I do, I struggle with a perennial problem: how to detach emotionally from the pieces I find, and actually sell them as opposed to keeping them for myself. This issue often comes back to haunt me because I’ve made a rule to concentrate only on selling things that I actually like.

The big orange-stoned beauty shown below is a case in point. With great reluctance, I’ve just put it on sale in my Etsy shop. But it nearly didn’t make it there. The pendant is sterling silver and is set with a faceted orange topaz stone. It’s big, bold and modernistic, and was probably made in the 60s or 70s. There is “925” mark on the bale, plus a maker’s mark – “A*D”. This is the mark of Andreas Daub, a jewellery manufacturer from Pforzheim, south-west Germany, which is still in business today.

Here’s a link if you want to read more about Andreas Daub:

http://www.andreas-daub.com/html/profil_e.htm

I’ve also posted some more pics of Andreas Daub jewellery items below; most of these are available in my shop at the time of writing. More to be added as & when I get my mitts on them.

 

Scarves on a curtain rail – scarf storage idea


I love scarves, but for a long time, I struggled with a way to store them. As Mr Snake will tell you, I’m not the sort of person who likes to tidy things away in drawers. So I used to just leave my scarves everywhere… on radiators, on the dining table, on the sofa… It was hardly surprising that I always found it difficult to lay hands on the scarf I wanted, which was especially frustrating given that I usually had to be somewhere in a hurry. Then I hit on this solution (below): a curtain of scarves. Take a window, one curtain rail, some curtain rings and some round, smooth items to attach to the curtain rings to allow you to thread the scarves through each one. Thin plastic bangles are ideal.

One caveat though: the window shouldn’t be too sunny, otherwise your scarves will fade. Heck, there’s no need for an actual window – the scarf “curtain” is actually a cool way to brighten up a dull, windowless wall.

scarfcurtain