Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts the “Show and Tell Friday,” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky.“

I don’t wear a lot of jewelry — I like it, but I just don’t always think to put it on, or the clothes I bought a particular piece for wore out long ago. Plus I guess I am pretty particular in my jewelry selections.

I wear mostly necklaces and pins (brooches — I don’t know why, but I hate that word.) I was just going to show the three cameos, but as I looked around in my jewelry box, I saw other favorites I wanted to share as well.

The two small pins on the right plus the cameo stick pin were given to me by my mom, so that makes them special, besides the fact that I love the way they look. My husband gave me the cameo with the blue background and the 1928 oval one with pink roses in the center. I love both pieces — the 1928 one is probably my favorite of all — but they are also special to me because he gave them to me. He may have given me the gold cameo also — I can’t remember. The one in the upper left with the little flowers I bought at a craft show when we lived in GA. I don’t know what it is made of, but I thought it was cute (the craft shows there are one of the few things I miss about living there! They don’t seem to have many around here). The one on the lower left with the dangling pearl is also one I bought, but I don’t remember where. I liked that it looked antique even though it’s not. I used to have an old-fashioned looking dress with a lace collar that that pin went really well with. Too bad dresses don’t last as long as jewelry does. 🙂

The gold cameo isn’t actually a pin: it’s a scarf clasp. There was a time — oh, maybe about 20 years ago? — when ladies used to wear scarves a lot, and one way to hold them together was with a scarf clasp like so:

I wish scarves would come back in style — I loved the way they looked and the way they added a bit of color or pattern.

I loved this cameo like that, but once I saw a friend wear a scarf clasp clipped over the top of a crew-neck sweater which she wore over a blouse with a collar. I thought it looked very sweet and feminine. I had a couple of dresses with a high rounded neck and a lace collar that this cameo looked nice with — it looked like a brooch pinned at the center of the collar where the two sides curved up toward the center.

As you can tell, I like jewelry that is smallish, feminine, and old-fashioned, even vintage looking. I do have some pieces in different styles, though — I’ll have to save those for another day.

I don’t like expensive jewelry, though, and I don’t think any of this is. A friend asked me once what I would do if someone gave me $2,000. I think I said I’d pay off some bills, give some to the church, get something for the house, etc. She said she’d buy jewelry. One $2,000 piece of jewelry. I’d be a nervous wreck if I ever wore anything like that!!! And — not to criticize her choices, because we’d all have different ideals of what to do if we had money to “blow” — but I just couldn’t stand the thought of sinking a lot of money into jewelry. And thankfully for me, it’s easy enough to find things I love without doing that. I’m sure my husband appreciates that, too. 🙂