Bead Obsessed: Volume I
Today on the journal, I want to share with you a few favorite pieces from my insanely delightful bead collection!
My obsession with collecting beads began about 18 years ago - my mom, my sister and I used to go to the Rose Bowl Flea Market every month to vintage shop. My mom has always been an excellent thrifter and taught me the ways of vintage treasure hunting early on. She also has always had amazing style and I remember being entranced by her jewels when I was little. She had a collection of BIG bold earrings, colorful, sparkly and so magical to me, in addition to beautiful crystal costume jewelry and beaded necklaces and bracelets. One of my favorite things to do was rummage through her jewelry boxes - and closet! In particular, I remember a bracelet that she made for me with alphabet beads that spelled out my name and crystals, I thought it was so cool. Her gigantic beaded hoop earrings also had a lasting effect on me ;)
As we started going vintage shopping regularly, we would buy jewelry in disrepair and take it apart to salvage the beads and crystals - this is how my obsession began. My sister also got into making jewelry - she would weave little animals out of glass seed beads and make friendship bracelets and necklaces. I was hooked! Soon I started collecting vintage plastic novelty charms from the 1980s and I would glue rhinestones to some and hang them on colorful plastic chains (Tarina Tarantino was my IDOL). My sister and I would do photoshoots of her wearing the jewelry, which she would then post on her LiveJournal. And then, the craziest thing happened - people wanted to buy them! Around then, I also started hoarding vintage Swarovski crystals and would make rainbow colored necklaces out of them for my mom. People wanted those too! At this time, I was attending Otis College of Art & Design in LA and even started selling jewelry to some of my professors. My bead obsession was in full force, and by now had expanded to include vintage post-war Japanese and German glass and lucite, kitschy plastic charms from the 70s and 80s, candy colored enamel chain, and of course my favorite Swarovski crystals. 15 years later and I am even more vintage bead-obsessed than ever! When designing SJO jewels, it’s important to me to use materials that already exist, not only because of their quality and unique beauty, but also to cut back on waste. The best thing about vintage is that it has the ability to be reimagined and reborn again and again.
Now, without further ado, here are some of my all-time favorite pieces from my archive. The pieces below are all lucite (which is a type of acrylic) - it’s one of my very favorite materials to work with. I’ll do a post about my favorite glass pieces next time!
I have this thing with hearts, lucite hearts that is! It’s one of my biggest bead obsessions and one of the earliest additions to my collection was a batch of huge, swirly iridescent red lucite heart pendants that I picked up at the Rose Bowl in 2007 (pictured above). The discovery of these beauties led to my hunt for more and since then I’ve added many dreamy pieces to my collection, including these iridescent etched hearts (used in my SS19 Mermaid collection and SS20 Enya inspired collection, pictured below) and puffy shimmering lavender heart pendants (used in my 2020 Halloween Ghostbusters capsule collection, pictured above).
Speaking of lucite love, these epic dimensional flower beads that I found about 14 years ago will haunt me forever! I bought about 10-12 of them (all that was available) and held onto them until 2019 when I made some very special earrings and necklaces with them for an Alice in Wonderland themed collection. I still kick myself for selling the last of them and will always be on the hunt for more, though I’ve never been able to find anything similar. The dark side of using vintage LOL!
And while we are on the topic of regret, these bright yellow sun beads are some of earliest pieces from my collection. Again, I held onto them for manyyyy years, and finally used them in my Fall 2019 collection that was inspired by Picasso’s muses and then again for my 2021 Bel Sogno collection. The pieces were so dreamy and I did part with all of my beloved sun beads! I am happy to know that they are all living out their best new lives with y'all though!
Finally, these yummy multi colored barrel shaped beads are Japanese lucite from the 1950s and I used them to create one of my favorite pieces of all time - the Domino Pearl Necklace. Another sold out style that I wish I would have kept just one of - lesson learned!
