beautiful jewellery from Erica Weiner

Found here.

Erica Weiner is a wonderful jewellery maker based in New York, who makes vintage inspired pieces as well as sells antique gems. There are some spectacular Art Deco items I just adore, but my absolute favorites of this selection I am featuring here are the pen nib necklaces. I had a similar one as a teenager, that my dad bought for me in France, and I wore it constantly for years. Being a calligraphy enthusiast I think pen nibs are just precious.

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Found here.

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pin me down pretty

Found here.

With cardigan season upon us, I always look forward to starting wearing my little collection of brooches that I tend to leave unworn during summer. So in honour of that I put together a small selection of Etsy vintage brooches, predictably mostly consisting of flying creatures, cats, art deco, leaves, silver, marcasites and onyx. Simply the best any vintage jewellery has to offer!

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

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Found here.

antique animals

The other week I had a very inspiring work day mostly spent in the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, for a catalogue photo shoot. Publishing can be a very versatile line of work! The object we mainly were there for was this Asian leopard from 1912 (since our publishing house is called Leopard). It was tricky and a bit scary and very heavy to try and move around, since it’s so old and quite fragile, but it was well worth it.



The museum building is from around 1750 and very beautiful with great architectural features. For me, who loves architectural features and animals and most things old with a history, it’s definitely the place to be! Weirdly enough I haven’t been to this museum since I was a kid, and I didn’t have time to really walk around now either. But I’m so going back to check every corner out one day. This dung beetle, one of the weirdest and most wonderful insects in the world, got a very nice statue for himself in the stairway.



And not surprisingly I was in awe of this impressive owl looking down at me.



In the gift store I had to really contain myself not to buy everything, and did pretty well I must say. I’m trying to not buy every cute and unusal plastic animal I see, which is more difficult than it may seem. And a bit ridiculous, I know, I know.



But look at the owl, and the peacock, and the flamingo!



For a few minutes I very seriously considered letting this crazy and cute looking flying squirrel coming home with me, just because I’ve never seen anything like it! Isn’t it great?! It looks like it wants a hug, but that it might just as well attack you should you lean in to give one ... So I put it back on the shelf.



But just before leaving, I spotted this adorable creature, who pleaded so nicely to take him out of there, and I simply could not resist.

chinese art (mostly)

Today I've been browsing a wonderful picture archive called Wellcome Images, for work purposes, but as it turned out as much for my personal enjoyment. I just had to share some favorites here, all the picture credits are copied from the website.

Painting of a peacock in the meticulous "gongbi" style, in colour on silk, from "Bencao tupu" (Illustrated Herbal). The painted illustrations in "Bencao tupu" were jointly executed by Zhou Hu and Zhou Xi in 1644 (the final year of the Ming period). Wellcome Library, London.



A Chinese peacock pheasant sitting on a flowery shrub. Coloured etching. Printed for J. Hinton.Wellcome Library, London.



Painting of an owl in the meticulous "gongbi" style, in colour on silk, from "Bencao tupu" (Illustrated Herbal). The painted illustrations in "Bencao tupu" were jointly executed by Zhou Hu and Zhou Xi in 1644 (the final year of the Ming period). Wellcome Library, London.



A tonga bat is shown surrounded by the heads, skulls and teeths of different specimen of the family of bats. Coloured etching by S. Milne and Turvey. Wellcome Library, London.



The snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca). Coloured engraving by Whimper. Wellcome Library, London.



Painting of the Siberian white crane "baihe" in the meticulous "gongbi" style, in colour on silk, from "Bencao tupu" (Illustrated Herbal). The painted illustrations in "Bencao tupu" were jointly executed by Zhou Hu and Zhou Xi in 1644 (the final year of the Ming period). Wellcome Library, London.



A Chinese woman picking tea leaves. Wood-engraving, 1857, after a pen and ink drawing.
Wellcome Library, London.




A Chinese young woman advertising Chinese "Peacock" brand tea. Colour lithograph, ca. 1900. Wellcome Library, London.

darling buds of mine

Bleak is the winter light 'tis season. Very pale pink roses with just a hint of green edges are my favorites, so I got a plant with some for myself yesterday. So pretty!



I'm gonna try real hard to keep it alive until spring is here. Today it was raining. It means it's not as cold, but completely miserable and dangerously slippery while the snow is melting. I want the streets to be bare again, so I can go out for proper walks. I even bought myself a pair of bright red sneakers the other day on the final sale, and I want to start using them as soon as possible. Maybe you didn't see me as a sneakers kind of gal, and I'm not really, but obviously one has to make the ocassional sensible decision sometimes. My new thing for wedge heels is hardly ideal for long walks along the water, which is what I love taking (but don't do as often as I should). I had a pair of lovely Campers sneakers, but they are so worn out now the soles just about got holes. Then I got another pair that are completely impossible to break in, and give me horrible bleeding heel chafing. These new ones seems soft enough though, and I hope we'll get along.



On the budding theme I hereby present another couple of beautiful jewellery pieces that has been handed down to me from my grandmother. These silver earrings I think are from the 50's or 60's, and I love the oxidation on them. It gives them such lovely character. They're screw on's, and a bit painful to wear because I'm also scared of losing them and usually screw them on too hard.



I don't know if this bracelet originally came with the earrings, or if they just happen to match each other. Either way this is definitely one of my favorite pieces, it's simply gorgeous, don't you think?

snow white fine flowers

In this part of the world snow is unfortunately here to stay for a rather long while. Every year I always think spring will surely come in March, but sometimes it even snows in April. You just never know. But there's no stopping me bringing the spring home, sitting on my window sill, reminding me of what's hiding under the piles of snow, just waiting to burst out.



The less known darling buds of January, just as pretty as the ones in May. Possibly even prettier, simply because they will stand out on their own, having no surrounding competition from lilacs or such other lovelies.



I've decided to share my small collection of inherited jewellery with you, starting with this beauty. Well, I've really started already, with the leaf brooch the other day, that I got from my grandmother. But now I'm doing it more properly, or something. This rose necklace is just divine, and I'm a little scared to use it outside the house should I lose it. It's handed down to me from a great aunt on my mother's side, or really to my mother, who gave it to me since she never used it. I'm not sure what materal it's made of, I've always thought ivory, but I don't know. I don't know when it's from either, but it certainly feels timeless, in my humble opinion. I'm not a diamond kind of girl, I prefer more unusual and less sparkly pieces such as this.

best bargain dress of the summer

This is the amazing antique shop in Ystad I've talked about before, Hemlängtan (Homesickness). I really wanted to take some pictures inside too, but it was pretty crowded when I was there so that didn't go according to plan. I meant to go back at another time, but never got around to it. Oh, well, I'll do it next time. Since it was so busy (which is a good thing for the owners of course!), I didn't really stay that long to check things out either, hence didn't buy anything. I did also feel like I shouldn't buy anymore brooches for a while, at least not until I've used all of the ones I already have, twice. When I have done so, Hemlängtan is definitely the place to go to find some more.



I felt quite excited going down to the Saturday market on one of the town squares in Ystad. It took a bit of an effort to find any potentials, but I quite like the hunt. It's a bit more excruciating though, when it's just regular people selling their old stuff really, and some of them clearly had no idea how to price things (which meant overpricing like crazy). When I say excruciating I mean it can feel a bit embarrassing sometimes, when the things people are selling are just junk, and I just look at the table for 5 seconds. That's why I try to walk up to tables when someone else is going too ... Anyways, I spotted a corner of this lovely fabric on a clothes hanger, and as I pulled it out to find it was a lovely dress my heart started to race!



This elderly very nice lady told me it used to belong to a friend of hers, and that I could get it for 40 kronor. My heart raced even more! I didn't really want to try it on in the middle of the town square, but thought it would fit fairly well, and for that price it didn't really matter that much.



It turned out to fit me perfectly and I couldn't be happier with it, I think it's incredibly pretty! I have no idea when it's from, it's got 40's lines I think, but I doubt elastic waistbands were that common back then (which I could be wrong about too though). It's only got a little tag saying the fabric is polyester and cotton, which would be a giveaway it's maybe 70's, early 80's? Nevermind, it's gorgeous!



From a very talkative and persuasive German woman I also bought an Indian old bracelet at the market. It didn't fit me very well, and I doubt it's real silver, but the parts are really nice and I thought I might take it apart and do something else with them. Not sure what though. Any ideas? I love the elephants and little stars.



What I liked the most with the bracelet was the hamsa hand though, that hangs loose on a little chain. It's got such an intricate design for such a small piece of jewellery. I paid 25 kronor for it, and even if I only make a necklace with the hamsa hand I think it's worth it.



Just before leaving Ystad, I got this lovely piece of red and white gingham fabric from my dad's wife: perfection! Not sure what it'll be enough for, but if nothing else I'll use it as a table cloth, which is plenty. It might make a vest, or short sleeved blouse, maybe using some vintage buttons I got in Gothenburg. Oh, that would be even more perfection!



This iron cast reptile I simply could not resist when I found it, for 69 kronor. So cute! And in all honesty, I didn't get any lizards for quite a long time now, unless I'm mistaking. I've mostly been owl crazy, and I certainly don't want the lizzies to feel left out from my life. That would just be plain rude.

pretty peacock, come fly with me

Going to meet Linda the other day for our little shopping spree downtown, I noticed there's a temporary antiques/curiousities shop open just around the corner from my work. It's usually a small bread shop, on Götgatan by the corner at S:t Paulsgatan, but during July there's no bread being sold. There were some pretty nice things in there, but very few of them had price tags, so I don't really know if it was more like an antique or curiousity shop as far as the prices go. When I picked up this lovely pair of peacocks the guy in the shop told me I could get both for 40 kronor, which seemed like a pretty good deal to me.



I just love them! Think I'll pop into the shop one more time next week during my lunch break, I'm sure I missed something. I did look at a stack of photography magazines from the 50's that were only 10 kronor each, and most of them had really nice covers, but the insides were mainly filled with camera ads, or photo advice, not surprisingly really but not very intriguing either. So they're still there I suppose, if anyone's interested.



Another shopping stop was at Panduro, an arts and crafts and hobby store on Kungsgatan, a place that I love and dread at the same time. Mostly dread cos it's usually pretty busy, but also cos I really have a love/hate relationship to the whole crafts/hobby scene. It doesn't make any sense at all, and I should really just stop, but I don't think I can. I won't try and explain it either, since I don't think I can. That said, I got some kind of cutesey mania this time, and got a lot of mostly pink old fashioned looking stuff that I think I might create something with. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow realising I've gone mad. Ribbons 79 kronor, 5 x 2 m.



These little candylike buttons were 29 kronor, and I'll turn them into earrings if I can, or add to brooches together with the ribbons. I think they're really for scrapbooking, something part of the problem I have mentioned above. I really don't understand it at all, but I guess I shouldn't trash it, cos maybe in 20 years time I'll be doing it too. I sure hope not though.



Some more small buttons I'm gonna turn into something, some day.



A set of three tins in a pretty old fashioned candy store design. I know they're almost a bit too cute, but a mania doesn't see those things, it just wants what it wants. 139 kronor it set me back, but I do think they'll make good use in the cupboard for baking stuff and such.



And since I'm a bit manic about jewellery at the moment I did need a proper jewellery box as well, so when I saw this beauty in Chinese butterfly silk at Indiska for 99 kronor I just grabbed it. I'm trying really hard not to buy all the Chinese silk things Indiska is carrying at the moment, like small purses and notebooks, cos I've got sooooooo many purses and notebooks in Chinese silk already. But it's an addiction, it truly is, Chinese silk just shouts to me that I want it! It would be rather rude not to listen, but a way of going around it is not to enter the stores at all, or to wear headphones and listen to loud music. Or who am I kidding?



I saw this little bolero cardigan in powder pink with black stripes a few weeks ago at H&M, but didn't get it then. I did now when I saw it again for 149 kronor, a classic H&M price, and I'm certain it'll come into good use now that the worst summer heat seems to have left us. Which I applaude by the way! It's lovely to be able to wear clothes without feeling you're about to suffocate.



A pair of nice black wedge sandals that I got at Zoom shoes on Hornsgatan for the very reasonable sale price of 250 kronor. They're actually really comfortable, and I'm always a bit surprised cos I'm still new to wearing heels. Wedges are the way to go I guess.