Cherries and cherry blossoms have been one of my favourite motifs or themes in jewellery for quite a while, so I decided to experiment with beads and pendants this week (although, technically I think the pendant is a plum blossom branch).

The necklace above is a choker which I decided to keep simple and primarily about pink. The chain is just a 1-2 pattern made from bright aluminium plus pink anodized aluminium mobius rosettes, with green anodized aluminium links where the pendant and bead clusters are attached.

The pendant is a relatively inexpensive component that I painted with a pink enamel (from mixing red and white gloss enamels). The bead clusters have a 6mm rhodonite bead and 4mm green glass bicones in various colours.

After that was done, I decided to take the concept a little further and try for something a little more elaborate and exotic, which resulted in this necklace.

This one is made from segments of European 4-in-1 weave (5mm stainless steel rings, plus 6mm rings), connected to pink, green and silver mobius rosettes (aluminium rings). I went for a true cherry colour with the bead clusters and used the same green mix for the glass bicones. I decided to include the emerald green butterfly beads to give it a bit of a garden aesthetic, if that makes sense.

The first one I think has more of a spring flavour to it, while the second a little more suited to winter.

AM

Green depression glass juicer

When my mom arrived yesterday afternoon, she brought me a lovely green depression glass juicer she found in her attic.

We had sandwiches, then headed out for some antiquing. At our first stop, we evaluated some reference books on vintage jewelry. My mother has discovered a ton of jewelry in her attic, mostly Coro, and wants to know more about it. While she didn’t find a book that jumped out at her, I found one packed with photos of hats, handbags, compacts, belts, jewelery, sunglasses, and other accessories.

My buys: Vintage Fashion Accessories and three compacts.

I also bought three compacts: one by Volupte, another by Cara Nome, and one with no maker’s mark but interior construction and details exactly like my mystery compact. The mate to my mystery compact has wonderful artwork of a butterfly on the lid. My original intent was to keep the butterfly and resell the other two pieces, but the Cara Nome presents a collecting dilemma I’ll discuss later this week: I seem to have accumulated a set.

One of the clerks at the shop offered my mother some good information about replacing stones in vintage jewelry. The rhinestones available now have flat backs, while the stones used in vintage pieces are faceted. The color also varies. To match color and appearance accurately, my mom should sacrifice one old piece of jewelry that’s beyond repair and use those stones to replace missing ones in other pieces.

This shop also had a gorgeous plastic cherry necklace. Sadly, I don’t have an extra $235 lying around. Lovely, but not a purchase I can justify at this point in life. The next shop we visited was more crowded. I saw a lady head vase I liked, but my mother rolled her eyes at it and pointed out that I’d already bought a bunch of things, so that may be a purchase for another day.

Lady head vase

Cherry necklace.

When we finished poking around there, we headed to the liquor store where we sampled some ginger liqueur. Delicious! I may buy some next time Tim and I have a special event or extra space in our liquor cabinet.

Then we headed back to my house and I frosted the chocolate cake I baked in honor of my mother’s birthday. To keep the cake safe from inquisitive cats, I put it in my vintage chrome cake dish–a present my mother bought me years ago.  

chrome cake dish.

Then Tim and I made dinner for my mom: baked stuffed scallops, green beans sauteed with diced ham, cashews, and a teeny bit of duck fat, and a baby greens salad with blood orange vinaigrette. Tim did a wonderful job of making sure everything was on track and ready to serve at the same time. My mom enjoyed dinner. Afterwards, we had a vicious three-man game of Scrabble. The secret to beating my mother? Keep refilling her wine glass. We finished up with coffee and cake, then went to bed.

GE electric percolator.

Jumpsuit by Therapy @ House of Fraser ; Blazer by Topshop ; Brogues by Topshop ; Ring by New Look ; MAC lipstick in So Chaud

So, this is what I wore on my last day on Tuesday. I think the jumpsuit is pretty smashing, but I did get a few odd looks and I felt a bit like I was wearing pyjamas… oh well. I had to “dress it up” a bit with the grey blazer for work purposes, but for a more casual (can it get more casual?!) approach I have a fantastic pale pink boyfriend blazer which would look lovely. If I do say so myself.

I got a couple of lovely presents, even though technically I’m not leaving the company, just transferring. Which was lovely!! I received a MAC lipstick in So Chaud (which I’m wearing in the photos) – a fantastic shade of deep orange. Also a cherry necklace which is wonderfully kitsch, and a Biba keyring which I’ve wanted for a while now. I also got some cheeky Thornton’s chocolates which I shared with the boyf later on!

And to finish off, I saw this little scamp run past my window. Dirty city fox.

But we had a good getaway with lots of touristy goodness and non-camping adventure. It was too windy up in the mountains for our usual putt-putt battle, so The Husband settled for beating me at arcade Pac-Man and then we made the drive home. Sigh. I am not ready for vacation to be over, but I guess all good things have to come to an end sometime.

In the meantime, let’s play a game of Where’s Waldo: Version Jenny, to cheer us up.

I guess I’d like to play it off like it’s purely a coincidence. To be wearing a cherry dress and then happening upon a massive roadside cherry stand to take pictures. But the fact is that I have passed the cherry place many time in my life and never tire of it. So much so that I remembered that this dress hadn’t yet had its turn on the blog, and decided to coordinate the whole affair. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I really am that simple sometimes. I’d like to pretend that I am really cerebral and sophisticated, but when it really comes down to it? Well…LOOK AT ME I AM WEARING A CHERRY DRESS AND THIS BUILDING IS COVERED IN CHERRIES. ISN’T THAT NEAT?

But actually this is a very cherished dress of mine. I have had it for many years. I purchased it on a very fun vacation one year. I wore it pretty much every day on my honeymoon and for a lot of subsequent fun occasions since. It’s whimsical and always makes me happy. It’s a little late in the season for a halter dress, but I wanted to make sure it got it’s due and it was an easy conversion to just tie a top over it. I neglected my detail shots today but I’m also wearing my matching cherry necklace. Obsessed much? Maybe a little. Although not as much as I used to be, which is why my cherry purse is still tucked away in my closet. Regrettably.

Dress – Macy’s
Blouse – Thrifted (Gap)
Shoes – Thrifted
Necklaces – The Icing

Title courtesy of The Rolling Stones – “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

I spent Saturday in Saltaire, there was an amazing ‘Makers Fayre’, which was full of jewellery and art pieces, I picked up lots of nice things! I also visited Salts Mill, which has a great book shop, and is a good place to pick up art materials. There’s so much to do there, you can easily get lost for a few hours, there’s even a cafe and diner.

Pictured are all the lovely things I picked up. The necklaces came from the makers fayre- the cherry one is made by Ruby Spirit Designs, she had some lovely pieces, including matching earrings. The hare locket was from my favourite stall called Wychbury, they had beautiful pieces including corsages, necklaces, hair clips and pins.  All the other bits and pieces are from Salts mill, the cherry notecards are my favourite!

In light of all that, I went for a very easy look today. I’m not even wearing any heavy jewelry, lest I throw any wrenches in my alignment. I’m supposed to be better enough to run by Sunday (Monday at the latest) and if anything gets in the way of that… God help us all.

Not a lot to say about this. I like it though. All thrifted. All comfortable. All good in the hood.

Nice MySpace angle. Ha.

But hey, here are some Friend Friday questions courtesy of Katy at Modly Chic. I thought it would be fun to start doing these. You can check out Katy’s blog and the rest of the Q&A action, here. My answers as follows. Enjoy!

1. Do you think privacy is something we should worry about as bloggers?

Well, yes. Of course, privacy on the internet is important. However, simply by being a blogger you’re agreeing to give up a degree of privacy. In fashion blogging especially because you’re posting pictures of yourself. But honestly, it’s not something I worry about too much. I am careful and calculated about what I choose to post about. I’ve been on the internet long enough to know where my boundaries are. What to do and what not to do. I’ve never had any real problems with a breach of my privacy. Knock on wood.

2. Do you use your real name or a pen name? What was behind that decision?

I use my real first name. I never really thought about doing otherwise. My blog is part of who I am and I don’t have a problem with my name being attached to it. Heck, I’m kind of proud of it! I keep my last name private, and I think that suffices. There are about fifty million Jennys in the world. So if anyone really wanted to track me down, good luck with that!

3. How much personal information do you reveal about your life beyond the blog?

I reveal a fair amount about myself. I think fashion blogs are kind of boring, if you don’t know anything about the person behind them. And I enjoy writing about my life for others. I’m a pretty open book and I’m comfortable with being fodder for my own jokes. One interesting thing about me, (I guess) is that I’m painfully shy and horribly socially awkward in real life. Writing is really my best means of communicating who I am to the world, so I actually take advantage of the blogging platform to do so.

That said, I’m also very aware that anything I’m revealing could be seen by anyone at any time. My rule of thumb, is don’t write anything that you wouldn’t want your grandma, your boss, baby Jesus, or the people you went to junior high with to know about. I think this works out pretty well.

4. What will you never reveal?

I draw the line at blogging about other people in my life. I’ll make fun of myself until the fat lady sings, but I am careful what I say about others. As much as I love anecdotes and good-natured jokes at the expense of others, I would never outright dish on someone I know. Plus, half of them refuse to admit they’re reading, so if I did and they read it and feelings got hurt, that would be awkward. This is one capacity in which my narcissism really serves me. I am content to talk about myself ad nauseam and no one else has to get dragged into the fray.  Win win!

5. As bloggers, we have to an extent made ourselves ‘public’ figures. But still there are things that are intimate to each of us that does not need to be known by anyone that stumbles across our blog. How do you determine what is appropriate for public consumption and what is private to you?

Sort of what I just said above. I stick to safe subjects and never reveal anything that I’m not 100% comfortable telling the whole world about myself. It seems to work pretty okay.

Title courtesy of Skee-Lo – “I Wish”

Well… I’m pretty much done with the clothes-buying. So that was nice and brief. I am, however, intermittently looking at fashion jewellery – for some reason I have decided I want a necklace with a pair of red cherries on it as a pendant. They don’t seem to be too hard to find, so I guess I’m not the only one. Something like one of the following:

That aside, I recently celebrated my winning bid on Devour, Rise and Take Flight by Android Lust. Often labeled as a ‘female-NIN’, Android Lust is the brain-child os Shikhee, and I have been keeping an eye out for various CD’s for a long time. The only songs I have heard from this particular album are The Body and Dragonfly, both - I guess – can be called electro-industrial and are pretty powerful songs – lyrically if nothing else. I am also currently stalking a new Scout Niblett CD. If I win that, too, they should keep me happy…for a while.

All of which is a lame, quite probably pointless, lead-up to the point at hand: my incredible pathetic-ness.

Well, the clothes have something to do with it, I guess. The hows, whys and wheres of the whole story are rather long and somewhat superfluous to the current situation. Suffice to say that nearly a year ago I “met” – and subsequently began an online-only conversation with  – someone that I have enjoyed talking to quite a lot. And now…we’re going to meet “for real” - and it has me acting like  I’m an awkward, socially inept teenager. Who’s actually 33.

I’ve never had much social grace, and I’ve mentioned previously that I have a tremendous ability to sabotage relationships when they get to the point that I think my heart is in danger. And you know, I gave it a decent try… a couple of times, even. But he kept talking to me. Darn it. Eventually, he suggested that perhaps we were flirting. I subtly agreed [insert another failed attempt at sabotage here]. Finally, he asked me to go and see a movie – not just any movie, an old Fred Astaire musical. So yes, now we are going to meet, and watch an old movie, and I’m hoping my blue shawl gets here on Tuesday so that I can wear it on Wednesday, as well as reprimanding myself in ever increasing amounts for having such a girlish crush…in between lamenting my lack of a perfect figure, pretty hats and a pretty face.

He asked me if I had transport to the cinema – which is on the other side of town for me – and suggested that he could pick me up on his motorbike [which I am not entirely unaccustomed to being a passenger on, it's just been a few years. Ok, more than a few]. I said no, which is my reasoning for concluding that I’m actually kinda lame – because I liked my reasons for saying yes more than I liked my reasons for saying no, yet I still said no.

Bleh.

S4E