Contrariwise ramblings

Elizabeth, who has some wonderful jewelry in her Etsy shop, Keys and Memories, has "Freebie Wednesdays" on her blog. All you have to do is leave a comment, then she draws a name to pick the winner. Well, a couple of weeks ago, she picked my name!

Whoo hoo! I couldn't believe I won!

I checked the mailbox daily until the package came! (It only took a few days but I was impatient.)

Now for the fun part: opening it!

Wow! Look what's in it! First there was a zip lock bag with the shop name and her logo, and the blog website. (A great idea! )

Inside the ziplog bag was a lovely note, some candy, and another ziplock bag containing my prize! And here it is:

It's one of her typewriter key necklaces! Isn't it cool. I'm not sure how she makes them, but they're really nifty.

But some of my favorite things in her shop are her steampunk jewelry made out of watch parts and vintage items. (I'm just a sucker for steam punk. I wrote about some fabulous steampunk computers and journals in an earlier post.) This brooch in her shop is just amazing:

To see more neat stuff in her Etsy shop, Keys and Memories, click here.

BTW, the typewriter key necklace I got seems to be on permanent loan to my 17 yr-old daughter. She "borrowed" it the day it came, so I will probably never see it again.

Children...

...can't live with them; can't kill them.

First, if you're not familiar with steampunk, it's like an alternate history: what would our world be like if we still used steampower to drive our inventions and if everything was still handcrafted instead of being mass-produced? Sort of like a combination of sci-fi, goth, and geekery.

Still unsure of what it is? Think of the final scene of Back to the Future Part III : Remember Dr Emmett Brown and his family flying away in a steam-powered time-machine locamotive? That was early steampunk. Have you seen the movie The Golden Compass or it's trailers? They have some wonderful scenes of steampunkery. (Especially the airship.)

A perfect example of steampunk is the work of Jake von Slatt (not his real name) who is quickly becoming something of an icon on the scene. He's probably best known for his computer mods, namely his steampunk keyboard, and most recently, his steampunk monitor:

Pretty cool, huh.

All handmade- he even cuts the sheets of paper for them!

Aren't these gorgeous. Even though I probably wouldn't wear them (I would if I were only younger -*sigh*), I still admire her work and love looking at her pieces. They've definitely got a retrofuturistic flair to them. Her stuff makes me wish I could devote all my time to designing jewelry.