Small Business Saturday

I hope your Thanksgiving was restful as we all took a break to give thanks to Almighty God for the many blessings and graces He has bestowed upon us!

Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday, so I'd like to encourage you to look to your local businesses and other small businesses (like In Small Spectacles!) for all of your Christmas gift-giving needs.  I guarantee you'll get more personalized attention and have more unique items to choose from!

In honor of Black Friday and Small Business Saturday I am offering 20% my entire Etsy Shop (not including custom work/special orders).  Enter code "BF2012" at checkout to apply the percentage off.  I'll be listing more today including the new lace motif etched brass cuffs with vintage rhinestone embellishments, so look for those new pieces!


If you are up in the Lebanon, Ohio area's historic downtown please stop by Kelly Lane Resale Boutique to see their In Small Spectacles inventory which will increase tomorrow.  Kelly is also having weekend specials, so it's definitely worth the stop.

Enjoy your weekend!

Sara

Handmade Holidays

As Christmas and the Giving Season approaches, I'd like to encourage you to buy handmade.  Nothing says "special" like handmade.   To give something pieced together in America and not mass-produced by machines or in large numbers means you feel the recipient is worthy of something extra special.  Buying handmade also supports artists whose work is usually on a much smaller scale but is no less important.  I'd like to think the work is more thoughtful and heirloom-worthy.

All of my pieces are handmade by me.  I wire wrap each vintage bead and gemstone with solid brass wire, etch, age, and polish each cuff, and take great thought into the layout of every single design and piece I offer.  I use only top quality findings and the most interesting vintage elements that incorporate edge, faith, nature, sparkle, and natural patina.

Over the past couple of days I listed over 30 new pieces on Etsy so you can begin planning what you'd like to give your wife, mother, sister, friend, teacher....and yourself. 

 

 

Have fun shopping!

 
Sara

The Fringe

I live in a county that has an awesome monthly Antiques Fair during the Spring and Summer.  The vendors do an incredible job of providing us with very unique vintage wares.  It is located in the county's large fairgrounds, so some of the vendors set up in the horse stables.  I came across one stable all the way at the very end that had this unusual strand of glass beaded fringe sitting on top of a pile of Victorian house locks and keys.  I stopped dead in my tracks: 

 

 

At first I thought this was an old strand of Christmas lights, but I was informed that it is a late 1800's fringe that was used to decorate lampshades.  The glass beads are such a vibrant color with unique carved markings.  The fringe isn't cloth but braided brass metal.  How cool is that?

 

 

I had to have it.  My hearbeat quickened at the thought of what I could do with the beads and the braided brass fringe.  I wired some with vintage metal tassels and hung them from bracelets made with austrian crystal rhinestone brass chain, bronze and shiny gold chains, hand aged rhinestones, and gemstones and solid brass vintage beads.  I think the end result is very different and eclectic:

 

Amethyst and freshwater pearls

 

 

 

Amethyst, green onyx, carnelian, and turquoise howlite

 

 

Freshwater pearls and turquoise howlite

 

 

 

  Tiger eye, agate, and carnelian

 

 

Thanks for checking in!

 

Sara

 

 



 

Lockets

The Holiday Season will be here before you know it and I'd like to start giving you some In Small Spectacles ideas for gifts.  Currently I'm working on embellishing large solid brass, copper-lined vintage lockets with antique rhinestone brooches and earrings and solid brass filigree stampings.

 

I prefer to use only rhinestones that are prong-set in any In Small Spectacles piece for the added security needed in any vintage element. If you haven't noticed, most mass-produced pieces of jewelry made today have rhinestones that are simply glued in. Not here!

Each of the lockets suspend from necklaces I hand wire wrapped using solid brass wire and solid brass vintage beads, hand-aged rhinestones, czech glass, freshwater pearls, and rhinestone and metal filigrees.

 

Keep checking back as I update you on more pieces I have made and listed on Etsy.

 

Sara