My Newest Passion..... part I

There is a company call Vintaj Natural Brass. Now the funny thing is I've known about this company for years. Back in 2003 when I had a booth at Bead & Button they were handing out samples to vendors. (I still have that sample pack!) At the time I wasn't really interested. At the time I mostly sold beads and did just a few jewelry shows. Most of the jewelry I made was stringing or seed beads. Brass stampings just really didn't trip my trigger. The only metal I dealt with back then were clasps & spacer beads! I was all about glass, crystals and seed beads.

Seven years later things are different in my life. I still love glass, crystals and seed beads, (who doesn't?) but I love other stuff too! I do 20-25 art shows a year, and only sell beads and findings as destash. I love to make jewelry, and I seem to be picking up more and more skills in different branches of the jewelry making family tree.

When people ask me what style of jewelry I make, it's sort of a hard question to answer. I usually settle on wire wrapping as that's my main love. But I have many passions... glass, crystals, seed beads, gemstones, metalsmithing, hammering ( I love love love hammering!!), glass fusing, and now --- playing with brass components.

I've been thinking about it for 5 or so months now. I think maybe it was all the research I did for the resin class for the Girls weekend. Part of the fun with resin is putting stuff in it, like stampings and such. I have a couple of Plano boxes full of vintage/ old stock stampings and metal bits that I've not touched in years, probably since I bought them. I dug them out looking for bezel settings and decorations for the resin, and as any beader/jewelry maker knows, just digging through a box you've ignore for a while can get the creative juices flowing!

So I finally broke down ordered a small mixed lot of Vintaj stuff off one of the etsy sellers. She had shipping problems (no fault of her own) and in my impatience to finally have some to play with, I opened a wholesale account directly with them and placed my first order. The first 2 necklaces I made sold at the next show. I didn't get pictures taken, hate that!

So last month I placed my 2ND order, and I'm seriously considering a 3rd this month. Of the jewelry pieces I've made since, I've probably sold half of them. Not only do I like making jewelry with these components, people like buying them!

One of the things that is so exciting about the brass is you can paint it!! more on that in future entries, but I think it was the added color element that finally tipped me over. The Vintaj website is very generous with ideas and suggestions on what to make with their products.


This is my bird necklace. The ring says "hope" on it. The Vintaj pieces are the bird, the hope ring, the leaf and the clasp. The gun metal chain I think balances nicely with the coffee colored fresh water pearls and black matte seed beads. I added a few black crystals for just a touch of sparkle.. (see, still love crystals and seed beads !!)

Matching earrings, I really love these little birds from Vintaj! I only had 2 from a sample pack. I really want more of them!
Matching bracelet

While you can buy brass stampings at many companies, Vintaj's quality is fantastic, and the lovely brown shades are part of their own own process that you won't get anywhere else.

All this week I will be blogging about Vintaj and brass stampings in general. If you aren't ready to dive in a wholesale account with them, I am selling a few Vintaj components on my artfire site. If you want to buy from me you better hurry.. I might end up using them myself!