Vintage Styled Button Pendants

I have been a jewelry designer since 1996, and my jewelry styles are quite varied. I hope to showcase a number of styles of jewelry design through the blogging process.

The first collection I will feature is the jewelry designs I've been creating with my found elements. I have been collecting these treasures over the process of 30+ years. I've always collected beautiful things since I was just a young girl. I have continued to collect over the years and usually did not have a defined purpose or plan for these items at the time of purchase, but knew that one day I would. I am just now realizing many of these found objects were all part of a bigger plan that I wasn't yet aware of.

The treasures used for these pendants were aquired at beaches, garage sales, flea markets, Grandma's attic, Occasional stores, antique shops, thrift stores, and anywhere else that I may come across wonderful finds.

These pendant necklaces will be sold with a leather cording or a ball style chain with each pendant. Each pendant is unique in the elements that I carefully choose, with the desire to make each one unique and special.

I start each creation with a button that I refer to as the anchor button which I try to find one that is beautiful as well as large to form a good solid base for each pendant. I try to start with a flat anchor button, so that the layering of future elements can more easily be created and will have a pleasing composition. I do not do any gluing until I am totally satisfied with my overall design, which may take as little as 10 minutes or up to an hour. Time isn't of essence, but in being creative I like beauty of a finished object to be a reflection of a well thought out design, so time is never an element that I rush in my designs. My mother always taught me that "haste makes waste" and although it works for some peoples lives, it has never worked for mine. My tendency to be a perfectionist always torments me during this creative process, and sometimes I will find myself forcing myself to finish the creative process and get onto the construction part of designing.

I will search the desk in my studio, garner from boxes, jars, and bins, to find just the right buttons, embellishments and vintage jewelry elements to create a finished pendant. Then I will start the process of gluing the elements together, always starting with that first large anchor button as the base of my design. I am fond of gorilla super glue and E6000 for my jewelry design adhesives. The E6000 will need a day to dry thus giving you some ability to move an object around some. The gorilla super glue will need to be held in place for at least 60 seconds to adhere for each item that you are layering.

After all of these elements are assembled and properly dried, I will then decide what kind of finding I'd like to use with the pendants. I've tried a variety of items to create the finding part that allows you to attach a jump ring to it for the necklace part. The options are unlimited and only with experimenting will you find what you personally like.

I then will finish each pendant with either a leather cording or ball chain style necklace and currently favoring a longer length to be layered over t-shirts, sweaters and such. A choker style of course is another option for warm weather climates, summer wearing and ones personal likings.

All of these necklaces shown are a result of my love of junking and collecting. I am also currently being featured at my favorite website http://www.junkmarketstyle.com/ . I am a contributor on this site and there are a few posts on this site introducing this new collection I've designed. They are for sale, so if you find one you can't live without, just contact me and I can get back to you.