Some of my Dreams Came True Last Week

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Necklace 1 is a strand of knotted faux pearls with a beautiful rhinestone attachment, roundel bead and faux pearl which is then connected to a vintage pocket watch dial with flying sparrow.

Necklace #1 is $49.00

Necklace 2 is a vintage faceted vintage Czech white opaque beaded beauty with a vintage white porcelain pocket watch face and sparrow in flight.

Necklace #2 is $49.00

Necklace 3 is a strand of larger faux vintage pearls strung with a vintage rhinestone encrusted bead attached to a vintage mother of pearl white button, layered with another grey mother of pearl vintage button which is then topped off with a another vintage element of jewelry layered to top it all of.

Necklace #3 is $44.00

Necklace 4 is a strand of vintage faceted white opaque Czech beads with vintage rhinestone elements and than attached to a white vintage porcelain pocket watch face. A sterling silver tea pot is the final focal element on this design.

Necklace #4 is $49.00

Necklace 5 is a variety of vintage elements that have been lovingly designed to make this one of a kind necklace. Paris style #5 necklace with pearls (SOLD).

Dreams Do Come True

This was my October area of display at the "French Flea" shop in Anoka, Minnesota that I am currently selling my jewelry at, as well as through this blog. If you're interested in anything you can just email me at gretchen.schaumann@comcast.net and we can talk via email. The French Flea is an occasional sale shop, and generally that means a shop that is open for 1 week-end a month. Our usual sale dates always fall on the second Thursday - Sunday of each month. There is current talk that we will be adding new Friday/Saturday dates to our venue of open dates so to add to the availability of holiday shopping for you our customers. Stay tuned for more on that.

Now to the dream part of this blog post. I bet you thought I'd never get to that didn't you? lol I am a wordy woman, I know.

I have been working on improving my jewelry display space to go with the theme of our shop (French and European), as well as find display elements that compliment my jewelry designs. So along comes one of our great vendors, Ms. Anne. Not only was she able to provide me with the ability to purchase this wonderful buffet in the above and below photos, but she also supplied me with the answer to a long awaited dream. A mannequin. See below photos. Thank you Anne.

New Buffet for Jewelry Space

Ms. Isabella

Meet my newest acquisition, Ms. Isabella. I call her our shop mascot, but she is much more than that to me. You see I've always wanted one of these in my repertoire and alas, she's mine. She wasn't in perfect condition, but she's perfect for me. I love her vintage appeal, and the cuts and scars show her true vintage self. Poor girl was patched up with duck tape in two colors and white medical tape, which actually kind of made a mess, but I knew she had potential and since she's for me and not resale, it was a must have.

The various tapes were carefully removed, and the above photo shows you here chest area afterwards. Better looking than all of that tacky tape. Literally speaking on "tacky".

I brought in some colored pencils and this is me trying to color in the tape with my right hand while photographing on a macro setting with my left hand me coloring the white tape area. Sorry about the blurriness.

Still working on getting the right match for the mannequin tape messes that were left over from the medical tape, but I love using the mannequin for photographing new jewelry pieces. She gives a customer not only a close up of a necklace, but also a vision of how it might lay on oneself as well as the length of it.

Still working on creating my dream display area, but two great pieces accumulated in October, are bringing me closer to that realization. Stay tuned for more updates as they come.

It sounds like our next sale dates may be November 6th and 7th, which is 10-5 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday. Start thinking Christmas shopping!!!