oldies but goodies

:: some 1920s-1930s art deco rings in my collection ::

If you are racking your brains over a Christmas present for a vintage lover, perhaps you can consider rings fashionable women may have worn 80 years ago? They are definitely not run-of-the-mill jewellery you can find at a random mall! Please write for details and purchase. Prices for these pieces range from $89 to $129. 

Updated: All have sold, thank you.

Birds of a feather flock together

I love seed pearls in my old jewellery and you already know my not-so-closet obsession with our winged friends so when I stumbled upon this pretty on Ebay last year I couldn't resist it. Thankfully no one bidded ferociously against me for it so it's now one of my prized possessions! I haven't quite seen the likes of an antique 10k gold amethyst and seed pearl birdies necklace like it since then so I guess this was quite the find! You wouldn't believe the price I paid for it too. Utterly disgustingly worth it. *beams*

1920s Golden Amber ring - Sold

I do love vintage filigree rings! Do you? These art deco rings are getting harder to find
so thankfully I have amassed quite a few and I am sharing one here.

A pretty 1920s costume ring featuring an emerald cut golden honey-hued plastic stone. The ring setting is plated base metal with a decorative floral filigreed pattern round the band. The faceted glass-like stone has a beautiful crown and pavilion held in place with 6 prongs. There is some plating loss and light scuffing to the plastic stone commensurate with age but overall condition is still wonderful. It looks just as amazing today as when it was first made in the speakeasy era! SGD 89.

Size: US 6.5, British/Australian N, Japanese 13
Era: 1920s-1930s
Markings: The sign for Uncas Manufacturing Co.

Locket Love

♥ more antique/vintage lockets available! ♥

Write to me if you're keen on any and want more deets :)

We will be packing and moving (and possibly screaming at the contractors) as usual with the afternoon reserved for Miss N's 2nd birthday party.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend lined up too!

Queen of my heart

My name is yiwen and I like to collect trinkets - the older the better. It will lead to my downfall someday I'm sure, but for now I take delight in accumulating yet another necklace or bracelet to my overflowing jewellery box. My weakness is vintage lockets and today I thought I'd share one very special piece, which was a recent find but now an absolute favourite!

The treasure in mention is a 1920s goldtone locket with two aspects of the traditional Irish claddagh symbol - heart (love) and crown (loyalty). Monograms hold a special place in my heart because they are so personal and romantic. It's such a bonus then that the reverse side of the locket has the initals inscription"WJT to LMH", which makes me wonder about the plausible loving relationship between the giver and the recipient... :)
I suspect the rhinestones inset round the heart and tips of the crown are paste stones which are common of that era and though some stones and parts of the locket have somewhat darkened with time, it just adds to the aged charm of this very, very old locket. Isn't there just something hauntingly beautiful and ethereal about it? *soft sigh*

Every time I hold it, it feel like I'm also holding a piece of history in my hands.

How privileged I am to be its owner for the next few years, or decades!

The story of a locket and a ring

{my antique locket necklace}

Everytime we go back to England, I always make sure we go up to London for the flea markets and to meet friends. It was no difference on our last trip back, except we had to drag the bub with us this time. And that takes preparation.

The first time, Nathan was happily snugly asleep on me on the crowded train when he decided to do a little burp followed by a super duper mega 'merlion' and threw up his entire breakfast all over me!! I can tell you it was not a small patch of posset, it was like he had downed an entire crate of Tiger beer!

Thankfully he decided to puke on mama just as we pulled into a station so we could escape quickly instead of having to sit through another 30min to London before having to head back home anyway! I had to hide in the toilet on the train all the way home cos I was soaked to my undergarments in vomit. Ugh.

So that marked our first failed attempt at London. We were grateful that we had a normal trip up on our 2nd attempt, though the weather was freezing and it drizzled loads. You can tell Nathan has English blood in him cos he could sleep through the cold and all in his buggy, and mind you, we didn't have one of those fancy eskimo-sled-looking-padded-covers that he could snuggle under. It was just your regular semi-upright-exposed McClaren. But he slept for hours anyway.

To make up for the earlier drama, I was able to coax the hubster into rewarding me with 2 beautiful turn-of-the-century antique lockets, one of which I used in the necklace above. This heart-shaped floral locket is from the 1900s and made of rolled gold. The other is a 9k gold oval locket with rose motifs from the 1890s and still has the original photo of a little girl in it! Kinda creepy but it was beautiful heh. They came at a price tag naturally and the seller was a no-nonsense East European obasan so it was intimidating enough just looking at the wares. Thankfully the exchange rate was in our favour so I didn't have to work hard at bargaining!

Some other interesting acquisitions this time include a very victorian emerald cut garnet ring and my favourite, a 1950 18ct gold and platinum diamond solitaire ring:

{vintage solitaire ring}

I love the mix of gold and platinum, and boy does the diamond bling!

I wear it as my 2nd engagement ring now, next to the princess cut sapphire ring I received 5 years ago :) Ooh how I love treasure trawling! You never know what you'll gonna find!

Breath of Spring - custom order

Green is my favourite colour and I've recently discovered that it is also a fave of many pple! There's just something about it that soothes the soul, calms the spirit and refreshes the weary eyes. No wonder it makes up the colour theme of nearly ALL my custom order requests (the other being purple).

Here I've used vintage green enamel flowers with little bird-motif cloisonne hearts, swarovski pearls & crystals and gorgeous green onyx gem brios ~ Drops for this mismatched pair are between 7.5 and 8 cm on goldfilled hooks.

cool vintage finds

After much frustration and exasperation with the embassies in Singapore, our friend Jenna finally set off for KL to get her visa into India yesterday and suddenly the house seems awfully big and quiet again. Which means it's time to become a recluse and work harder than ever! Recently I've been falling in love with gemstones and collecting different pretties one strand at a time cos the good stuff never comes cheap! I've been starting to include them in my pieces as well and it makes me so happy to just work with these pretty gemmies :p

I've finally opened up my trove of treasures from trawling the antique shops/flea market stalls of Salamanca Market in Hobart and Port Adelaide. This ain't the whole loot too! That's how much stuff I came back with.

The last picture are some beautifully aged cameos that my girlfriends and I found and I especially love the vintage black carved cameo set in a what i think is cannetile* filigree frame.

*Cannetile is a french term to denote a decorative jewellery technique in which a metal, usually gold, wire is twisted into delicate and intricate designs featuring rosettes and scrolls. Meant to be very popular in 19th century England.

So there! My stock of possible Christmas goodies. They're in excellent condition and beautiful in their own right so I don't have to do much to repurpose them. Just hope I can do them justice!