Antique Shopping for Inspiration

Yesterday, I bundled up my son and checked out Antiques by the Bay, a huge antique show that happens the first Sunday of the month in Alameda. I was hoping to get some ideas for inspiring jewelry displays, and maybe buy some old jewelry boxes, but of course the ones I liked were out of my price range (they were gorgeous, and worth every penny, but more than I can spend right now). Wandering aimlessly through aisles of old furniture and past a booth with vintage playboy magazines, an old typewriter in the next booth caught my eye - I've seen lots of cute jewelry made with typewriter keys, and thought it might be fun to make some for myself. It seemed like it would be a shame to take apart such a cool working antique, so I asked if he had any extra keys from other machines. He didn't - but he pointed me to a booth with all kinds of great stuff for craft projects. Typewriter keys, old postcards, watch parts, glass lenses, keys - everything you might want to make some great found object jewelry. I left with a bag of watch parts, not sure what I wanted to make with it, but sure that I could come up with some great jewelry designs. And then I spent every minute of free time I had the rest of the day sorting through my treasures. There were screws so tiny I could barely tell they were screws - you'd practically need a magnifying glass to see them! Little nuts and gears that could be used as beads or spacers, all kinds of interesting watch hands, and even some partially still put together movements that would be great to embellish and turn into pendants. I'm going to be busy for a while.... Read more posts about inspiration in the Monday's Muse blog meme, hosted by Maternal Spark: