A Visit to Blue Ridge Flea Market

My summer wouldn’t be complete without a few visits to the Blue Ridge Flea Market in Saylorsburg, PA!

This is one of my very favorite flea markets and one the best places in the Pocono area to shop for antiques and vintage treasures. It’s about a thirty minute drive from my home, so I consider myself one lucky chick!

Today the temperature was in the 90’s but that wasn’t going to hold me back. It had been a while since I had last been to this market and I was excited to discover some new goodies!

The first two parking lots were full (as they always are) but way in the back grove parking area (which is the best place to park anyway because of its scattering of old shade trees) I was pleasantly surprised to find it empty of cars – yay! – it was going to be a good shopping day!

Empty grove=more stuff for me! :-)

Flea market ahead!

One small view of a very large complex

Of course the very first thing I came upon was two stacks of monogrammed vintage china. I had to laugh because just yesterday I blogged about this exact same china and mentioned how hard it is to find! Seven bowls, four plates, each with a beautiful floral rose design and bright capital letter K initial monogram. Their condition was new, and I knew they were from the 1940’s. How much? I asked the man…$2 for all? SOLD!

My first great find

At that point I could’ve gone home a happy girl, but I was only five minutes into it. A short while later and up a few rows I spied two pretty, antique English transferware dinnerplates that closely resembled the Flow Blue patterns that I adore…How much?....$2 each or you can have them both for $3…SOLD!

Cha-ching and woo hoo!

My new lovelies

I don't think this was an antique, but it was neat none the less: a decorative ship's figurehead or maidenhead complete with her very own treasure chest... Arrrgh

My 5-year-old daughter wanted to drive this mini car home!

Ahhh my favorite part... little boxes, on the hillside...

little boxes full of....silverware! And boy, was it HOT to touch! Everything was sizzling from the sun.

What? You can't find your keys? Here they are!

When I got to this point it was seriously like: What to my wondering eyes should appear?...Keys! Hundreds and hundreds of glorious keys! Short keys, long keys, fat keys, skeleton keys, lots of rusty keyness!

Ahhh, vintage chandelier crystals! These are super good for craftin'

Various taxidermy oddities (note the bears on the roof of the van)

A few handfuls of vintage silverplated flatware, antique skeleton keys and vintage chandelier crystals were among my best finds... all will be put to very good use in some new projects I have brewing for the upcoming holiday season!

A few of my new keys and crystals

Some of the vintage flatware I bought

What do you think?

Vintage Monogram China Made Into Jewelry!

I love these vintage ads!

Vintage advertisement for monogrammed china

I just LOVE vintage advertisements. I especially love vintage ads featuring china or flatware! I always find myself squinting at the ads I come across, trying to make out the china pattern or silver pattern, wondering if it’s one I have in stock for my jewelry making.

I think on two occasions I’ve found ads for patterns that were the same as or very similar to dishes that I had in stock…One was a Limoges U.S.A. ad for a set of monogrammed floral china. I love these old initial monogram patterns. Over the years I have found some orphaned pieces here and there but for the most part these patterns are hard to find!

Here are a few pieces of jewelry that I created with damaged vintage monogrammed china:

Necklace pendant made from K monogram china (this is the china in the ad above!)

Heart pendant from vintage H monogrammed china

Bracelet made from a vintage monogrammed tea cup

Necklace pendant from vintage A monogrammed china




Vintage and antique monogrammed china is hard to find, but once in a while I come across some that is cracked or chipped or damaged from age or use, and that is what I turn into jewelry. 


I think I currently have the letters M and K in stock, if you are interested in any pieces similar to those shown above, check out my Etsy shop! Here is the link:


http://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns






What do you think of monogrammed china jewelry?

Thursday's Thrift Shop Treasures: Silver Baby Spoons!

Thursday's Thrift Shop Treasures!

Vintage silver flatware ad. This is what I look like when I find something good at the thrift shop!

I squeezed an hour out of my busy morning to swing by one of my favorite local thrifts and it was a good thing I did...I found this awesome set of ornate, antique birth record spoons - and for only a few bucks! 

Antique engraved baby spoons!

Each is hand-engraved with a child's name and birth date. I feel a bit sad that they are no longer with the family of the original owners and landed up for sale in a thrift shop - but I will take good care of them! They are silver and in need of a polish, but I do sorta like their current state - their aged, tarnished patina is so charming! 

These will not be made into jewelry!

I Was Once Broken... Jewelry Made From Broken Calendar Plates

Jewelry made from antique broken calendar plates...

Antique calendar plate from 1909 with lots of damage

I have a great love for these old advertising calendar plates...they seem to be one of those things that combine everything that I love in one package: it's a plate, it's old, it's got a beautiful floral transferware design on it...but most especially, it marks a certain point in time. In this case, 1909.

Let's see...in 1909 a newspaper cost 1 cent, coffee was 20 cents a pound, (tea was $1 for 2 lbs, by the way), and a pair of children's shoes cost about $1.50! Hershey bars were 2 cents, but they were a lot smaller than today's 1.65 oz, weighing in at 9/16 oz! To put things a bit more into perspective, the average wage was 22 cents per hour, and the average worker made about $350 a year. We can only wonder what things will be like 100 years from now...

Cracked antique calendar plate from 1909

William Carlos Williams published his first book of poetry in 1909, and Pablo Picasso first began dabbling in cubism...

Necklace that I hand crafted from a broken 1909 calendar plate (sold)

Pin brooch I handcrafted from 1909 calendar plate (sold)








Here are a few necklaces that I just made from the broken plate shown above:





September 1909 available here





September 1909 available here





November 1909 necklace available here





November 1909 necklace available here






What do you think? Do you like these?

More Fun With Vintage Spoons: Stamped Spoon Bracelets

Just how many things can you do with old spoons? 

I love these ornate orphaned spoons who've long lost their matching mates. Who wants to lay around in some old silverware drawer anyhow? Being turned into an extremely cool bracelet is much more fun!

Check out these stamped silver spoon bracelets I made a while back with antique and vintage silver spoons. I also made some matching stamped spoon pendants (with the handles cut off) that hang from a chain.

Potty Mouth. Everybody knows one! 

Trophy wife!

Dream big...

Enchanted

What would you want yours to say?

What do you think?

Playing around with Spoons: Antique Silver Spoon Earrings

These used to be spoons!

Earrings I made from antique spoon handles

I'll admit it, I have a hard time throwing pretty things away, even if it is something that is considered "scrap." 

After making a spoon bracelet out of a pair of orphaned antique silver plated spoons I found myself left with the cut off bowl-ends of the spoons - and they had such a pretty filigree design on the neck (the thin part of the spoon that connects the handle to the bowl) that I just had to make something out of them...

...so I removed the bowl of the spoon and kept the thin, ornate necks and transformed them into these one of a kind earrings! (click photos for larger images)

(total measurement 1/4" wide by 2 & 1/4" long including sterling ear-wires and Swarovksi crystal drops)



I added sterling wires and pearls to this pair



Antique silver spoon earrings with pearl drops

What do you think of them?

Silver or Black Jewelry Finish? Which Do You Prefer?

Silver or Black jewelry finish? Which do you prefer? 

I recently posted this question on my Facebook page. 

So far, silver is in the lead...

Shiny silver finish?

When I first began making jewelry from broken china (and we're talking nearly 20 years now - yikes!) I would occasionally dabble with the black/vintage/antiqued finishes, but for some reason I always seemed to come back to silver.

Silver is traditional, it's easy to wear, it's shiny....as for the darker, vintage finishes - I believe they tend to be more trendy, coming into style right along with the whole "new vintage" era that you see everywhere you turn - in clothes, home furnishings, fabrics...what's old is new again, and so it goes.

I like the way a dark finish against a bright floral china pattern makes the colors pop, and how it lends to the "old" feeling of a piece of china. I equally like the feeling of luxury a shiny, silver finish affords. For me personally, I guess it all comes down to what kind of mood I'm in.

Which do you prefer?

Silver that has been given a black finish

What do you think?

Love This Etsy Treasury!

Pin Brooch crafted from vintage English scenic transferware, antique silver finish

I'm always happy to wake up to find that a kind artist has featured my work in their treasury. I found the colors of this one to be quite attractive!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4bf617ddafe66d9169686bdb/sunset-over-butterfly-gardens

Update: Happy to find this treasury on the front page of Etsy on 5/22/10!

I'm On Etsy's Front Page!

I was thrilled to find my items included in five different Etsy treasuries last week, and even more thrilled to find that one of the treasuries was featured on Etsy's front page...

...of course I'm never home when these things happen, but got a capture of the screen shot :-)

Refreshed

So glad to be back to my little blog and working again - this winter I made like a bear and hibernated most of the season...but am back with lots of new pretty things and a refreshed Etsy store with tons of new stock! (Check it out below!)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns

Note the new Etsy store name - missing the letter "a" in Dishfunctional - but alas, Etsy only allows so many character spaces for shop names....so I am without the a, but still dishfunctional if even now more so...

I actually had one of the very first shops on Etsy way way back when they first began. At the time, I had been a steady eBay seller for many years (I started selling my broken china jewelry on eBay in 1999) Since then, I've amassed over 5,000 positive eBay feedback - the number they show is 3,788 give or take a few, as ebay no longer counts additional feedback from returning customers - a bummer for sellers, but what can you do?

In any case, I closed my Etsy store after the first year, as I found I was spreading myself too thin, trying to supply both eBay and Etsy with new stock on a constant basis. Now times have changed. I've found the handcrafted market on eBay to be too ...well, too complicated. Fees and rules are always changing, I get phone messages on my answering machine from eBay associates trying to sell me new features, etc etc... I figure it this way, life is hard enough, why complicate things? I'm still a registered eBay seller - I haven't cut the cord completely, but am definitely shying away from the eBay marketplace. My new items will now be listed on etsy on a regular basis!

Wire Wrapped Pendant

This is my first attempt at wire wrapping - I thought it turned out pretty well! 

I used all sterling silver wire with a coin pearl center and two freshwater pearl dangles. I oxidized the silver to give it an antique finish. Measures approx. 1" wide and 1 & 3/4" tall.

The wire wrapping was definitely fun to do - and more tiring on the hands than I expected! But now I'm inspired to try out some more wire projects.

For this piece I used:

 24g sterling silver wire 
two sterling silver headpins
coin pearls

  small freshwater pearl beads 
misc small silver beads

  

What do you think?

Ukrainian Easter Eggs: Happy Easter!

My father first taught me the craft of making pysanka - Ukrainian Easter eggs - when I was very young. 

Over the years and with lots of practice, I think I've finally got to the point where they are presentable! 

I made the eggs in this photo with regular extra large chicken eggs. I work on four or five eggs at a time, each being in a different stage of completion. 

The eggs are created with a wax-relief method, similar to batik. 

Beginning with a white egg, the designs are drawn on in hot beeswax with a tool called a kistka. Then the eggs are dipped into a dye bath. More wax is applied and the process is repeated until the design is complete and all desired dye colors have been used. When the egg is finished, the wax is removed and the inside of the egg is emptied.

If you're interested in learning how to make your own Ukrainian Easter eggs, check out my other blog post: 

How To Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs

There are also a few good books on the subject, which are great resources for designs and tips and techniques!


What do you think?

Limited Edition Designs

I'm Kind Of A Big Deal...

artwork and photo copyright Laura Beth Love

I'm excited to offer a new  category for Limited Edition Art Jewelry on my website. This category encompasses those one of a kind creations that don't quite fit in any of my other categories and in a nutshell can be described as a little bit of this and a little bit of that! 

Here is where you will find unique and unusual jewelry designs that incorporate vintage photos as well as some vintage advertising art, plus some mixed media and altered art jewelry. Some of the items included in this section are early designs that I made a while back but never had the time to photograph until now! Be sure to stop in and take a peek!

China Mosaic Skulls

I spent most of yesterday working on my china mosaic skulls...

These are so relaxing to make, and I think they're pretty cute too!

Dishfunctional Designs on Great Green Goods

If you are looking for a recycled or green gift, be sure to check out Great Green Goods. I was thrilled to recently have my broken china jewelry featured by them on their site, which features eco-friendly products that are made by creative minds with recycled materials. You can read their review of my jewelry here:

Dishfunctional Designs - Makes you want to Break your Plates

From Pennsylvania artist, Laura Love, gorgeous pendants, bracelets, charms and earrings created from recycled broken dishware. The necklaces with the added accent of recycled vintage flatware are my favorite. If you’re the type who can’t bear to toss Great Aunt Mabel’s cracked and chipped tea cup, you can send it to Laura since custom work is available.
Priced around $50.00 for necklace and $60.00 for bracelet at Dishfunctional Designs.

Cupcake!

Boy do I have lots of sweet new goodies for spring! This winter I took some time away from my regular line of broken china jewelry to create some exciting new designs with some fabulous vintage materials...I dove into my collection of vintage photos, reproduced some of them, then had a ball adding some fun text to them and incorporating them into some fresh new designs. (I knew I was collecting those vintage photos for a reason!)

How cute is she?!

artwork & photos copyright 2009

Happy March

I was hoping for some spring-like weather come March, but in lieu of sunshine a full-blown snow day will always suffice! There's nothing like a blizzardy day to stir up my creative juices. Seeing that going outside was not an option, I opted to work on some new, (and kinda silly) designs for spring. I love the way this necklace turned out! What a vixen! ~ This was made from a vintage photo that I reproduced. I added some original fun text, placed her behind glass, soldered her up with silver solder, and topped her off with a hand-carved onyx bead. (available Spring '09)

all designs & images copyright 2009