thrifted lovelies | midcentury jewelry box

Lately I feel like I don't get out for thrifting expeditions as often as I'd like. And there are a couple reasons-1) my trips to Rockford (where I fare much better than in the city) are shorter and more limited now that I've stopped traveling with the cats, and 2) it was an activity I very much did with my mother, and my dad is sort of a run-in-and-out with exactly what you need, so those longer, afternoon adventures are in short supply.  Still, my Labor Day weekend trip produced one of my very favorite things--this vinyl jewlery box, which while it has a few chips on the outside, is absolutely velvety and pristine on the inside.  I'm not so much a person who has a lot of jewelry, just a few bits and bobs kept for keepsake/ sentimental reasons rather than wearable--my high school class ring with it's tiny quill and scroll on the side, and engraved bracelet given to me at my high school graduation, my maternal grandmother's tiny diamond engagement ring( (one of my great regrets is that I had her deco-ish ring reset in the 90's in a gold floral setting--I'd love one day to reset it back more to what it originally looked like.) 

But jewelry boxes always remind me of my grandmother.  She died when I was 8, but I remember the nights my parents would leave me with her to go bowling and one of my favorite things was to arrange her vanity table over and over again.  First I'd start with the makeup. She was a red lipstick sort of lady 365 days of the year with nearly jet black hair.  She had tubes of every shade of red, including tiny white sample tubes I found fascinating and she'd occasionally let me keep. A million different nail polish bottles.   Then I would start in on her jewelry box and her beaded necklaces and extensive collection of clip on earrings (the same sort I now love making into hairclips.)  When she died unexpectedly and suddenly, my mom & aunt were so distraught they burned most of her clothes & stuff in a bonfire. (my mom said the logic being angrily that if their mother couldn't wear it, no one would.)  I did inherit a tiny gilt box she kept on her vanity that later fell apart, but I still have the porcelain top as a keepsake somewhere in my stuff.

My own mother was a freak about earrings--a pair to match every outfit in her closet, sometimes a couple options.  Every once in a while into my teens she would allow me to arrange the morass into something more organized, which would last about a week tops, but I'd enjoy doing it, pairing the tiny balls and studs she bought by the card full at K-Mart (they didn't need to be fancy, they just needed to match her outfit.)  I had pierced ears up until college and would occasionally "borrow" pairs, and had my own collection of more dangly and hoop options I wore in all my late 80's/early 90's fashion glory.  Eventually, my nickel allergy bothered me enough to just stop trying to wear anything.  The February before last, when my mom landed in the hospital after the heart attack, I bought her the purest blue faux sapphire studs in the downstairs gift shop, mostly since everyone else was errring on the stuffed animals/flowers options (and I though these were something she could enjoy long after--though there sadly wouldn't much long after.)

Since I don't have much jewelry myself, when I bought the box last summer, I filled it with things I do have plenty of, hair do-dads and sunglasses.  I get a lot of use on the latter depending on the season, but I need to be better at actually using the hair accessories (some bought, some made for the shop and too pretty to give up).  Most days, I run out of the house, hair wet and tangled, and then at most, run my fingers through it a few times on the bus and swipe on some lipstick, which pretty much sums up my beauty routine. It also feels weird getting too fancy for just the studio or the library, no matter how fancy or unfancy my clothes are that particular day.