bone

I started collecting jewelery since I was 5. After 2 decades of serious hoarding and scavenging from markets,  Ebay, vintage shops, and relatives from around the world, I have quite an extensive collection of costume jewelery. I have countless numbers of necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, bangles, brooches and pendants. I make some of my own and re-invent broken pieces. Due to my vast jewelery collection, I also need many cabinets and boxes to keep or display them in. I actually have different jewellery cabinets for rings, bangles, bracelets, brooches, earrings and necklaces. Despite my attempt to stay organised, I still find it difficult to find that perfect piece I need for the specific occasion. You know, that piece of jewellery that ‘makes’ an outfit.

Recently, my wonderful mother-in-law gave me a trinket box. Instead of putting little cute ornaments in it and hanging it on the wall, I use it as a compartmentalised jewellery case. As you can see, it started off as a necklace cabinet, but somehow some brooches, pendants and even my husband’s cuff links found their way into this beautiful display box.

As you can see, I love golden chains, bling, baubles and brooches. Can you see the 3 brooches?

The brooches are: a white star-fish, a slice of delicious water melon and the cute purple parrot with a diamante eye. He is my favourite. As you can see, now I can find my accessories much more readily as they are clearly displayed on my dresser. If I described the origin of each of the pieces in the cabinet, it would take too long. So I’ll save it for another post =) Please tell me which one is your favourite.

There is my ‘summer collection’ of necklaces. I have nickel allergy so in summer I tend to wear more of these necklaces made from natural material. Each piece (aside from the gold leaf and the 7 Dwarfs necklaces) is made from either leather, wood, glass, bone, ivory or semi-precious stone. It is so difficult to pick a favourite from this rack…This necklace display is actually a Chinese calligraphy pen holder. The pens hand vertically downwards to allow complete drying of the bristles and maintain the health of the hairs.  There are hooks on both sides of it, so there are at least 14 necklaces on there. These pieces are hanging from here because they do not fit into the glass cabinet above. The chunky necklace on the right has been modified to be like a ‘Marni’ one. It is made in Italy, do you like it?

This is a small selection of some earrings which I DON’T wear. They are simply eye candy and I think the last time I wore those turquoise earrings was 4 years ago… I love chandelier-style earrings. This cabinet is good for earrings with ‘hooks’. I keep earrings without the ear hooks in a different glass cabinet. Don’t you love the Origami cranes? They’re an ingenious idea.

I do not actually wear a lot of jewelery. Most of the time, I am too lazy to coordinate my outfit. However, having them beautifully displayed sure helps me remember what I have and perhaps one day I should open a costume jewelery museum.