Where Bloggers Live 12.2022: the Family Jewels

Ho, ho, ho and howdy friends!! Thanks for stopping by for this month’s Where Bloggers Live 12.2022: the Family Jewels. This month, the gals and I are coming to you from our jewelry boxes. Or in my case, my jewelry rake.  My jewelry trays.  And my jewelry drawer pulls.

What I don’t have in expensive quality jewelry, I make up for in volume, in quantity.  As President Herbert Hoover liked to say…a chicken in every pot…or a statement necklace for every outfit.

WHERE BLOGGERS LIVE

 

Ever wonder where the ideas for this series come from? Well, let me tell you!! Each month our fearless leader Bettye comes up with a prompt for the gang to respond to. This has been one of my favorite series in which to participate and as I look forward to the quickly approaching new year, I hope to continue to join these fun-loving ladies for 12 more months of thoughtful posts.

If you’ve missed any of the Where Bloggers Live posts this year, you’ve missed a treat. Here’s a list of this year’s posts so far:

• a look at our ‘rides’ in January
• our furry fam in February I
• in March we described our dream house
• for April the gals wrote posts about their favorite piece of furniture, but I was struggling with LIFE. I still hope to do that…someday
• shared my photo albums and scrapbooks in May June’s post,
• my favorite movie moments in June
• in July’s post I detailed my longing for temporary escape from life, make that LIFE – while predicting that one was probably not in the stars for us this year.
• after a 2-month hiatus from blogging, I returned for October’s day-in-the-life post
• and last month’s favorite recipe…maple bourbon chili, but of course

Where Bloggers Live 12.2022

 

Over here, the family jewels are more paste stones than gemstones.  My PC has certainly bought me a number of very pretty, nicer pieces of jewelry.  And I have inherited a couple of keepsakes from my mom and other relatives.  But the bulk of my jewelry is gold or silver tone metal embellished with what I have always heard called paste stones.  I had to look that up to be sure I was saying that right.  Apparently, “the term paste is used interchangeably for many crystal and glass based fake-gemstones.” [source]  Love me some rhinestones and paste jewels!!  The sparklier the better.

All this talk about baubles and bangles, no doubt has you wondering where I keep mine.  Funny you should ask!!  A conventional jewelry box would never work for me.  My necklaces alone would be one big, tangled spaghetti.  Here’s what I use instead.

Keeping My Tinsel Untangled

 

When I began doing the style challenges with Alison Lumbatis waaaaay back in the spring of 2014, I started buying costume jewelry where I never had before.  That Christmas, my daughter Lauren made me some darling necklace hanger-uppers out of drawer pulls and mirrors and tiles.  I have one hanging on the wall in our bedroom and the others hanging just inside my closet.  This is my favorite one – the holder on our bedroom wall.  In fact, I liked the tiles that Lauren used so much that I designed my glass mosaic tabletop (remember that project?) on the pattern of the center tile.

 

The necklaces hanging on this holder are some of the ones I wear most often.  In general, they are a cut above my costume jewelry and many are things that PC has given me.  When we first met and started dating, PC gave me a number of heart-shaped pieces.  Heart-shaped pendants, bracelets and earrings.  Many of them with emeralds because green is the best color in the world.

 

After 19 years of birthdays, Christmases and Valentine’s Days, we’ve branched out from heart-shaped jewelry to other things.  Most popular lately has been the tree of life…or as we call it the tree of love…which my daughter called the tree of luft when she was little.  Here are a few of my tree of luft pieces that hang on this necklace holder.

 

As I have explained here before, I am a young “Christian.”  I really don’t like the label “Christian” but I don’t have another word to replace it with.  I am 64 years old but only allowed God into my life in maybe the last 20 years.  Maybe 25 years??  So, a novice in my walk with God.  A newb.  Early on in my spiritualty – does that make sense? – I asked my daughters for a cross necklace.  They both bought me one.  I love how different the crosses are.  I wear them together on the same chain.

 

And the last piece I want to mention on this necklace stand is a silver charm bracelet my parents started for me when I was in high school.  It has charms from a number of our family trips.  And a ballerina charm (which is actually a bridesmaid) that my daddy bought for me because I danced.  When we went to Disney World the year it opened, my father bought me a Bambi charm.  He called me his Bambi…but I have often wondered if he meant Faline.  She’s the girl, right?  The doe?  Bambi is a guy, a dude, a stag.  Hmmm.  What was my dad trying to say?  See the bridesmaid/ballerina?

I wore that charm bracelet on my first date with PC.  Lauren suggested that it would give us something to talk about if there was a lull in the conversation.  There was never a true lull but he ask me about my bracelet and the significance of the charms.  Especially that Bambi.  Hmmm.

The Rest of the Story

 

So where do I hang all of my statement necklaces, you might be wondering?  Why, right here.  Doesn’t everyone have a rake head and a few drawer pulls they hang their baubles from?  From which they hang their baubles, I mean.

 

It all started with Pinterest.  Does anyone else still pin?  I sure do!!  But I digress.  One of the first pins I pinned was an idea for using a rake (minus the pole, of course, silly!!) for a jewelry holder.  I pinned it here on my Thank You, Pinterest board.  Just so happens our rake fell apart (with only a little coaxing) and I snatched up the rake end and used it for my necklaces.

 

Juding from my meager collection of statement necklaces, this photo was taken early on in my style challenge participation.  My collection has grown substantially.

I think Lauren was semi-horrified that I was using a rake for hanging my family jewels and that’s why she made me the cute drawer pull-mirror necklace holders.  And I love them to this day.  But I’m still using the rake, too!!

 

Ta-da…

 

Do I wear all of these necklaces? No.  But I might.  Someday.  And they are all bought and paid for.  Not taking up a terrible amount of space so I keep them.  If nothing else, my great granddaughters will have lots of play pretties for dress up some day.

Jewelry Boxes

 

When I was a little girl, my parents gave me a black lacquered jewelry box inlaid with mother-of-pearl.  It had a music box and a velvet pedestal where a ballerina twirled in time to the music.  I could watch her reflection in a faceted mirror in the lid behind her.  I loved that music box so much.  Not sure what ever happened to it.  Probably cast aside or destroyed during one of my many moves as a military wife.

I do have a traditional jewelry box in this chapter of my life but use it only for my rings and few mementos.  It is not nearly roomy enough for all of my statement necklaces.  The most precious thing about it, is the trio of photos of my darling babies playing dress up on the steps of our apartment in Panama.

 

And I have a couple of trays I use for my earrings and bracelets.  Not sure where I picked them up.  But they’ve been around awhile.  My earrings may look like a jumble but they are arranged by color…I assure you.

 

And my bracelets.

 

One very special bracelet.  This was my grandmother’s cuff.  Her family traded blankets with the Indians/Native Americans for this and some other turquoise jewelry.  I love this cuff very much and wear it quite often.

 

And lest you think all I have is dime store (that dates me, huh?) paste jewelry…I give you my ‘good’ stuff.  Actually, the Anjolee bracelet is probably just pretty glass.  But the emerald and diamond bracelet was a gift from my Prince C. and is the real deal.  I need to wear it more often and quit saving it for that ‘special occasion.’  Every day should be that special occasion, right?

 

My Favorite Pieces

 

We’ve all been taught that ‘all that glitters is not gold.’  That goes for jewelry and men.  I can attest to that.  Especially the latter.  After a few trial runs and false starts, I did finally marry me a real Prince Charming.  And my absolute favorite piece of jewelry is my engagement ring and wedding band…straight out of Kohl’s.  This wasn’t a set, we just put it together from two different pieces and it worked.  They fit together like the proverbial hand and glove.  Foot and slipper, if you will.  And I rarely take them off.  Only to make my grandmother’s homemade bread.  Pardon the unmanicured nails.  I live between manicures.  Rarely wear polish or have trimmed cuticles.

 

 

I look at that hand and I see my mama’s hand.  These days I am looking more and more like her.

The ring on my middle finger is special, too.  When we first started dating, PC bought me a very dainty little ring at a booth at a Shakespeare on the Rocks performance.  It had a yellow stone in a silver set.  The silver was very thin and the ring broke several years later.  We have looked high and low for one similar but never found anything.  This tiger-eye ring is a replacement for the other but really looks nothing like the original.  It is still very precious.

And that, my friends, is the end of our tour!!

Your Turn

 

Probably should have extended this apology at the start of my post.  But please accept my apology for the blurry quality of these photos.  I feel certain that because I am still coughing my head off, I am unable to hold my phone still enough to take a clear photograph.  In the case of my paste jewelry, that might be a blessing.  But my photo doesn’t do my wedding ring its due diligence.

Please be sure to check out the posts of my Where Bloggers Live friends.  Can’t wait to check out their family jewels.

 

Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own

 

Thank you for popping by today.  I have loads of ideas for blog posts in the coming new year, in addition to teaming up with the Where Bloggers Live and Ageless Style gals and for other favorite series.  I have about decided that my season of substitute teaching is coming to an end.  We have been sick off and on all fall.  Wiping those little noses at school might just be the cause.

Have a restful weekend, friends.

Hugs and kisses,