I think Spring is finally on it’s way, I saw my first chipmunk of the year and the first dandilion has popped up in the yard!

To help celebrate this wonderful time of year I’ve made several soldered glass pendant with animals that make me think Spring.

The first three (bunny, duckling and lamb) are vintage illustrations from a Tasha Tudor book. I love her work!

This Robin pendant has a nest on the back and comes from a vintage children’s ABC book.

All (except the lamb, which sold) are in my Etsy shop right now.

Here’s a collection of new wooden pendants I’ve made. They are 1 1/2″ wide with a vintage book illustration sealed on a round wooden disc. Each has a sterling silver plated bail on the back for hanging on a chain.

All are available in my Etsy shop, only $7 each!

I recently found an amazing antique book from 1912 about famous poets and I cut out some text from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” for a soldered charm on this mixed media necklace. I also added a book and pen nib charm too.

Here’s a collection of cute new wooden brooches with vintage book illustrations.

Available in my Etsy shop.

Here’s a collection of recent soldered glass pendants, all with cute zoo/wild animals.

All are currently available in my Etsy shop.

Over at the Simon Says Stamp and Show the theme this week is Men Only. Here’s a very manly card I made using a cool stamp from River City Rubber Works. The text stamp is from Stampers Anonymous. The background is vintage math book paper and I also added a piece of vintage tape measure.

The vintage children’s books I use for alot of my solder pendants sometimes have very tiny but cute art in them. Too small for even 1″ square pendants I thought I could find a way to make some teeny pieces with them. So recently I got some flat backed round glass bubbles that are about 3/4″. I soldered around the edges and back and they are perfect. Like a little window with a tiny surprise inside it. I adore the way they turned out!

These can currently be found in my Etsy shop.

I’ve got some new pendants being listed in my Etsy shop, just in time for the holidays. Here’s a couple of new vintage dictionary illustration soldered pendants. BTW if anyone is looking for a certain animal or illustration for a custom pendant let me know, I might have it and I’m glad to do special orders if I can.

Here’s a cute koala bear:

this hedgehog is so fun, although he looks more like a porcupine to me :

 and I love this tapir, he’s really cool and unusal:

When I was little and asked my parents what something meant they always told me to “go look it up”, i.e in the dictionary, encyclopedia, etc. It’s not that they didn’t want to help me, they wanted me to learn to use the books and find the answers for myself. Maybe that’s why I now love old dictionaries? I remember mine was red, with little cut out half circles on the pages where the letters where, funny how things like that stick with you.

Here’s a few soldered pendants made with illustrations from a wonderful vintage dictionary from the early 20’s. I added black patina to all the soldering and the backs of the pieces are their definitions.

a really cool raven:

a fat little toad ( I just love him!):

and a lovely bird in flight:

One of the great old children’s books I got recently was in really bad shape, pages torn, falling apart and crumbling but it wasn’t surprising considering the book was dated 1918, it’s almost 100 years old! It has some simply gorgeous illustrations in it, lots of cute animals reading books and fairies in flowers, they are simply lovely! Here are a few soldered pendants I’ve made with some of the illustrations.

An adorable frog on a lily pad reading:

A trio of birds reading / singing:

A sweet bunny rabbit reading, I love the little bird perched on the top of the book:

a dandy black crow all dressed up and strutting around (I added a black patina to the solder on this one):

a dapper fairy sitting in a morning glory (this one is going to my mom for her birthday, she loves fairies and is a world class gardener)
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