Martha Sleeper - From actress to designer

I presented two silent movies with the actress Martha Sleeper here before, "Mum's the Word" and "Sure-Mike!". I liked both of them and I really liked Sleeper (with whom I share the birthday, by the way), so there are more of her films on my list.
In the second post I mentioned her interesting career...s.
I don't know about you, but I'm curious sometimes about what an actress or actor has done after leaving film, and Sleeper's story really surprised me, also as a jewelry artisan.

Sleeper in 1935,
public domain via Wikimedia

Martha Sleeper was born in 1910 (some sources say 1907, but I choose to believe the Lake Bluff History Museum because she was born in Lake Bluff.
Sleeper, who came from a family connected with arts in different ways, started acting in silent movies when she was 13 and was in film until 1936, with one last appearance in "The Bells of St. Mary's" in 1945 as a favor to her former director Leo McCarey.
Unhappy with getting supporting roles as the woman losing her man to the leading lady of the film, she left Hollywood with her husband to go to New York and become a stage actress for many years.
That's also when she turned her hobby of creating jewelry from bakelite, wood, and metal for herself into a lucrative side business.

Ad from "The Birmingham
News", March 26, 1939,
page 43

Martha Sleeper said in an interview with the "Washington Post" in 1941: "In the last war women went wild for exotic hats to add gaiety, but with the present hatless vogue women are now turning to jewelry to give them a lift."

Picture from the article in "Collier's Week"

Her designs were colorful, unusual, and whimsical - matchsticks, bugs and other animals, flowers, masks, fruit, and whatnot - and according to a story published in "Collier's Weekly" in 1938 (which you can find here) 200,000 pieces sold in the first year. A name for them back then was "lapel gadgets" which earned Sleeper the title "Gadget Girl".
Her items are sought after collectibles today and much more expensive than they used to be.

Bracelet and brooch (sold at Doyle Auctions)

If you think the story stops here now, you are wrong.
In 1949, Sleeper and her second husband went on vacation. As part of the cruise, they visited Puerto Rico, fell in love with the island, sold their house over the phone and stayed.
By now, she had enough of designing jewelry, though. So she started her third career as a fashion designer.
She opened a boutique in San Juan - "Martha Sleeper Creates" - where she sold her designs which had been locally produced, dresses, muumuus, blouses, skirts, but also accessories.
Later her designs, which are also collectibles now, were also exported to neighboring islands and the US mainland.

Picture by Jumblelaya Vintage
Clothing Shop

When she retired in 1969, she and her third husband moved to his small plantation outside of Charleston, SC, where she died in 1983.

What a talented and beautiful lady!
I would read her biography in a heartbeat if there was one.
Instead I will have to watch more of her movies (maybe even a talkie 😮) and look round the web for her designs.


Main sources:

1. Deanna Dahlsad: Merry Martha Sleeper Jewelry & Fashions. On: Inherited Values, December 24, 2010
2. Maggie Wilds: Martha Sleeper: Vintage Fashion with Wit & Color. On: Vintage Fashion Guild
3. Jessica Wahl: Miss Martha Sleeper. On: Silence is Platinum, January 5, 2014

What's happening here?

Today I want to talk about something that's kind of personal.
If you have been following me for a longer period of time, you know I don't share much from my personal life.
You do get a glimpse into my brain weirdly jumping between randomly selected topics which also says something about me, but you don't really know what I'm doing between those brain jumps.

Do I like cooking (no), what books am I reading (mostly vintage crime at the moment), what am I watching (okay, you do know about the silent movies, but there is more), do I have hobbies beside crafting (movies and TV shows), how do I feel (all over the place), what do I play (this and that), what do I look like (very long hair and glasses)?
Of course there's much more.

This blog has been mostly about crafty things for many years. I showed you what I made, I showed you what others made, I told one or the other story and for a while I shared movie quotes, but all in all this has been a blog showing my creative side and that's what it has always been supposed to be.

When I got back into blogging more again, however, this changed, and if you have been around before you may wonder why that is.
There are several reasons and not wanting to be creative is definitely not one of them.
My brain is still coming up with more ideas than I can realize in general and especially at the moment, and that has to do with both ability and motivation.

There are more days now when my hands just won't play nicely. If I don't think of taking a break at the right moment, I start messing things up because of that, then I start ripping up, but instead of stopping there, I get stubborn and try again which usually doesn't work out well. It's amazing how angry you can get over tiny beads (and yourself).
My problem is that it seems my head doesn't want to acknowledge those new limitations and adapt to them ... or maybe my muse doesn't.
I used to fiddle for hours without a break, but as much as I tell others it's okay to take breaks, I have a hard time accepting it for myself.
Having to rip up a WIP, however small it may be, because of a stupid mistake - oh, so stupid sometimes! - can get very frustrating which isn't good for motivation. Having no motivation means I sometimes don't even start.

Another hit for my motivation was that my sales have dried up. I'm not talking trickling, but dried up.
Don't get me wrong now, I'm not begging for sales here. I get it, times are getting harder and harder, postage is high (my customer base was overseas), jewelry is not a necessity, but the web still abounds with it and I'm just a tiny fish in that sea.

It has changed my view on my personal crafting, though.
I'm hardly ever wearing my own jewelry for lack of occasion. I don't get out often enough to and that's not going to change. I know there are people who say you should wear jewelry and clothes for yourself, but I never felt like dressing up at home and wear much jewelry.
So why make more just to stack it in a drawer? Or rather, where is the line between making something to feed my creative urges and making something just to - well, having made it?
For me, there really is a difference which is one reason why I could never have done this full time.

The same goes for embroidery. How many embroidery hoops can you put on a wall, especially if the walls are full already? 😆 My favorite pieces - Nadine on her island, Foxy, the cat inspired by dem Dekan, and the Guardian of the Woods - are set up between my Steiffs now.

I'm definitely not saying that I'm going to stop making things, not even jewelry. I have to find a way, however, to make it work for me, my muse, and especially my body (and my available space).
For years, I had been filling a lot of my time with making stuff, though, and now I needed to find something for the times when I won't be able to do that.
And that's the reason for my blog having changed. Something I can always do and actually love to do is diving into rabbit holes. I've always done that more or less, but haven't shared it as much before and I try to stick with certain topics now.

Valerie Hinojosa from Washington DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons
"Down the Rabbit Hole"

So this might not be as much of a crafty blog as it used to be, but it will definitely be more of a trip into my weird brain. Often I don't know myself why a certain rabbit hole looks tempting to me.
Anyhow, you are most welcome to visit and I hope you will be finding something interesting and maybe surprising 😉

Jewelry with a story - Part 1 .... or 3? (A random Saturday post)

Today's post was inspired by this post on Nancy's Fashion Style which I found through my friend Michelle's blog My Bijou Life (which you should check out if you are interested in fashion, but also jewelry making, quilting, and more).

As a jewelry artisan, I sometimes wonder where my jewelry ends up. Is it worn, is it loved, does it have a story - like being a gift or purchase for a special occasion - will it continue to have a story and create memories, will it be passed on to someone else, will it end up in a goodwill bin or at a fleamarket and will it find someone new there?
I will never know and maybe that's a good thing.
Where do those thoughts come from, though?

In my life I have collected quite a bit of jewelry myself. I can't remember which was my first piece of jewelry, but one of the earliest ones must have been a red coral necklace that I lost quickly if I remember right. After that came two silver pendants, a heart and a filigree flower with a pearl in the center (that I stubbornly declared to be an edelweiss). I wore the heart 24/7 for a long time until an incident caused my taking it off for good.
After that my memories get a little fuzzy until I was about 12.

For this post, I picked some of my earliest silver rings because I had remembered already having written about my most precious piece - emotional value, not monetary - but then I had the strange feeling that I had told the story of my first friendship ring before as well. Guess what, I have. And some other stories as well.
Here. Doh. I'm getting old (but at least remembered just in time).
But hey, maybe this just IS a topic for more than one post. If I only drop those memories on you every, now and then, it should be fine, shouldn't it?
And if it means that my jewelry box gets organized once again and I maybe learn something, that's a nice side effect, right?

I put my silver rings back and instead I grabbed a piece that I got around the same time and which I knew nothing about yet. Let's try to find something out together.
It's a bangle that I can't remember having worn even once.
In 1977, I was invited to spend part of the vacation in the Bavarian Forest with my friend's family. They always had rooms with the same family in a small village and also spent evenings with them, playing cards or talking. When we didn't go hiking or visit other tourist spots like glass shops in the area, the lady of the house sent us on little errands into the village to keep us entertained. She was a talented dressmaker and I remember the bolero and skirt she sewed for my friend as a gift.
She didn't make me feel left out, though. When our vacation was over, she came up to me and said she had a gift for me, too - this bangle.

While I appreciated the gift as such, I think I may have been too young to appreciate the modernist design. Also the bangle felt too heavy on my wrist, and soon it went into my first jewelry box from where it moved to the next to the next to the next ...
Every, now and then I looked at it, but always decided against wearing it because it just wasn't my style. It's quite amazing how much wear it got although it wasn't worn. Being pewter - which I'm not sure I even realized despite the marking - it also bent rather easily out of shape.
A soap bath and a bit of polishing didn't make much difference. I couldn't try the other tip I found online, to use warmed up beer, as beer is not my beverage of choice and there wasn't any.

Of course we didn't have internet back then and later I didn't even bother with a closer look at the markings ... which I did for this post, though.
There are two. One says "Dansk handarbejde" = "Danish handicraft", the other one "Løgeskov tin Danmark".
I couldn't find anything about the history of Løgeskov pewter in German or English and my Danish consists of the incredibly useful sentence "The room is big", but a list told me that Løgeskov Tin was not the only pewter jewelry manufacturer in Denmark.




What I also found were several pictures of pieces that would have gone well with my bangle, either because the design was almost or completely the same or because the same bright red glass cabochons (always my favorite part of the bangle) were used, or both. Rings, pendants, earrings, they had it all, and some pieces are even for sale on German eBay at this moment.
Moreover, I discovered that my bangle came with glass cabochons in different colors, yellow, light green, or blue, for example.

Well, I've learned something new and the bangle will go back into the chest for now, it probably has got used to it in the last 45 years ;-)

Oldies but Goodies - Neutral colors

Before this Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, I had never been wondering about neutral colors much. I wear a lot of black and I love grey which are two of them, but beige, taupe, cream, brown, ivory, even white are not on my personal list of colors at all. I even have a very difficult relationship with beige, for example, which is just putting it nicely that I avoid it at all costs.

The definition of neutral colors is that they are not on the color wheel. They are muted shades that look calming and complement the colors well that are on the color wheel, in fashion, but also in interior design.
What about jewelry, though? For me, it's much easier to use neutral colors in jewelry than bright colors because I always feel they can be worn with anything that way.
Let's see what the JAC members have come up with, and don't forget, this is just a small selection.

1 My Bijou Life
2 RioRita Jewelry
3 Jewelry Art by Dawn
4 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Geometric shapes

Wow, time is racing and another week has gone by already without me being creative, well, except for a custom pair of spike bauble earrings.
I'm just glad we have the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge to remind me not only of my own creativity, but more so of that of others.
Our theme was geometric shapes and we really got to see some amazing beauties!

How many basic geometric shapes are there? Obviously people don't necessarily agree on the number, some say there are four - circle, triangle, square, and rectangle - others say six and add rhombus and trapezoid. As the math genius that I am not, I'll stay out of that.

I do remember, though, that we once had to make a piece of jewelry in school. The plan had been for us to learn how to use a simple tin-lead based solder. I made a pendant consisting of a triangle, circle, and a square if I remember right. It came out pretty lousy, but had a definite mod vibe which worked well as we were still barely in the 70s.
Anyhow, I guess geometric shapes in jewelry had already fascinated me then.

These following examples are so much better than my pendant was. Enjoy!

1 Cat's Wire
2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 My Bijou Life
4 RioRita Jewelry

Oldies but Goodies - More bracelets

Do you like to wear bracelets? In that case, you will love what I have brought along from this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge.
Once again there is such an amazing variety in techniques, materials, and style, and yet my selection isn't even showing everything that has been entered.
Which one is your favorite?
I am in love with the fantastic hand painted elephant bangle (whose design process and WIP pictures Dawn had shared with us while working on this years ago), but I would also gladly wear any of the other items!

1 and 2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 8 RioRita Jewelry
4 and 6 Cat's Wire
5 and 7 My Bijou Life

Oldies but Goodies - Breaking out

Although I had taken a timeout from blogging, the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge has been kept going over the last few months.
Now it's time for me to share my selections with you again.

Our topic in the last week was "Breaking out".
Artisans and artists are only human. Many of us like their comfort zone, and it's always tempting to stay inside it, especially if the result is something you have already had success with. It can never hurt to take a little step outside the box, though.
The challenge was to show something that was unusual to make, because it was different in color, shape or style we are used to, for example. So we got shown some first attempts at new designs or techniques, and now I'll be sharing some of them with you.

1 RioRita Jewelry
2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 beYOUteous
4 Cat's Wire
5 My Bijou Life

Oldies but Goodies - Celestial again

In August 2017, the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge's topic was "celestial". Back then, we shared stars, moons, and the sun. Some of these classic celestial bodies are also featured this time, but we also have colorful planets, clouds in the sky, and astrological signs.
You see, even if we repeat a topic, there is always the chance of something completely new turning up.
Some of these pieces even I had never seen before and I'm nosy as heck when it comes to my fellow JAC people's work! ;-)
I hope you will enjoy seeing them as much as I did.

1/5/9 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 and 6 Cat's Wire
3 and 7 My Bijou Life
4 and 8 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - Fog and mist

I'm fascinated by fog, but it also makes me nervous.
It's one thing to look out over a landscape beautifully covered by mist or being stuck in your car in a big bowl of "pea soup" (as it happened to me once on New Year's Eve) or even worse, in smog like the deadly Great Smog of 1952 in London which people thought was just the ordinary fog Londoners have to deal with.

Today's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge is only about the beautiful kind, though. To some of my bead loomed silhouette pieces I love to add wafts of mist to the scenery, for example, but it's also amazing how some stones or other materials seem to emulate mist or fog.
Here's my selection for this week, I think I picked a few real beauties.

1 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 Cymberrain
3 Cat's Wire
4 RioRita
5 My Bijou Life

Oldies but Goodies - Play with me

A new week, a new Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge.
Do you play with your jewelry? Twist a necklace, play with a fringe or dangles, touch the stones, shake the head to let your earrings fly, play with a spinner ring or just spin a ring around your finger ...
If you answered this question with a no, I suggest you try it, it's fun. Sometimes it may help you to calm down if you are nervous or you just satisfy the playchild in you.
I have a necklace that is so long that I can do a lot with it, especially in meetings, and sometimes I wonder if it makes others nervous to watch me. Maybe we should hand out "play jewelry" for everyone before meetings?

From the many entries I chose five today. Which one would you choose for a meeting? ;-)

1 My Bijou Life
2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 RioRita
4 Cymberrain
5 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Beads

What is a bead? Wikipedia says that a bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing.
Beads can also be addictive. So many shapes, so many colors, so many ways to use them!

Just a few of these ways are represented by today's collage of items from the last Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge.
We have hand painted beads, big and small ones, handmade beads from silver, different colors, glass, wood, stone ... and still this is just a very small glimpse into the world of beads!

1 and 10 Cat's Wire
2 and 3 My Bijou Life
4 and 7 RioRita
5 and 6 Jewelry Art by Dawn
8 and 9 Silver Jewellery Girl

Oldies but Goodies - Fresh

I thought I didn't hear right when I was told last week that 30° C (86° F) had been predicted for Sunday.
Guess the choice for the new Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge topic hadn't been too bad - it was "fresh" as if it was meant fight off the heat lurking outside, just waiting to get me ;-)

Fresh has so many more meanings beside cool, though, that this wasn't a very difficult challenge. It can mean anything from new, pleasant, not salty, not artificial, relaxed, and more depending on the context.
The easiest thing to do was to show fresh colors, but in one entry the word has a different meaning ... cheeky. Can you guess which one that is? :-D

1 My Bijou Life
2 Cymberrain
3 RioRita
4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
5 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Shapes

This post for the last Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge is dedicated to my math teacher in 7th grade. You tried, Mr. Haasl, you really did, but no matter how much it is said that girls can do math just as well as boys, I just wasn't one of them. It wasn't just math, I also struggled with chemistry and physics - and to be honest, I wasn't interested in exploring science's depths myself - but I think geometry probably caused my only true breakdown in school. You comforted me, you encouraged me, and I'm sorry that it didn't work because you were really one of the good ones, and a nice person and neighbor as well until you passed away much too early.

You, my dear readers, don't have to explain anything or calculate or prove now, though, you can just sit back and look at the shapes we are bringing you with today's challenge. Aren't I a nice person, too? :-D

1 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 My Bijou Life
3 Cat's Wire
4 RioRita
5 Silver Jewellery Girl

Oldies but Goodies - More wire

Wire has always been a big topic in JAC, but so far we have only used it as a topic for the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge once before. Let's change that today.

Wire is an incredibly versatile material and there are many techniques to work with it, not only in jewelry, but also for other purposes, from flower stands or filters (have you ever heard of the wire weaving loom?) to wire netted kitchen utensils and more from Kyoto (called Kanaami).
You will find wire wrapped, woven, crocheted and knitted (including spool and Viking knitting), done in macramé and other techniques in jewelry.
This goes way back, thousands of years. You don't necessarily need many tools for working with wire, just pliers and a wire cutter are enough, you don't need heat, you don't have to solder or cast, it can be done pretty much anywhere, and you can combine the wire with all kinds of materials, gemstones, beads, found objects, or leave it as is.

These are only a few of the pieces entered in this challenge. Enjoy.

1 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 Silver Jewellery Girl
3 Cat's Wire
4 RioRita
5 My Bijou Life

Oldies but Goodies - More cabochons

Cabs, cabochons. I've talked about them before and we had a Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge with that topic a few years ago, too. I'm sure we could do several more with all the cabs that are in the drawers of our members, loose or already added to jewelry.
Cabochons were the earliest way to treat gemstones before people developed the cutting of stones. They usually have a flat back and a polished and rounded front, no facets. Opaque stones are made into cabochons because there's no sparkle which is enhanced by facets. Nevertheless, you will find faceted opaque stones as well, just as you find translucent stones that are not faceted, but made into cabs.

There's a family story about a ring given as a gift. The young recipient was not happy because the ring had an opaque cabochon. I guess most young girls prefer a bit of sparkle or at least did so when I was young, eons ago ;-) It took me very long to acknowledge the beauty of opaque cabs.

People use different techniques to incorporate cabs in their jewelry, bezel or prong settings, wire wrapping and weaving including netting, wire crochet or knit, PMC or polymer clay, even macramé with cord or wire.
Cabs can have all kinds of shapes, too. They come as ovals, rounds, square, rectangular, drops, but also freeform. Lapidary artists have endless fantasy!

The JAC members shared so many beauties that I had a hard time to pick for today's collage, therefore I have a bit more for you today ;-)

1/7/12 RioRita
2/9/11 Cat's Wire
3/8 Jewelry Art by Dawn
4/6/13 My Bijou Life
5/10 Silver Jewellery Girl

Oldies but Goodies - Soft

I know I have missed a few Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenges in my blog, mostly because I'm struggling with frustration about the whole Covid thing (I know I'm not alone with that), but I'm back now with this one.
The topic was "soft" which could be anything, soft material like fabric, cord, or felt, soft colors or even a soft look of the design itself.
We are happy to welcome a new member with her beautiful Sakura necklace, too. I think it works both for the soft colors and the soft look.
I hope you'll like the other designs as well.

1 Silver Jewellery Girl
2 My Bijou Life
3 Jewelry Art by Dawn
4 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Easter eggs and more

This week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge was about Easter ... white and colorful "eggs", pastels, flowers. I hope you'll like my little collection.
And can someone take those chocolate eggs away from me now, please? ;-)

1 and 2 Cat's Wire
3 My Bijou Life
4 RioRita
5 Jewelry Art by Dawn

Oldies but Goodies - Blooming

Spring is definitely around the corner in our hemisphere.
To celebrate this, the topic for this Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge is inspired by the blooming that has been going on all around us.
My plan had been to take some pictures in our little garden to complement this post, but it's cold out there and I just can't bring up the motivation right now.
Instead I will be giving you these beautiful blossoms that our members shared to get you into the right mood!

1 The Crafty Chimp
2 My Bijou Life
3 Cat's Wire
4 Beyouteous
5 Jewelry Art by Dawn
6 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - More black and white

Black and white - a classic combination. Of course it would have been mean to demand from our members only to show black AND white pieces for the new Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, but if black or white (with merely a hint of color here and there), the collage all brings them together nicely, don't you think? Of course there's more to see if you click through to the challenge.

1 Cat's Wire
2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 RioRita
4 My Bijou Life
5 The Crafty Chimp

Oldies but Goodies - Favorites of 2020

I don't think I have to say much about 2020. You all know that it was not a fun year, and that is putting it extremely nicely.
The topic for this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge was to pick our favorite pieces from that year to remind us that you could still find some beauty in it. There is a wonderful collection of personal favorites in that post, so you should really click through to see all of them.

For the collage I could only pick a few, to whet your appetite, so-to-speak ;-) I hope it's working!

1 My Bijou Life
2 The Crafty Chimp
3 Jewelry Art by Dawn
4 RioRita
5 Cat's Wire