Greek Coins

Our cousin just returned from Greece with a ton of vintage Greek Coins! They will soon be repurposed into these great vintage coin cuffs!

 The classic owl figure

The Greek coins are riveted on to either brass or antiqued silver cuffs. Vintage French & Italian coin cuffs will be available for your holiday shopping!

Always be grateful...

Festival of Sail

Join us at The Festival of Sail this weekend along  the Port of San Diego. There are tons of activities, entertainment, battles and shopping!

These Half Penny vintage coin necklaces will be available, some are dated in the early 1930's!

Pearls of wisdom...

Vintage sterling salt shakers are so small & delicate. I polished mine and then filled them with 3 vintage pearls and a small page from a vintage dictionary that might define 'search, discover or wisdom'. I then cut a small circle from a vintage spoon and handstamped similar words as inspiration.

Industrial Chic

My husband and his partners just moved their office into a run down building-look what was under years of neglect-a perfect spot for a photo shoot of my new jewelry line!  Behind this front door lie the walls I hope to put models in front of... 

Mike's office with white brick walls & a huge steel door.

                               Not sure if I'll dress the model in tans or black....



Board Room



  



                                     


Buddy


And, the absolute best part of his office? It is right next to Pat's! 

Pat's is an eclectic mix of vintage & junk! You will find old maps to old tables, chippy patio furniture to old silverware-it's an adventure every time!

An afternoon at The Hotel Del

Join me this Saturday at The Hotel Del for a trunk show! I will be at Est. 1888, the hotel lobby gift shop, from 11:00 am until 4:00 pm. Here are a few samples of items I'll be bringing:



vintage map pendants

Marilyn Monroe & Tony Curtis stayed at The Del



vintage chandelier crystals

                                                          vintage spoon bracelets

Hope to see you on Saturday. Shop, have lunch and discover all that The Hotel Del has to offer!

Vintage Brooch Bracelets

I took a bracelet class with Ruby Walker at The Urban Barn in Escondido last week. The techniques involved wire wrapping, chain work and just simple creativity! The bracelet on the left is the one I made in class. Then I came home and went through my boxes of vintage jewelry to make the bracelet on the right. I also used a spoon handle to make the toggle clasp!

                                                                  I think I'm addicted!

Vintage Cheese Markers

Inspired by  The Oracle greek wine lounge, at our Greek Festival, I made some vintage Cheese Markers from old forks.

(Mezethes-small Greek plates of appetizers)

We cut and flatten the vintage fork and then hand-stamp differnt cheeses on the front. We had a welcome surprise when we actually cut and served the cheese with the same fork!

The Cheese Markers are available at The Little Italy Mercato & at Vignettes in Ocean Beach.

In Bloom

These Daisies were so beautiful at the Mercato last weekend that I thought I'd try making a flower out of spoons:

We flattened and hand shaped the 'bowl' of a spoon and then hammered in a little texture.

What do you think?

To Mom...

As Mother's Day approaches, it's time to reflect on how much our mothers have given us and taught us over the years...

Thanks Mom!

Ham-ology

My husband is a ham radio operator. We have strange wires going from our house to tall trees in the yard. At neighborhood gatherings I've met new neighbors that tell me stories of them watching my husband with a half filled water bottle tied to a wire and he is throwing it up in the air to catch taller branches or other wires-they are hysterically laughing at this point in the story and I'm mortified at what he is doing while I'm in the house...

I go to bed early and he retires to his ham-shack to contact other ham radio operators. As I lay in bed our home alarm system starts beeping...it took two nights for us to realize he was causing the alarms to beep because he was on a 'high-frequency'. (he thought it was funny!) We drive through neighborhoods and he points out other ham radio operators and I realize that they too have tall antennas and lots of wires. Who knew?

I thought I was alone in this techy world. Last week while on a walk I met a new neighbor whose husband runs a Sunday morning ham radio show with boat operators (I think that's what he does)...she started saying that their home alarms have been going off! She thought our husbands should meet! (I'm not sure this is a great idea...) The more I admit to people that he has ham radios, the more people tell me about their dads or uncles or grandfathers who are into this 'activity', 'craft' or maybe it's a 'sport'.

There are good things about Ham radio operators. They will help us during natural disasters. During Hurricane Katrina, the only way people could communicate for days afterwards were through ham radio operators. During the last huge Southern California fires, we sat listening to broadcasts through his radio. He has been trained in Emergency preparedness so I know we will be safe if there are any natural disasters in La Mesa!

My husband travels to Ham-ventions and other ham activities. He always wanted me to come up with jewelry for ham radio operator's wives...I couldn't imagine what this would even look like. What would I use to start a project? Then...last week, my neighbor, who's uncle is a ham radio operator popped in my workshop because she saw Morse Code jewelry using beads and thought it was perfect. So...while the beads were cute, it's not what I do. What would be vintage?


Then it hit me...

                                      'MOM' is hand stamped on a vintage heart-shaped spoon!

'XO' is spelled out with vintage dictionary 'dots' & 'dashes'

So...thanks Val, you inspired me!

Send mom your love for Mother's Day. Limited words can be stamped but truly a unique gift for other ham radio wives!

Auntie's Watch

My neighbor asked me if I could re-style her Auntie's watch. It was a beautiful piece that was a pleasure to change into a necklace and these dainty earrings:

Greek Folk Dancing

Tomorrow we are off to FDF 2011-a Greek Folk Dance competition in Ontario CA. Each year 100's of kids get together for 'Faith, Dance & Fellowship' while competing for the gold in Greek Dancing and Singing. The handmade costumes are amazing and the performances bring tears to your eyes as you realize the culture and traditions that have been passed down through 100's of years. These pictures  are some of our dancers  in San Diego.

 Best of luck to all of the St. Spyridon dance and choral groups!

Happy Valentines Day!

My wonderful husband dug through our spoons and made this for me...

I hope you all have a great day!

Vintage Baby Spoon Pendants

Yesterday I was contemplating cutting a pair of sterling baby spoons.One of them had had a little trip down the garbage disposal and had some issues! If my plan didn't work out, I wouldn't feel too bad!

Happily-I was able to flatten and stamp the two spoons with children's initials and birth dates.

I even made myself  a pair of earrings! I buffed some of the garbage disposal 'dings' out but actually liked the marks left behind-it added character and showed they were well loved. 

This is how our Valentine jewelry starts...

                                                 Brimfield 2010  A beautiful pile of silverware!

                                        January 2011   These scrap pieces will be used in something...


and now......

Two vintage spoons have been redesigned into this necklace...I can hear the Beatles song as I type!

Only one word...