One Girl's Treasures....

A little while ago, my Mother gave me her box of girlhood "treasures", to see if I could make jewelry out of any of it. I have been making "found object" jewelry, so I was excited to see what she had. It's funny, as we went through the dirty cigar box, piece by piece, she would tell me..."That was Aunt Ruby's" or "I found that on the farm". She sounded like she was reverting to her childhood, speaking like a little girl, in awe of her glamorous aunties, or recalling adventurous outings on the farm. It was a sweet, tender moment for me. They were still "treasures" in her eyes. I was honored that she gave these things to me.
I made some necklaces out of the fantastic buttons - Mom has those necklaces, so I still need to snap photos of them.

There was a cool yellow buckle. Here's what I did with it:


Here's a close up



After the buttons and buckles, I moved on to the little trinkets, keys, various oddities. I grouped all the items so I could make 3 necklaces: one for me, one for my sister Laura and one for my niece Isabelle (named after my Mom's mother - Isabel).

The first thing I fell in love with was the aluminum ID bracelet plaque. I hammered it flat (it was curved, for the wrist). I'm keeping this one!!


She doesn't remember who made it for her...she really did live on "Lucky Street".



This one is for my sister. The bakelite horseshoe is really cool. And, I punched a hole in Mom's Girl Scout pin (my mom was our girl scout leader and my sister was a brownie leader for a year, I think). The "pearl" is made of wood. My sister doesn't golf, but I liked the the golf bag in this grouping.


This one will be for my niece. She's a gifted athlete, excelling in soccer and volleyball. Really, she's good at what ever she tries. This necklace has a football, a basketball (with authentic green oxidation) and a scotty dog.



All the keys were from Mom's box. The only things I added were the hammered rings to hang them from and a couple jumprings and glass beads. Mom really enjoyed looking at the finished "charm necklaces".
Incidentally, in the dirty old cigar box, there was a beautiful (but dirty) sterling compact. I cleaned it up and gave it to Mom. Not all "junk" is necessarily worthless.