DIY making skeleton leaves

Selecting your leaves:

Skeleton leaves can be used in scrap booking, gift wrapping and other crafts. These leaves are beautiful and lacy. Skeleton leaves are also very simple to make.

The first step is to collect leaves you want to skeletonize. The easiest leaves have tougher skeletons – oak and maple leaves are best suited. Delicate leaves will also do, but may tear when using the washing soda method.

The Water Method:

The easiest way to make skeleton leaves is to simply put them in a bucket of water and wait until the pulp falls out of the leaf. This might take 2-3 weeks, but the process is gentle to the leaf and is effortless.

The water has to be changed every few days, as the pulp begins to fall out of the leaves. The water will also become rancid quickly, if not replaced. You can add some bleach to the water to prevent it: simply add about 1/4 cup bleach to a bucket of water.

Once all of the pulp is gone, remove the leaf skeletons and allow them to dry.

The Washing Soda Method:

It is possible to make skeleton leaves by using Washing Soda. Washing soda is sodium carbonate, and can be found on grocery store. It can also be made at home, from baking soda.

Making washing soda at home is detailed on:

http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2011/01/homemade-washing-soda.html.

Fill a saucepan with 2 cups of water and 3 tablespoons of washing soda. Stir. Bring it to a boil, and then remove from the heat source. Put the leaves in the washing soda solution and allow them to soak for approximately 30 minutes.

Since I don’t have access to maple leave,I used Pitanga leaves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenia_uniflora

After 30 minutes, remove the leaves, one at a time , to a baking pan with shallow water in. Use a blunt paintbrush to gently remove the leaf pulp. Be careful not to tear the leaf skeleton. Once the pulp is removed, set the skeleton aside to dry.
Different kind of leaves might need longer times.
If pulp is not easily removed I transfer it to a few days to the water method treatment…

If you want a white leaf skeleton, place it in a solution of water and some bleach. Allow it to sit until all traces of green are gone, then dry.

Dying Skeleton Leaves

Skeleton leaves may be used white, but they can also be dyed. Basic food coloring is one option.Simply submerge the leaves in a solution of food coloring and water and allow the skeletons to soak until they take up the color.

CELLULOID

photo on courtesy:
https://www.etsy.com/il-en/shop/BrightgemsTreasures

Celluloid has got to be one of my top favourite materials from our Bygone Era, and an excellent example of why to collect vintage jewelry.

Created in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt,Celluloid was one of the first plastics ever made. Celluloid is a semi-synthetic thermoplastic made from nitrocellulose and camphor. The earliest form of Celluloid was highly flammable, so in 1927 the nitrocellulose and camphor were removed and replaced by vinegar (making it less flammable).

Celluloid was widely used for a variety of items including jewellery, due to its versatility. Combs were made that resembled tortoise and necklaces, vanity sets, and other items were made to look like ivory (often referred to as ‘French ivory’). This meant that everyone could own expensive looking items for much, much less!

photo on courtesy:
Courtesy of https://www.etsy.com/shop/IfindUseekVintage

This fabulous tomato red and cream colored carved celluloid bangle bracelet is bright and fun!

 A wide range of forms and designs of jewelry are available from carved bangle bracelets through to delicate celluloid necklaces, brooches

Photo on courtesy:
Courtesy of https://www.etsy.com/people/OurBoudoir

Elegant two tone necklace in the daintiest of colours and design. Each flower is linked by fold over links and individually riveted to the chain. The back of the necklace is a pale pink adjustable celluloid chain linked by gold tone fold over metal secured by a hook.  In good vintage condition

photo on courtesy:
Courtesy of https://www.etsy.com/shop/benjiboyvintage

 

An unusual pin – Forbidden Fruit is the name given to the vintage jewelry collection of figural fruit pins made in Austria in the 1950s. This beautiful bunch of grapes is cream celluloid embedded with really sparkly brown rhinestones. All stones are intact and original. The stem and leaves are gold plated metal, the leaves have enameled or painted green accents. Some of the enamel has worn away a little in spots but does not detract from the look or beauty. With original pin back, secure with safety catch.  Featured in Anne Pittman’s “Inside the Jewelry Box” book. The pin in the book is missing a leaf. The one I’m offering one fully intact! 

photo on courtesy of:
Courtesy of https://www.etsy.com/shop/COBAYLEY

Vintage pin that shows two golden retrievers set against a pearlized celluloid background. Old pin circa 1940s, maybe a little earlier, 2 inches in diameter.

photo on courtesy of:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/WhirleyShirley

Art Deco Celluloid and Metal Belt Buckle

 

 

This classic 1920s piece is pure art deco design. Chrome silver linear double fan shaped accented with a geometric black and white center piece element made of some early thermo plastic, most likely celluloid. On the metal areas on either side of the celluloid center piece are a row of shiny silver metal balls.

 

This buckle could be the perfect accent added to a belt or a closure for a sweater, cape of jacket. This piece could also possibly be converted into a brooch or pendant.

on courtesy of:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Vintage55

Fabulous Double Daisy Celluloid petal earrings measure 1 3/8″ tall, 1″ wide. 

 

 

Each single petal was hand glued onto the earring base.. each flower has a hard textured, and quite realistic carpel or pistil., which may also be celluloid. 

Silver tone screw back earrings are glued onto a clear vintage plastic pad. 

For more vintage celluloid go to:

https://www.etsy.com/il-en/pages/vintage-vogue-team/celluloid?ref=pg_index_27

https://www.etsy.com/il-en/search?q=vogueteam%20celluloid&order=most_relevant

Art deco

photo on courtesy:
https://www.etsy.com/il-en/listing/122267243/art-deco-large-vase-kutani-stylized?ref=pg_view_1

Art Deco  is an influential visual arts design style that first appeared                                in France after World War I and began flourishing internationally in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s before its popularity waned after World War II. It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by rich colours, bold geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation.

Deco emerged from the interwar period when rapid industrialisation was transforming culture. One of its major attributes is an embrace of technology. This distinguishes Deco from the organic motifs favoured by its predecessor Art Nouveau.  

Historian Bevis Hillier defined Art Deco as “an assertively modern style [that] ran to symmetry rather than asymmetry, and to the rectilinear rather than the curvilinear; it responded to the demands of the machine and of new material [and] the requirements of mass production”.

During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance and faith in social and technological progress.

For more art deco:

https://www.etsy.com/il-en/pages/vintage-vogue-team/art-nouveau-and-art-deco?ref=pg_index_2:

Art Nouveau

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https://www.etsy.com/il-en/shop/boylerpfpref=related-shop-1&ga_search_query=vogueteam+art+nouveau+green&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery

Art Nouveau  is an international style of art, architecture and decorative arts—that was most popular during 1890–1910. English uses the French name Art nouveau (“new art”), but the style has many different names in other countries .It was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants, but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment.

According to the philosophy of the style, art should be a way of life. For many well-off Europeans, it was possible to live in an art nouveau-inspired house with art nouveau furniture, silverware, fabrics, ceramics including tableware, jewellery, cigarette cases, etc. Artists desired to combine the fine arts and applied arts.

Art Nouveau was replaced by 20th-century Modernist styles.

Maison de l’Art Nouveau (House of New Art) was the name of the gallery initiated in 1895 by the German art dealer Siegfried Bing in Paris that featured modern art. The fame of his gallery was increased at the 1900 Exposition Universelle , where he presented coordinated—in design and color—installations of modern furniture. These decorative displays became associated with the style that the name of his gallery subsequently provided a commonly used term for the entire style. Thus the term “Art Nouveau” was created.

Decorative “whiplash” motifs, formed by dynamic, undulating, and flowing lines, are found throughout the architecture, painting, sculpture, and other forms of Art Nouveau design.

In architecture, hyperbolas and parabolas in windows, arches, and doors are common, and decorative mouldings ‘grow’ into plant-derived forms. Like most design styles, Art Nouveau sought to harmonise its forms. The text above the Paris Metro entrance uses the qualities of the rest of the iron work in the structure.

Jewelry of the Art Nouveau period revitalized the jeweler’s art, with nature as the principal source of inspiration, with the introduction of new materials, such as opals and semi-precious stones. The widespread interest in Japanese art and the more specialized enthusiasm for Japanese metalworking skills fostered new themes and approaches to ornament. For the previous two centuries, the emphasis in fine jewelry had been on gemstones, in particular on the diamond. With Art Nouveau, a different type of jewelry emerged, motivated by the artist-designer rather than the jeweler as setter of precious stones.

For more art nouveau:

https://www.etsy.com/il-en/pages/vintage-vogue-team/art-nouveau-and-art-deco?ref=pg_index_2