Charming Lady Thoughts

Many Sweet Thoughts, Many Sweet Faces

Made these charms using pages from a vintage book, cutting the words as I found them on the page. Sentences meant to tell another story, converted to tell the thoughts I saw in the pictures instead. I had the words first, clipped from a page torn from an old shabby book, nothing special. Just found a page with words on only one side of the paper.

I cut the glass, wrapped with copper foil, and started soldering them together, adding the loops for hanging. And decorative wire on some, framing on others. This one has the words 'this is a love letter' on the reverse side, with a vintage photo of a mother and child's faces on the front. It's hard to tell, but the image behind the words on the reverse side is the mother's hand, holding a bouquet of flowers.

Found the drilled stick pearls and couldn't wait to use them for a special piece, and this seemed just right. It's a long dangle but very delicate looking, even with the darkened steel wire wrapping.


This one has a very somber-looking woman with the words 'her passions' encased in a theatre-like frame, surrounded by wire and with one of my fused glass gems as the dangle.

This one is open for you to make up your own story. What are her passions, what is she thinking? On the other s

ide is a label from a vintage lotion bottle design. Is she passionate about life, about her looks, about comfort?

The glass dangle has dichroic sparkle embedded in a translucent glass gem, you can see through it but it has a sparkle and gleam. It will pick up any colors is is put up against, which facinates me.

In the time when the portrait was painted, women didn't have a lot of options in society, only to be wives and mothers or possibly a vocation with the church or with nursing. Is she considering what she would pursue, what her passions would be, if she was completely free?

Speaking of wives and mothers, this next one celebrates the bond between a mom and baby.


I've had the long pink glass beads with the gold trim for a long time, just waiting for the right project to use them.
I made this rectanglar charm of a baby in the bassinette with mom in pink, and I knew it needed those two pink glass beads. I combined it with some of my hand dyed costume pearls, to make a complete necklace.

The other side has an image from a vintage friendship card, with roses forming a heart shape. The metal casings on all of these charms has been darkened, and then textured to enhance the look of the silver solder.

I made the clasp for the necklace with the darkened steel wire, hooked on the side of the necklace to one of the large loops of the beads. It's simple and reminds me of the type of clasp you see on jewelry from the 1930's, just a simple hook and eye.

Do you think the fact that I have a new baby granddaughter has something to do with these images of moms and babies on the charms?