sparkly bits

my mother was a pretty serious hoarder, though when I was growing up, living in a house w umpteen multiples of EVERYTHING just seemed Normal. It's only in hindsight that I realize she really had a problem.

That said, I think as hoarders go, she was a Top Rate one! She had GREAT stuff, just WAY too much of it. She had drawers and drawers and DRAWERS of jewelry - costume and real, from many eras. Remind me to tell you about the time she accidentally threw out all her "good" jewelry!

But anyway, my favorite collection of hers was the rhinestone jewelry collection, that she kept in a darling lucite box purse, each item individually wrapped in tissue paper (like kleenex, not like acid-free tissue paper). it seemed SO glamorous to me - the dangly earrings and wide mesh bracelets, the little coin purse, the slidey comb and lipstick tube, brooches, necklaces, even a wallet. Some of the things have been lost or sold over the years, but I still have most of her collection intact, and I also keep it safe away in the lucite box purse. I wear things on occasion, and let my daughter wear some pieces to her prom...but mostly it stays wrapped up...until I come across it in the closet...and spend some time taking each piece out, admiring it, remembering how she used to get dressed in the most amazing cocktail dresses to go to fancy parties at The Officer's Club...and the stories these peices could tell now, more than 50 years later...






































































Madison likes looking at the jewelry, too....