If you haven't noticed by now, I love to up-cycle vintage items in creative ways so we can enjoy them in our modern lifestyles. I think I have a good example of this today, with my wooden puzzle piece jewelry. These items have a playful retro vibe and would be fun to wear with jeans and a white T-shirt:
I started making little pendants when I found an old wooden tray puzzle at a garage sale. It was made in Holland, and was missing a piece which devalued it substantially as a collectible. I thought of making refrigerator magnets from the pieces, then decided to make something a little more interesting.
If you want to try something similar, you need bails and ball chain. I buy bails from The Glass Connection on Etsy, and I prefer the medium size silver Aanraku bail. The ball chain is also available in The Glass Connection shop. To glue the bail to the puzzle piece, I use E-6000 glue.
Some pieces will have little knobs on them, made for little fingers to hold when putting together the puzzles. I just leave them on, but you could remove them if you wish.
Besides garage sales, you can find wooden puzzles on Ebay. They were made by Playskool, Sifo, Fisher-Price, and Simplex of Holland. There are many more options besides vehicles. I've seen occupational figures, animals, buildings, and other nature themes.
I made a brooch by gluing a pinback to a bus and truck, and earrings from two cyclists. Pinbacks can be purchased at any craft store. I stole the ear wires from a pair of ugly garage sale earrings.
I hope this inspires some of you to think out of the box when creating jewelry!
Mitzi
I'm participating in Craft-o-Maniac's and Say Not Sweet Anne's link parties today.
