Beaded Floral Sprays

Having made Jade Sprays, see  related link  https://baiyu-quietmuse.blogspot.com/2015/03/new-life-for-old-charms.html I have moved on to making  Beaded Floral Sprays. Below are some examples of my work using seed beads, old glass beads, and jade.

a basic spray of daisies

made from old Peking glass crumb beads

look like lily buds ?

And  a collage of my beaded sprays

Collage of  3 beaded sprays

Colourful beads make pretty flowers

I like to portray my beads as flowers

My miniature sprays also look nice standing in miniature antique bottles seen below

Composed from a mix of glass beads and jade charms

The last and most complex spray's pattern was copied from a book and made  with small seed beads, carnelian beads and jade leaves.

Pattern copied from a bead and wiring book

 *See also link  https://baiyu-quietmuse.blogspot.com/2015/03/new-life-for-old-charms.html

Jade Leis

I have found yet another use for my miscellaneous jade charms. By attaching them to a vintage silver chain,  a " jade lei" is formed.

Jade Lei composed of jade charms or amulets

According to wikipedia a lei is defined as :

Lei is a garland or wreath. More loosely defined, a lei is any series of objects strung together ... Often the composition of a lei determine the meaning behind a lei; a lei made using a hala fruit for instance is said to be connected to love, desire, ... etc 

For me the meaning behind my jade lei is just my love for jade, and here's a closeup look at my lucky charms.

close up of  charms on lei

The second lei I made mostly from white and off white pieces of vintage jade.

jade lei 2 on qing dynasty silver chain

Although carved from   lower quality jade  the charms in the second lei are no less interesting. An eclectic assortment of jade charms including  animals and insects,  as fish, rabbit, cicada and several  fruits, a hand and a fan are represented in the closeup below.

an assortment of jade charms from fan to hand

Carefully curated pieces of jade art

 

 

I hope the title of this post doesn't sound too grand for my little jade discards. I couldn't resist using  the catchy title  even at the risk of sounding pretentious.



Carefully curated



 

Each piece measuring approximately 1.5cm to 2.3cm is  hand carved from paper thin jade. Imagine the work!

Do these curious charms or amulets  some damaged and faded merit such praise? Is it art? Is it craft or is it junk? Reader and collector, I leave it to your individual discernment and taste to judge. As for me I rate them as crafty art, these neato pieces of finely carved jade depicting bamboo, flower, plant, butterfly etc.


 

Hand carved from paper thin jade

 

There is a history of more than 100 years behind these delicate but durable carvings. The artisans  worked laboriously to turn them into all things natural and auspicious,  such as plants, weeds, butterflies, bees, flowers and what have you. These in turn are assembled into artistic hairpins and other ornaments. Through the passage of time, people no longer use old fashioned hairpins and ornaments, their   live styles and hairstyles evolving towards modern jewelery and trendy accessories.  As they fall into disuse the jade pieces become detached from their gold and silver mountings. The metals are melted down and sold or recycled but jade which is indestructible are cast aside  to be rediscovered by bargain hunters at flea marts, yard sales and junk stores. Hah ! Now I really feel like a curator, narrating the life story of these charms.

 





life story of jade charms



I have mounted them onto red templates  arranged over a black background. I must confess that I  got the idea of such a compilation from  a photo I espied on ebay. So thank you  my ebay compatriot. I sure hope your picture sold well. And hope you pardon this copy-cat-collector borrowing your design. As the cliché goes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :)

Jade on red templates over a black background



It was finally made into a framed picture and the treasured pieces now decorates part of my wall space.

 

 

Jade charms decorate my wall



 



 

New Life for Old Charms

This bagful of dusty, old jade charms had been sitting in my drawers for some years now.

Bagful of old jade charms

Occasionally I would dig them up to make the odd earring for a Christmas or New Year gift. Because these charms had a random pre-life (as hairpin, toggle or accessory) it is hard to find an exact matching pair for earrings.

Charms of every shape and size - hard to find an identical pair



And earring wearers are also loth to put on unmatched pairs, so it had not been an altogether  successful  project for these hand cut charms

Mismatched charms



While mulling over them one day I had an epiphany and I was struck by a sudden brainwave to reinvent them into jade sprays. Learning to wire these charms into a spray needed a few hours to master.

Practice piece



From this charm making exercise I also got an opportunity to use and show off antique glass bottles from my old bottles collection. These bottles had been languishing in shoe boxes with nary a glance from admirers showered on them and now they have been rejuvenated!  Look,  how well they complement my little jade sprays.


Antique glass bottles complement my jade sprays

These bottles are also interesting old glass specimens. The two end bottles look like 1920's perfume bottles and the gourd shape bottle could have been used for Chinese herbal medicine. Next to it is a carved crystal snuff bottle which I have converted into mini vase for my jade spray.

I have also roped in a 1970s or 80s Joy perfume bottle to plant my jade spray with pearl accents, shown below.

Joy and Jade make a lovely pair!



My jade sprays stand out  below with  my 1,000 year old Sung dynasty (960-1279AD) greenware pot. Together they form a classic composition.

Unending beauty - jade and Sung greenware



Wiring these tiny charms into sprays have been therapeutic . How they cheer me and heal the stress and pain of daily living.

Jade as healer



I love collecting .....

......jade hairpins and hair accessories, from a bygone era. My collection is mostly made  from jade, carnelian or silver and date from the Qing dynasty to early 20th Century. Hairpins are essentially objects of feminine beauty to decorate ladies hair. They have evolved  into tender gifts of love  from milady to hero as featured in many a lovers tale in Chinese novels and dramas. Adam Cheng's wistful ballad Purple Jade Hairpin also celebrates the romance of the hairpin.

Vintage and antique hairpins of jade carnelian and silver



 Not all the hairpins in my collection are in their original condition, some have been reworked with missing parts filled in, others are the remains of assemblages namely the jade, carnelian, coral or agate while the gold and silver content have been melted down for money.

The jade and carnelian carvings below are examples of  items disassembled from a large assemblage.

Remains of hairpins



Bottom most piece of a fish had been reworked by me into a dangle.

Hair pin shaped as a sword at one end and a fish at the other.



Hairsticks are the most basic design of hairpins and usually consist of a simple gilt or silver stick topped with a  jade charm. The five sticks shown below are examples.

Hairsticks with small jade charm tops



Many of these jade tops  get detached from the original sticks as the silver and gold content of the sticks can be melted down and converted into money. The remaining jade tops are  then recycled as jade charms, pendants, or amulets.

Small jade charms recycled from hairsticks



Lotus because of its association with purity and spirituality was a favorite design for milady's hairpin. Picture below shows one intact jade stick with a lotus and five other pieces of lotus sans the sticks

Lotus jade stick with remains of five other carved lotus

 Other jade carvings used in hair accessories can range from design of flowers, birds, hands, butterflies, flower basket etc. Below are some examples



butterflies and flowers



 lotus



Bird

Beautiful hands to emphasise beautiful hair

Besides jade, carnelian was also a favourite medium for hair pin carvings.

Carnelian florets

Some of the examples shown above are often described as buttons but I suspect they may  have served multi purposes, as components in a large or complicated hairpin, as a gentlemen's pin and brooches for example.

There are also hairpins carved from a single piece of jade or carnelian which are  cool.

This curved jade hair ornament is completely plain 



Carnelian and jade hairpins

Hairpin of  a goat and a dragon



 Not forgetting my silver hairpins

Silver hairpins

And here is a rare matching pair of insects with imperial green jade for the wings, coral for the eyes and pearl for the body set in silver gilt.

A pair of hairpins collected from a heritage house
 in Swatow, South China.



Finally my most elaborate hair ornament which I daresay is a reworked piece judging by the rather rough workmanship, nevertheless, still an exotic piece.

Hairpin made of carnelian, jade, coral twigs,  pearl and glass charms



This semi circular hairpin is composed of three bis (2 of white jade, one of carnelian) a pair of jade deers,  small coral and pearl beads, emerald green glass beads, a white jade flower, 2 small carnelian pendants, a pair of coral twigs,  a pair of carnelian bats and a pair of white jade carvings of  a bushy tailed squirrel guzzling on a nut .....oh  what an eclectic and enjoyable piece !

The central silver stick has the Chinese characters Ai Yu Zhou  (Love Jade Manufacture) inscribed on it.