Costume Jewelry

Bunch of Silvertone Grapes

by on July 3, 2010


Piece #23 of 100: Boy, oh boy! I should have worn these last week when we went wine tasting in Sonoma! These vintage silvertone earrings are marked Celebrity, which dates them from the 1950s, up to the middle of the 1970s. Just looking at the clip and the design, I would date these from the [...]

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Enameled Roses and Rhinestones

by on May 17, 2010


Piece #12 of 100: This sweet brooch reminds me of Mother’s Day. Doesn’t it look like the perfect gift to give to Mom? Except that as an adult, I never gave my mom this kind of jewelry, because she was always asking for “big and funky,” which this enameled Trifari brooch is obviously not. Whenever [...]

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Hammered Hoops

by on April 8, 2010


Piece #2 of 100 These look like earrings that I might have bought myself in the seventies. Very hippie, craftie, homemade looking. They are three inches in length, and although I’m pretty certain they are not silver, I don’t know what they are made of. Maybe nickel? These hippie-style earrings show of another side of [...]

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Pretty Things for Little Girls

March 26, 2010

My mom seldom wore jewelry, but when she did it was big bold pieces that made a statement. I remember a snake wrap bracelet and a rather large lion’s head necklace too. My grandmother, on the other hand, had a little girl’s dream come true for a jewelry collection! She had beautiful diamond rings and [...]

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Mom Had The Funnest Stuff!

March 25, 2010

My mom was a nut for costume jewelry. She had all sorts of necklaces, earrings and pins that were always ‘over-the-top’! My favorite necklace was a huge assortment of ‘gems’, all about and inch wide and the entire necklace was as big around as a hula-hoop! I used it for Halloween one year when I [...]

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Trinkets from Around the World

March 24, 2010

When I was a kid, I used to poke around in my mom’s jewelry box when she wasn’t home. My dad had been in the Merchant Marines during WWII and traveled to North Africa. Some of the most interesting things in her jewelry box were a silver ring and brooch made to look like African [...]

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For Adult Wear Only

March 10, 2010

I just got a delightful flyer in the mail from Chico’s, with a precocious girl on the cover, dripping in beads, with the headline “Why are some women destined to wear Chico’s?” The story goes on to explain that this little girl discovered early on that “she had a knack for making an entrance”, “she [...]

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Fabulous Fakes!

March 9, 2010

What I remember most about my mother’s jewelry box was the glamour! When I was six years old, one of my favorite treats was sitting next to my mother and watching her sort through her jewelry. She would pick out individual pieces and tell me stories about where she bought them, or when my father [...]

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Ruby Red Facets

March 9, 2010

My mom’s jewelry always brings a huge smile to my face. She had the good luck to have beautiful features (a cross between Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland) and the smarts to buy lots of wonderful costume jewelry in the 1950′s. My most favorite piece is a stunning ruby red faceted necklace with three strings [...]

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