Spent most of yesterday putting these together. Each tray is two inches tall and just under three inches wide, so only the teensiest trinkets would fit. I used stones, shells, dried flowers, fossils, vintage glass gems and jewelry bits, all which I already had on hand — the only things I bought were the actual trays.

me: oh absolutely I gotchu. hang on a minute

friend: —ideas.

me: here u go

burgled!

So sometime between 2 and 4 in the morning today, someone broke into several businesses on our block. He shows up on camera in our neighbors next door and across the street, and on their exterior cameras a bunch too. We had our cash register emptied and a big mess behind the counter where he went through a bunch of drawers and tossed my work table.

Thankfully he didn’t touch my jewelry beyond making a mess, so we’re out about $300 plus the sunhat he shows up wearing on the neighbors’ cameras. Police have been and gone, fingerprints and photos taken, etc, and our landlord is going to add his security camera footage to what our neighbors got.

Me, looking closer: wait. are those french knots???

However. I do have a dilemma. I have about a dozen pair of really lovely sterling silver clip-on or screw-back earrings. I sell a ton of costume clips and screw-backs, but for some reason — possible because they’re more expensive, and people who don’t mind losing a $10 clip don’t want to risk losing a $30 clip — the silver ones just take forever to sell.

Some of them could be turned into pierced earrings, but it would not be a reversible alteration. This is not something I would bother to do for costume jewelry, but it might make more sense to turn the silver clips into earrings that would actually get bought and worn.

I found this poster at an estate sale, and while I was looking at it the person running the sale came up to me and said “oh isn’t that nice? and it’s signed, too!”

The first year they did it, I was volunteered to help them set up, and I found 3 sets of 14k gold cufflinks mixed in with the costume jewelry. So now every year I go in a few days ahead of the sale to check the jewelry for any missed gold or silver, and make sure they haven’t egregiously under- or over-priced anything vintage. And I also get to shop 😁

This year, they introduced me to the guy who buys their gold and silver. And now I have an appointment for Monday to pick through forty POUNDS of silver jewelry that would otherwise go to the refinery.