Browsing around in a small bead shop the other day, I was surprised that I couldn't find one thing to buy (I went by the criteria of did I need it? did I want it? -- and the answers were just no for both!). However, the shop did have two large baskets of 'junk jewelry' to dig through; the kind of jewelry treasure that you used to be able to find in a thrift shop, a tightly packed plastic bag full of all the costume (and sometimes better than costume!) jewelry both whole and bits, for about $5.00. Those days are no longer; most thrift shops know now to sort and pick through their costume jewelry and try to sell it all individually in case there's a collector out there. I still got a deal on this assortment though, the signs over the baskets invited you to fill a small bag for three dollars.
The other reason I think I couldn't find a thing to interest me other than those baskets was the fact that I've been involved in the hobby of beading and jewelry making for more than 30 years, so it sometimes seems like there's 'nothing new under the sun' as they say. So digging through those junk jewelry baskets was a nice exercise in imagination. I selected some random items, and I'll show you what I'll do with them in upcoming posts. Maybe if you are getting a little 'jewelry jaded' like me, it can help inspire you to rescue some jewelry from the junk pile!
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