6/11/05 | Vintage Faerie
I came across some really cool looking jewelry from Vintage Faerie the other day. Amanda Kane utilizes antique vintage photos to create unique handcrafted jewelry such as pendants and charms. She also creates hand-stamped “wish” bracelets along with more traditional items like necklaces and earrings. But it’s her photo charms and pendants that really make her work stand out from the pack. Rather than trying to explain exactly how they are made, here is Amanda’s description of the process from her website:
Vintage Photo Charms and Pendants are art, or photographs, behind glass and framed to be worn as jewelry, or perhaps, placed in a special spot to be admired. The purpose of each charm or pendant is to invoke feelings to the wearer, or admirer. Feelings of dreams, creativity, imagination; endless possibilities… or feelings of special moments in one’s lifetime.
Uniquely handcrafted, each charm and pendant goes through a number of processes before it is completed. We begin with a high-quality photographic print of the original. All image designs are from our extensive personal collection of antique or vintage images, text and documents dating as early as the late 1800s. We then cut glass by hand to insure quality and size accuracy. Next we expertly frame the glass encased print by melting a silver metal over high heat to create smooth and thick frames. Lastly sterling bails are added to make the designated piece into a charm or pendant.
Although Amanda uses a lot of different types of vintage photo in her pendants including depictions of faeries, old photos, collages and seasonal pictures, one of my favorites is the “Fruit Crate Art” pendants. Here is an example of one of them that depicts fruit crate art that has butterflies on it. The charms are about an inch on either side and include a top ring so it can be strung on a chain (she also sells jewelry chains if you need them). Like I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of people reusing old items in order to make new jewelry and this is definitely a cool and unusual way to reuse vintage photos.
You can visit her site at:
www.vintagefaerie.com
