Pearls are a "Girl's Best Friend" in the summer! (or How Hot Is It?)

Right now we are going through some pretty hot and humid weather - the grass is brown and the hydrangeas are drooping.   I was creating jewelry in my workshop the other day and something about the sultriness drew me to use cool, white pearls with my natural beach glass.  The combination is so silky on your neck, wrist or ears that it is like a little breeze.  And the pearls compliment the cool frostiness of the beach glass so well - it makes you look cooler! 

Here are a few of the earrings I designed with pearls.

Kat from Low Tide High Style is giving away a pair of my cool pearl/natural beach glass earrings.  Be sure to visit her wonderful Blog.  I know you'll be captivated by her style.

I remember my mother wearing pearls in the summer.   Always a double strand for Church.  Here are some fun old clip on earring I found with HUGE faux pearls!

Pearls come from a family of pearl-oysters of the sea, and also a family of fresh-water mussels.  They come in such varieties of shapes, colors and sizes.  Part of my collection of white pearl beads:

There are some strange shapes created by putting a small seed in the oyster.  The oyster covers it with the Mother-of-pearl.  So whatever shape seed you put in is what you get out.   Here is a weird one!

Pearl wasn't used just for jewelry.  It was used for buttons, buckles, handles on flatware, and tokens.  In the old days, card games, board games, and games of chance required that points or money be kept track of.   To do this they used tokens.  Common token materials were bone, ivory, wood and even clay, both fancy or plain. One common material that was used throughout the world was mother-of-pearl.  This is the iridescent lining of the shells of some fresh-water and some salt-water mollusks.  I have a small collection of these mother-of-pearl tokens that I love to look at and handle:

You still find these tokens at antique shops occasionally.  I found these at a small shop in Maine a few years ago.  I thought that they would make extraordinary jewelry - a focal piece for a necklace or some wow earrings.  But I can't quite get the courage to drill them.  They are so beautiful as is - sigh,..... another useless collection. 

Here are some MOP buckles that probably were used for a fabric belt.  I wonder what I can do with these....any ideas? 

Keep a lookout for pearl items yourself, go through your Grandmothers button basket too.   Let me know what you find! 

Keep cool!