Two of my current favorite pieces

I do collect jewelry, and I sell jewelry.  Sometimes I'll buy a piece intending to sell it so that I can then buy more expensive pieces, but then I end up falling in love with them.  My husband tells me to list everything I buy for the purpose of selling, regardless of if I fall in love with those pieces.  I have two pieces listed in my Etsy store that I am getting the biggest kick out of wearing lately.  I get so many compliments on them that I'm surprised they haven't sold yet!

The first is a vintage milk glass and metal floral brooch that also has a bail on the back to be worn as a pendant.  It is so cute, springy and lovely!  It weighs almost next to nothing and doesn't appear from any one particular decade.  I'd guess it to be in the 1960's but it works with modern styles so easily!  (You can see the listing here.)

The second is also a brooch and pendant combo.  This one has the tiniest cameo set in the middle of an abstract-ish five petal flower and accented with small rhinestones.  It too is so modern looking but with that vintage flavor, I'm not sure why it hasn't sold either!  (You can see the listing here.)

I certainly hope you can see why I love these pieces!  They've got so much personality. Both are unsigned, but both have prong-set stones and lovely detail work.

Lessons Learned

One of the big deal makers in costume jewelry is DeLizza & Elster.  The problem is, they never signed their pieces because they often made jewelry for other companies.  They had one line of jewelry that was only out for about two years called "Juliana."  Most people will refer to jewelry made by DeLizza & Elster as "D&E Juliana" or just "Juliana."

I'd been thinking that Juliana jewelry was way out of my league price-wise and had mistakenly assumed that I wouldn't find any where I shop.  Because of this stupid assumption, I had put off doing a lot of research on it.  I mean, I'm in grad school and doing research on a daily basis; I really didn't want to do any more. 

I've learned a hard lesson.  Turns out, a piece I recently sold was D&E, and I could have asked at least double what I did, AND I discovered that two pieces I already had were D&E Juliana. Simply because I looked at THIS excellent webpage!  I've gone and amended my listings.  You can see these pieces HERE and HERE.

Lesson Learned!  Do your research!

I'm still trying to come up with more ideas for blog posts.  Maybe I'll write a full on APA style research paper on D&E Juliana jewelry and link it here... after I'm done with grad school.

Cheating?

I got a new "part time job" working at a local antique store / re-sale shop organizing the jewelry displays.  I'll be paid in jewelry. 

Does this count as cheating?

=D