Cleaning Costume Jewelry Should Not Involve Vinegar

Huge thank you to everyone out at the show this weekend! I had blast meeting all of you.

*dusts off the dust*

Since our last post, so many wonderful things have happened with the shop. It's been greatly expanded to include other vintage jewelry. We'd been selling brooches and mourning jewelry at shows, but only recently added them online (www.vintagecharmsandbracelets.com ) per request. Well have at it. I'm uploading as fast as I can. Right now I'm shooting for about 5 per day. If you're looking for something in particular, shoot me an email.

Okay, the cleaning jewelry bit

In other news, a friend who shall not be named just ruined a  beautiful piece of costume jewelry. Ruined, guys. So here's my little lesson on taking cleaning tips from people who don't handle costume jewelry:

Don't take tips from people who don't handle costume jewelry. Soaking in vinegar might work great on coins (I don't know), but should only be used on jewelry for less than five minutes. When you leave an old Trifari that is already busted by heavy verdigris in a cup of vinegar for hours and hours, it might crumble before your weeping eyes.

It crumbled before her weeping eyes. Don't be her. I'm already judging and publicly shunning her. I'm privately giving her wine on my sofa as I type this. That's good, I think. She's in that state of laughing through the tears at least. Not quite sure which stage of grief that is.

First use a brush or a toothpick. If that won't do, move up to ketchup. It's the same vinegar acid base, but you can control its movement. Just place it where it on the area of damage. You'll need to check on it by wiping off the ketchup and starting over each time, but that's the only way to make sure the acid isn't wrecking an already delicate piece.

Cliffsnotes version:
No vinegar on costume jewelry unless you check it every 0.53 seconds. Only use a vinegar dip if the other option is throwing the piece away. Victory, if granted, won't be sweet.

If you want to leave a comment laughing at her, that's fine. She's moved on from giggles to hysterics. Stage 6?

Running a Small Business and Time Management

About that title - it's hard!  Recently, I was asked to give a short bit of advice to small business owners, opening up for the first time.  We'll, running a small business means that the successes, or failures, fall on your shoulders alone.  When I first started my vintage jewelry shop, I was centrally focused on having a great stock from which customers could pull…whatever…from.  That’s good.  That's great, really. It is something every business owner should do.  But it’s certainly not enough.  If I could only offer two bits advice,  here they are:

-Know your stock.  Specialize in a certain niche market and learn everything you can about it. You must be a master of your area. You should be the reference point, and no question should stump you.  If you find that one does, stop.  Don’t talk yourself into a corner and please, don’t make up anything you can’t verify.  Instead, a simple “Let me get back to you,” will suffice.  THEN GET BACK TO THEM.  Follow up!

-Be organized. Your entire day should be mapped out.  Sorry. Owning your own business is not a free pass to do what you want all day, especially if you’re owner, manager, clerk, expediter, press manager, etc.  Have planner - I like to go old school with the Moleskines (expensive, but good!)

 Break up the early part of your day into a few sections: marketing, responding to client calls/emails, inventory, etc.  Set aside at least 15 solid minutes each, without interruption, to do all of these things.  If you work from home, that means going to a room, locking the door and hoping the kids/dogs/cats/pirates don't kill each other in the meantime.  If you don't have a shop, or office, or an extra room in your house, go to Lowes or Home Depot and buy a readymade garage.  You can insulate it for next to nothing and have a space that belongs only to you and your business.  A shed like this, already built and primed costs less than $2500

There's a finished one on the right.  Don't you love with they've done with it? The point is to have a space and a time to get done, what needs to be done in order for your business to succeed.  Hope this helps and feel free to email me with any questions!



Mad at the auction house

Guys, I have a deep and powerful sadness today and I'm not even sure it's justified. When I went to the auction, I picked up a couple of these:

Challenge coins. Now, here's the thing about them. You don't just get them for sitting on your butt all day. Somewhere along the line, someone did something pretty awesome to have been given one. Challenge coins are given by commanding officers for a job well done. So I, as always, started wondering about them. Who had them first? Who was the man who received this and why? How did it end up here? Did something happen to him and if so, why in world did his family let it go?

Made me mad.

Should it?  Probably not.

Anyway, I see myself as a savior of these things. Every time I see one at an auction or carelessly tossed aside at a yard sale, I pick up and bring it home. Someone worked hard to get it and if only for that, it's worth keeping safe.

Be on the look out for: Asparagus holders!

Asparagus has always been a costly fruit. Many years ago, IF you could afford it, then you certainly could afford something to take care of it with.  Enter instruments like these:

You see, asparagus was not meant to be pierced. So, you'd see all sorts of servers used to pick them up without breaking the skin.

So the next time you see a weird piece of tableware with a flat edge, perhaps a hood, pick it up!  It just might be worth something!



Life on Mars and I'm a Published Author!

Why am I singing Life on Mars by David Bowie, you ask? 
Well, I'll tell you. One of my works was recently accepted into a Science Fiction anthology about life on Mars!  I'm excited - terribly excited - the kind of excited where your face hurts from grinning so much and your own momma hates you.

(I'm kidding, Ma!)

I write because it's fun.  That's it and knowing that someone else likes enough of my fun stuff to include it in their book sends me though the freaking roof.

I think I may just have to reward myself with a bit of geeky space jewelry. Here's to awesome Mondays!

Gretna Green Vintage Charm

Confession: as a kid, I loved historical romance novels. The first one I ever read was called Man of My Dreams by Johanna Lindsey and I only got it from the library for two reason.  One, the cover. Two, they finally said I was old enough to get it a book from that section.

I can hear you judging me, but hey - I was only in 5th grade!  Cut me some slack. I have since progressed to more pithy things, but let me just say, my eyes were opened.

Anyway, it seemed like every novel I read seemed to have the same storyline: guy meets girl and they have to escape to Gretna Green. It became a running joke in my middle school book club. How many books can we find with men picking up women for quickie marriages just over the Scottish border in Gretna Green?  We found a lot.

Which brings me to this!

This vintage sterling silver charm is soooooo on my charm bracelet now. It reminds me of everything: middle school, the books we used the read, the shared giggles over still undetermined lunch food and the day I got that book from the library. 

Mmmmm....independent/handmade stationary!

There's something terribly tragic about plain pieces of paper. Thank goodness we don't have to live in such a world where we must face that great evil.  Magical people have created beautiful works of art meant to be marred, stapled, hung and folded. Here are some bits of stationary and invitations that caught my eye while dancing across the interwebs:

Orange Crush by Lasso'd Moon http://www.lassodmoondesigns.com/

Vintage Couture by Love, Jessica http://www.lovejessica.com/

57L22 by Renaissance Writings http://www.renaissancewritings.com/

They're pretty cool, right? Now, I don't know these folks, but the work speaks for itself. One of my May goals is to support small and independent businesses and with companies like these around, I don't have to go into a big box store for stationary ever again.