Jewellry

I love arts and crafts fairs for many reasons, especially the jewellry.  I always have.  When I was growing up the only arts and crafts fair worth going to was held the third weekend of October.

Everyone for miles around looked forward to it.  Thousands  would pour in to our area.  Schools were let out, and our local area businesses would thrive from the incoming tourists visiting our late October fair.

Looking at the latest jewellry creations was always exciting.  We had jewelry buyers and craftsmen from every state in the union there.  There were more jewellry booths than any other type.

You could see gold jewelry, silver jewellery, beaded jewelry, hemp jewelry, and almost always there would be a few  Native American jewellry designers and craftsmen there.

Then, there was the crisp fall air, the smell of the yummy foods being prepared, meeting up with old friends, and the special treat of the beauty and color of the Halloween trees.  My nephew used to call the brilliant fall colored trees Halloween trees

Every year there was some specific type of jewellry that I was on the hunt for. It may have been silver hoop earrings, a trendy type of gold jewellery or the latest fashion jewellery, regardless of what type, rest assured there was always the “have to find” piece of jewellry.

But then, year after year I would be torn between the latest razzle dazzle jewellry creation of some incredible artist that had just created the latest new fad type of jewlery and the piece that I’d come to the fair to find.   Back in those days, I was on a pretty tight budget, and I could only afford one piece at each fair.

Thankfully, these days, things have changed, and while I can’t just completely lose my mind,  my budget does allow for a bit more indulgence of my passion for jewlery.

I moved to the southwest where there are more talented artists than you can shake a stick at.  As you can imagine there are art fairs, jewlery fairs, juried art fairs, and art shows of every description

You can find them most weekends in this metropolitan area.  However, just like anything, there are only a handful that are considered the best.  You know the type that you look forward to all year long.  We locals call the jewellry they design and make, “the really good stuff”.

I still like the same things about the fairs as I did as a kid.  I still love the smells, the fall colors, the music, the getting to reaquaint with friends, the scrumptious food, and, yes, most of all, I still love to shop for that perfect piece of jewellry.

However, I hope now I have learned a few things about the quality and technique of jewellry making.  I do know I would much rather buy a piece of jewlery from an artist that actually designed, created and then told me about it, than from some discount store.

I know, I know,  it may be cheaper at a discount store.  Personally, I would rather save on money buying napkins or paper cups.

But, I don’t know, jewellry is something that is really special, it is something you wear everyday, or you might give as a gift or you might even hand it down to future generations.

Gold Jewellery

I have had a love affair with gold jewellery and designer handbags for quite some time.

I grew up in a small town and we had a local jewellery store down on our town square.  Everyone knew they had quality jewelry, but we all also knew that it was higher than a cat’s back.

The people with money bought their jewlery gifts there, or, if you were like my family, and you  wanted something smaller for a real special occasion you would go to “Overstreets”  down on the square to purchase your jewelry.

That little independent jewelry store was great.  They charged more but they always supported all types of community events and fundraisers.   So it kind of evened out in the end.

If you wanted a larger selection of gold jewellery with less expensive prices you would drive twenty to thirty minutes depending on if there was a parade or something like that to slow traffic down, to the mall which was located in nearby larger town.  The mall had the big department stores,and, of course, the chain jewellery stores.

I remember getting to go with my sister and her fiancee at the time to go make payments on their wedding rings.  Sounds nuts doesn’t it?  Yep, every other Saturday night we would trot to the the nearby town and waltz into the chain jewellery store to make payments on their wedding rings. The plan of course was to have these coveted  rings paid off before the magical day.

I was all of nine years old and looking back, I”m pretty sure I smudged up every glass case and window with all my ooohing and awing at the fantastic silver, diamond and gold jewellery.  The jewellery store clerks probably dreaded me coming, and, most likely, they got their Windex in hand ready for double duty after I left.

I had my eye on a gold jewellery cobra chain and a very special gold bracelet. I thought if I could just somehow get that gold chain necklace, I don’t know, maybe I could rule the world, or at least I would catch a lot of attention at my school.

See, I had watched the Olympics and watched how Mark Spitz had won not just any medals but big bright GOLD medals.  I was so enthralled with his success that my dad gave me a stop watch so I could practice holding my breath before I went to sleep at night.

The stop watch was to  help with my swimming training and, of course, to help me secure Olympic gold metals of my own one day!  In retrospect, I’ll bet my mom and dad were giggling to themselves as they watched me using my stop watch to time my breaths every night before I dropped off to sleep.

If you are like me and most other jewellery loving folks, you probably started your love affair with gold jewellery early in life with a similar or perhaps grander experience, and probably your first pieces of gold jewellery were only inexpensive pieces of gold costume jewellery.

Costume Jewelry Earrings

They are colorful, they sparkle, the appeal of costume jewelry earrings crosses all age, sex and cultural lines.  People from every nation and every culture wear costume jewlery.

Costume earrings made of gold, silver and emeralds  have been worn for literally centuries to make both a class and fashion statement.  These priceless pieces of jewlery were created to be worn as accessories to a certain ‘costume’, hence the name costume jewelry came to be.

A 2000 year old earring was discovered by archaeologists in Jerusalem, a pair of 4500 year old gold disc earrings were discovered in England, and a pair of still older jade earrings were found Inner Mongolia. These last earrings are believed to be between 7500 to 8200 years old.  We women have been swinging earrings from our earlobes for quite awhile haven’t we?

Women have been adorning their earlobes with earrings for centuries, and while the popularity of costume jewelry earrings has been up and down, depending, for the most part, on economy of the culture, costume jewelry earrings have remained a staple item in the jewlery boxes of wealthy women since recorded time.

Costume jewelery earrings in centuries past were made of the precious metals like gold and silver, but today we think of fashion jewlery as disposable jewlery, stuff that can be easily discarded as the fashion dictates.

Most of them are made to look like silver or gold, the real stuff, and, truthfully, with today’s advanced technology and jewlery manufacturing methods, it is difficult to tell the fake costume jewlery from the real stuff. Only your bank account knows the difference

Fans of costume jewelry earrings love that they can produce an entirely different look just by switching out the earrings they are wearing. With a bouncy pair of bangle earrings, you can look sexy and lively, but with a classic stud pair, you can pull off the most formal of occasions.

Fabulous costume jewelry earrings can be found almost everywhere. Of course, the malls are full of them, but what many people don’t know is that quality wholesale costume jewlery including costume jewelry earrings can be found all over the Internet.

In fact, if could be said that the largest variety and the best prices can be found at the online stores including Ebay and Etsy as well as literally thousands of smaller independent online jewlery specialty stores.

I think that most people have the wrong idea about shopping the Web wholesale jewlery sites, they think that they are only for the large or volume buyer, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Most of the online stores are glad to sell you a single pair of costume jewelry earrings, a single gold jewellery bracelet, or just one silver necklace. They almost always have outstanding customer service with a willingness to make and keep satisfied customers.

A major benefit to purchasing your new earrings online is that you can shop from the comfort and convenience of your own home.  Finding and purchasing the perfect pair of costume jewelry earrings to match you new outfit couldn’t possibly be easier.