I’ve got some new pendants being listed in my Etsy shop, just in time for the holidays. Here’s a couple of new vintage dictionary illustration soldered pendants. BTW if anyone is looking for a certain animal or illustration for a custom pendant let me know, I might have it and I’m glad to do special orders if I can.
Here’s a cute koala bear:
this hedgehog is so fun, although he looks more like a porcupine to me 🙂 :
 and I love this tapir, he’s really cool and unusal:
I made lots of pendants with vintage horse illustrations for the arts and crafts fair during the World Equestrian Games and have a few that didn’t sell so I’m listing them now in my Etsy shop. Here’s a few of them:
from vintage children’s books:
and from a vintage dictionary:
Here’s a couple more projects I made with my new Silhouette die cutting machine. I wanted to see just how small I could get the machine to cut so I chose a simple image, the deer silhouette, and was able to cut it 1″ x 1/2″ ! I adhered it to vintage French book paper and put it inside a pre made frame. Isn’t it cute?? I want to try some more like this but soldered them.
Next I had a wonderful wooden cigar box I wanted to make into a specimen box so I layered some patterned paper and card stock inside the box and cut out a few butterflies and a label from the same papers using the Silhouette and mounted everything inside. I love how “old world” it turned out.
When I was little and asked my parents what something meant they always told me to “go look it up”, i.e in the dictionary, encyclopedia, etc. It’s not that they didn’t want to help me, they wanted me to learn to use the books and find the answers for myself. Maybe that’s why I now love old dictionaries? I remember mine was red, with little cut out half circles on the pages where the letters where, funny how things like that stick with you.
Here’s a few soldered pendants made with illustrations from a wonderful vintage dictionary from the early 20’s. I added black patina to all the soldering and the backs of the pieces are their definitions.
a really cool raven:
a fat little toad ( I just love him!):
and a lovely bird in flight:
Here’s a couple of new charm necklaces I’ve made recently. I’m enjoying mixing altered and soldered game pieces and charms together.
The first one is sort of a pun, it’s a skeleton key necklace. A large metal key with a skull charm and a soldered domino charm with dancing skeletons.
This one is all Alice, a tiny glass bottle filled with blue beads and three soldered game charms, a domino with Alice on a blue background, an “A” scrabble tile with vintage “Alice” text and a vintage bingo tile with vintage “drink me” text.
These are both currently available in my Etsy shop, click here to visit.
Ok, I also can’t seem to stop making things with Alice in Wonderland either 🙂 I’ve been making Alice jewelry and collages for years now and am happy to see a big jump in popularity because of the new Burton movie. Somerset Studio even did another issue with lots of wonderful Alice art, the first Alice issue some years back is still one of my favorites and I still have my dog-eared copy.
Here’s a picture of all of the Wonderland character soldered domino charms I posted about recently:
 and here’s a domino ring I made with Alice:
and here’s my favorite, a charm bracelet. It has charms made with shrink plastic, soldered wooden game pieces, a tiny glass bottle, soldered dominoes, vintage King and Queen puzzle pieces, vintage text and silver charms.
All these items are currently for sale in my Etsy shop, click here.
I just can’t seem to stop making things with birds 🙂 Here are a couple of new mixed media necklaces I made last week.
I enjoyed making my Alice in Wonderland Domino charms so much I used a larger domino, inked it blue and stamped a really cool flying bird on it and then soldered around the edges, adding two sets of jump rings to the top to hang from the ball chain. I also adhered a glass rhinestone to the front for a little added bling:
I also made this necklace with a pretty silver bird charm and a tiny soldered word charm that says “fly away” on vintage music paper, also on a ball chain:
I recently went to a wonderful large antique show with a friend (who bought a super cool vintage Ouija board) and found a couple of really cute children’s books from the 60’s. People are always asking me where I find the book I use for my art work and my best recommendations are used book shops and antique shows, you can usually find some really great books, vintage photos, postcards, music sheets, etc.
Here’s a couple of soldered pendants I made using some illustrations from one of those books.
A tiny cute squirrel, the back says “oh nuts”:
A sweet fawn, the back says “oh deer”:
a sly little fox, the back says “foxy”:
and my personal fave a chimp in a party hat and pink bow tie:
I think the back is pretty funny too:
One of the great old children’s books I got recently was in really bad shape, pages torn, falling apart and crumbling but it wasn’t surprising considering the book was dated 1918, it’s almost 100 years old! It has some simply gorgeous illustrations in it, lots of cute animals reading books and fairies in flowers, they are simply lovely! Here are a few soldered pendants I’ve made with some of the illustrations.
An adorable frog on a lily pad reading:
A trio of birds reading / singing:
A sweet bunny rabbit reading, I love the little bird perched on the top of the book:
a dandy black crow all dressed up and strutting around (I added a black patina to the solder on this one):
a dapper fairy sitting in a morning glory (this one is going to my mom for her birthday, she loves fairies and is a world class gardener)
front:
back:
Here’s a few more of the soldered pendants with vintage illustrations I’ve made recently………….
A little girl discovering a bunny, she’s on the front, the bunny’s on the back:
Two owls sitting under the moon:
A tiny bird nest and birds:
A fox in the forest:
and this one is a shadowbox with a silver bird cage charm inside with a teeny tiny blue bird in the cage:
These are all curently available in my Etsy shop.
I also have listed a smaller version (5″) of my vintage white button heart in an embroidery hoop in my shop as well.