The New Romantics

 

I'm not really sure what's gotten in to me lately.

It's summer.

Blue skies, glowing sun.

Flowers. So many big, bright flowers.

Right now, there is hibiscus blooming everywhere, in every shade of pink you can imagine.

It makes the east coast look a little like Hawaii.

A very little.

Usually, my late summer work reflects all of this.

Flowers in colors as bright as the sun.

Huge collages of them,

filling necklaces and cuffs.

Metal gardens as big as the sky.

 

{Sky Full of Stars}

 But lately.

Lately, I'm finding myself drawn to these tiny fragments.

Tarnished golds.

Once white flowers in age-yellowed shades of ivory,

like faded photographs.

Rhinestones.

The good, old kind with not too much sparkle.

And cameos.

I've always been a sucker for those.

 

{Summer Noon}

 All of these discarded pieces,

the prettiest bits salvaged from rogue earrings and broken pins.

I'm drawn to these fragments like a magpie with an old soul.

Fragments make excellent building blocks:

The Beatles made their greatest album out of a brilliant handful of them.

 

{Mesmerize}

I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's my natural reaction to a not-too-hot summer

that has allowed gardens to bloom,

and keep blooming

 without burning and withering everything in sight.
Rally against.
Punk rock pretties.
Or maybe it's some sort of creative nesting:
these are the pieces I usually dream up in the winter,
under cold gray skies.
Whatever it is,
I'm going with it.

 

xo

 

 

 

Romantica

In the past few years, I have made a lot of necklaces.

A lot.

I have a deep love and feeling of giddiness for each and every one of them.

Despite that, I try, oh so very hard, to keep an emotional distance.

Sure, some sneak in, teasing me and taunting me and telling me to love them better than all the rest.

And those can be found hanging alongside the rest of my personal jewelry collection.

The temptresses.

And, sure, some of them I have a difficult relationship with.

Those that seem such a good idea at the time,

but then for some reason or other, just won't fit together right.

The challengers.

But it's all still love.

I can usually see how things will fit together while everything's still scattered...

sometimes when I'm not even there.

In dreams, the colors come to me, and I'm in the basement before the coffee's even brewed,

laying out the flowered pieces before the fog lifts and the dream is lost.

But this one.

Romantica.

Named after a song by the band Luna, because, oh, yes, she is so very, very Romantica.

She was not born like the rest, a vision from a dream or struck inspiration at a flea market when that last, perfect missing piece is stumbled upon.

No. She was born out of pure happenstance,

from a misfit collection of this and that.

One lone earring missing a pearl, the other, a rhinestone.

A broken clasp shaped like a leaf, and a cameo picked up on impulse.

I've always been a sucker for a cameo.

And, finally, this gold thing.

A starfish, maybe. Or a flower.

By itself, gaudy.

Probably just as gaudy with the wrong pieces surrounding it.

But here, it found it's place.

Fell in with  the right crowd.

A collection of what would ototherwise be junk. 

But here. Here.

It's all just perfect.

All of these weathered odds and ends bringing out the beauty in one another. 

Like Venice. Beauty in the decay.

It may be my most favroute thing I've ever made. 

Ever.

But I won't be keeping her.

She's bound for bigger things than the occasional jaunt out around my neck.

She needs to be shared, to be sent out into a wider world.

I'll be sad when she goes. But proud.

xo

It's Only A Change of Time

 

Time.

It's such a strange concept, when you really think about it.

It seems to exist on two liquid planes; polar opposites.

Long moments tick by, honey-slow, sixty seconds seemingly stretching themselves to fill in the space of an hour.

Or, the minutes seem to flow past lightning quick, as if moved by a current, the second hand spinning like a child's top gone out of control.

 

 

We humans, too often not content to simply exist in the moment,

view time through a haze of "the grass is always greener":

silently willing those slower moments to get on with it,

places to go, things to do,

thumb twiddling not among them;

desperately clinging to the wings of the moments that fly,

begging, pleading for it all to just slow down,

even if just briefly.

 

 

But time isn't the one at fault.

Time is a constant.

Non-changing; solid and true.

It's us.

Always so busy, rarely remaining idle.

It's the world we live in.

The constant hub of life spinning around us, like that out of control top.

Pulling at us,

on the outside feeling the drag, those moments seeming to stand still.

From the inside we are pushed,

everything rushing past too quick, a whiplash of time speeding by.

 

{Clocks by Bee Vintage Redux. That's me.

 Made from repurposed vintage china plates and wallpaper.

They will be debuting for sale at Clover Market in Ardmore, PA, next Sunday, June 22.}

 

 To freeze time is a lovely idea.

Hold on to a single perfect moment for as long as possible.

But that's what our memories are for.

Infinite space within our brains to keep hold of those perfect moments.

As for time, well, maybe we should just try to accept, enjoy those moments for what they are:

moments.

Live within them.

You'll be a much richer person for the experience.

xo

 

 

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Hey.

You guys still around? 

Probably not. But that's ok. I doubt I'd stick around, either.

I'm such a flighty blogger. 

I think I made a resolution to do something about that. 

In 2013.
Regardless, I'm back with a new post.
Just shy of five months after the last one.
But I've been busy in that five months. Very busy. Thinking.
Thinking very very hard about this:
Just before Christmas, I was vending at a show, selling people hooks like they had nothing but
hang ups.
Bad pun.
Anyway.
A friend of mine made a brilliant suggestion:
"You should make bottle openers."
Yeah. I should.
Seemed simple enough.
Except, how can they mount to the wall?
They've gotta be pretty secure, you know?
When I finally figured it out, the answer was so simple it was almost stupid.
Kind of an "A-ha!/ Duh!" moment.
So I made some.

And immediately sold some.
And now I'm making some more.
Pretty ones, covered in delicate bouquets of vintage flowers.
Because I like pretty things.

And some that are covered in maps, of lands both far off and close to home.
Because everybody belongs to somewhere.
And maps are cool.

So there we have it.
A new product for summer (and a goal met).
If you want one, you can find them here.
And I've graced you all with a new post.
Which makes me happy.
Today is a good day.
xo and bottoms up!



 

Go Go Go! On An Adventure

I've been pretty quiet around here lately.

Ok, fine. Downright silent.

But not without good reason.

I've been busy...cultivating...other aspects of this handmade lifestyle.

I've added a slew of new shows to an already busy repertoire.

I've gotten the pretties into a few shops (VIX Emporium in Philadelphia, PA and Modern Charm in Terre Haute, IN...and maybe more to come ;)).

And with all of this cultivating and growing of opportunities to sell comes the need to develop and make more, and most notably, new, product.

So I've been busy doing just that.

Some of it has yet to catch on.

But some of it...well, phrases like "gangbusters" and "like wildfire" come to mind.

And all it took was a simple change to something I was already doing (always room for improvement; for change).

I've been making my pretty hooks since the beginning, but they've only really taken off in the last year.

But when I changed it up with the addition of a map?

Boom.

 

 

 

It seems people have a fondness for a sense of place.

It seemed a pretty good recipe.

So I applied it to tote bags, too.

 

Kapow.

They pretty much sold out at the first show I had them available at.
So now, while I keep myself busy enjoying this virtual road trip traveled through accessories,
I am plotting my next big move.
Keeping busy.
On all fronts.

xo
 

 

Shop 'Til You Drop

 

Hey friends...

Just wanted to let you know there's a little sale happening in my Etsy Shop.

Enter the code MANYTHANKS at checkout

to take 15% off your entire purchase through Monday.

Because all of you are at the top of the list of things I am grateful for this year.

xo

See You In September...

{image}

 

Hello hello, my Dear Readers!

How is September treating you so far?

Did you have an enjoyable long holiday weekend?

I certainly did.

No, I didn't go see Jay-Z or Bruce Springsteen.

And we certainly didn't have a repeat of last year's drama!

But we did have Pork Fest.

It's become like a national holiday for those involved. But more on that later.

Like, next week.

I am taking the rest of the week off from the blog, not because I want to stretch this into the longest Labor Day Weekend ever,

but because fall market season is rapidly approaching.

Armed with the knowledge of what went well (and what tanked) in the spring,

I'm gearing up an arsenal of pretty that will have the entire Philadelphia area going "ooh!" and "aah!" over the coming months.

It's all finishing touches and the minor details left at this point. But I'm pretty good at neglecting those minor details and putting off those finishing touches until the last possible minute.

Then it's all way too late nights and too much hustle and not enough bustle and I'm left wearing my cranky pants.

I'd like to try to avoid that.

So a-tagging, pricing, and chain-attaching I shall go.

See you in a few.

xo

MIA

Hey there, friends. It's been a looong, looong time. I've missed you (really, I have!).

But the radio silence is not for naught, for I've been a very busy Bee of late.

The end of winter saw me throwing caution and a whole bunch of craft fair applications to the wind.

And the chorus of yeses that came back have kept me happily locked away, creating, making, branding, and dreaming up some clever new displays.

(I even made my own business cards. Which I may never, ever, do again.)

Days have been spent on a wooden stool, hunched over an ancient work table with pliers and vintage pins, removing, rearranging, and rebuilding them into the perfect collection of flowery statements.

Hours spent digging through an ever-diminishing pile of supplies, fearing one moment that there was nothing left to work with, and brainstorming and a-ha-ing over a dozen new combinations the next.

There have been late nights spent in front of bad tv, printing, cutting, and adding the tags to about a zillion new lovelies. There have been hours of hand-writing prices and inventory lists to the point of cramping. 

This little juggernaut has been criss-crossing its way across Philadelphia; neighborhoods to the west and to the south, to the north and back again.

And while I've been so busy with the hands-on part, I've been terribly neglectful to the technical part.

Which has given my brain a nice rest. And that's a good thing.

{all images heather breyer/bee vintage redux}

So with the lovelies restocked and packed and waiting for the next big show, and a game plan that has been finely tuned over the last few weeks ready to carry me on through a few more, I'm relaxed and ready to ease myself ever so gently back into cyberspace.

I have so much that I can't wait to share with you.

It's good to be back.

Have yourselves a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you all on Monday.

xo

(If you're in the Philadelphia area, or up for a road trip, check out my Facebook page for an up-to-date show schedule. I'd love to meet you!)

For the Hair

{The Martha Set}

Bobby pins. Hair pins.

Whatever moniker strikes your fancy.

{The Charlotte Sometimes Set}

I've made a few sets.

From old buttons and earrings and pins and charms.

And named for girls in songs.

{The Sweet Jane Set; The Lovely Rita Set}

They made their Grand Debut in my little shop today.

Out With The Old

{bee vintage redux}

"And now let us welcome the new year full of things that have never been."

Rainer Maria Rilke

It's a new year, my Darlings.

And to celebrate, I've put my whole shop on sale.

All the lovely things, for you, for your home, for your Valentine, for your best friend's birthday.

They're all on sale.

I'm celebrating 2012 by taking either 20% or 12% off of every pretty little thing.

(20%. 12%. 2012. Get it?)

Through January 12.

Twelve days of sale for 2012.

Go forth and shop!

And Happy New Year.

xo