Bizarre piece of Victorian Kitsch *New* With picture of matching earrings!

[Magpie Queen]

Felting with Animal Fur!
http://getcrafty.com/blogs.php?user=Project%20UK!&entry=4560

[fero]

Sorry for slow reply on the old book front!

Its called Victorian Jewellery by Margaret Flower, currently published by Dover but the book was orginally published in 1951. I do believe my mum got it off amazon. Its an interesting read. Some of the stuff is so beautiful but then some of it is just plain nasty. They really were obsessed with animals and making copies of them or indeed as the poor birdies show us, making jewellery out of them. Quite a bit in the book about hair jewellery as well, mmm, lovely.

[diosaperdida]

ugh..I love all animals..but hummingbirds are close to my heart.

[jane feebles]

Hair jewellery I find much nicer that it sounds. I was surprised at how pretty some pieces were

That felting article was pretty cool, thanks for the link magpie queen. My initial reaction was 'ick', but that's mostly because I'm allergic to cats... Her reason was quite lovely, and I have my old puppy's ashes on display, so I can't be too judgemental!

[cadillac.tramp]

Dear lord *shakes head* at first, I thought "oooh pretty fea..hey! that's a full on noggin!"
I'm torn between laughing at the ubsurdity and being almost aghast.

[peace2_u_nme]

This is kind of cool......and kind of gross too. I think I saw something along the same theme on Antiques Roadshow..... very interesting

[SquidPrincess]

Oh, idunno. Kind of unfair to knock the Victorians--the industrial revolution had just happened, all this new stuff is going on...not everyone can think long term about potential negative side effects and write, say, Frankenstein. In retrospect it's so easy to say "ew!" or "what a bad human being!" but do you know for a fact that you'd feel the same way back then, if you didn't know then what you know now? You probably don't.
And, well, yeeeeah. I'd never kill hummingbirds (I don't eat meat, anyway), but that necklace is oddly alluring, in a way.  I'm sure you could do it with clay...or they'd look really pretty made out of glass. Labor intensive, sure, but super fab.
I love Victorian England, however. Lots of nasty stuff going on, sure, but it's never as prudish or boring as so many people think it is... Alice in Wonderland, paintings upon paintings of Ophelia, Frankenstein, Dracula, Jane Eyre...so and so on. Compelling stuff was produced, in Victorian Era England...

On the subject of making one's beloved pets into gloves or whatever when they die...
When my (old, grizzled, adored) pug had to be put to sleep, I didn't even get to see him. I begged my stepfather to talk my mom into letting me see my dog one last time, but nah. I would have loved to have gotten his bones...I wouldn't have assembled them into a full skeleton, but I probably would've made one into a pendant and worn it always. If you're not KILLING the animal just to have the body bits, what's so wrong about it? I would think that it was only horrific if you viewed it as skin and just skin, but when it's a way to remind you of the bond you once shared... It just doesn't seem so inherently bad to me, though it can be.
Then again, I've given my boyfriend a lock of my hair (when it was past my hips!), and goodness knows I'd hand over a vial of blood if I thought I'd get one in return.    But I'm a morbid little bastard, so...

Also! I love the wording of the first post! Dear Reader, smelling salts, etc. It made me feel all deliciously Victorian-ish, anyway.

[serein]

The Victorians were also quite into Memento Mori jewellery - the Latin means remember you will die so, the jewellery is worn as a reminder of one's own mortality.
There's an interesting jeweller/artist here in Melbourne called Julia DeVille who does similar things - it's not for everyone, but I think her work is really amazing; confronting and exploring death instead of burying it...
This is her website if anyone is interested: http://www.discemori.com/

[arwena]

icky, poor little buggers

[PUFFYsanjo]

The image doesn't show. Could you please repost the picture? I'm curious to see this.