Brooch bouquet update 4
Long time no update, partly because I have been quite busy with study lately, but also because I have tried to slow down the purchasing process as I sometimes tend to go into crazy shopping mode and buy things that turn out to be a waste of money. However, this is still a large post as it’s been over 2 months since the last one and the brooches have accumulated. So, let’s get right into the business.
This first one is a brooch we got from a local recycling/secondhand shop. The place was huge with all kinds of furniture and clothing and kitchenware and so on, but this was the only brooch we found. I think it would add a nice vintage touch to the bouquet, since so many of the rest are just cheap Chinese jewelleries haha.
The next batch is all from eBay. This white plastic flower is a ring, however, it arrived with one petal broken so I filed a claim and got a full refund without any question asked (gotta love Chinese sellers’ customer service). My flatmate helped me to glue the broken petal with epoxy and now it’s perfect, I almost can’t tell which one was broken.
The next one is a necklace, from exactly the same kind of flower as the ring above, only in blue. You can imagine these flowers were manufactured from the same assembly line in China, then people just made them into different products. Even here in Helsinki I’ve also seen some shops selling necklaces and bracelets from these flowers (that way I could confirm those shops import their jewelleries from China), only with prices 10 or 20 times higher. The necklace in person is more of a sky blue, not as turquoise as in this picture.
This one I bought just because it’s big and very cheap. Its white/silver colour doesn’t fit my bouquet though, so I’m gonna paint it somehow. Still thinking about what is the best option to paint and still maintain the sparkle of the stones.
This next item is a set of enamel necklace and earrings, which I bought while I was in a craze for purple and blue “brooches”. However, these flowers disappointed me greatly as they look and feel quite cheap in person, in fact one petal of one of the earrings fell off when I took them out for photo as you can see, so I’m not sure whether I will include them in the bouquet.
The below flower is also a large ring. Although the base is golden colour, I still haven’t decided if I want to paint the whole flower so that it would stand out a little bit more in the bouquet.
This below pair of peony flowers is resin cabochons, made for jewellery makers to make jewelleries out of them. That’s why they are flatback, which is something I should have thought about when buying because it makes attaching them to the bouquet is a liitle bit harder (I’ll have to use glue instead of wires like what I intend to do with the majority of the brooches). But anyway, I like the colours and the way they are very detailed, I think they’ll be pretty for the bouquet.
Along with those I also bid and won these 10 tiny 22 x 22mm resin flower cabochons:
Somehow during the above craze to diversify the flowers in terms of both colours and materials, I also went and bought these two fabric brooches. Well, let’s just say they are not as nice in person and I still don’t know what to do with them now.
Again, to diversify the items I also bought butterflies…
Okay, done with the eBay stuff. These below items I got from recent trips to secondhand shops and flea markets in Helsinki. It’s always nice to take a break from a sea of “different but same same” Chinese stuff to see things of totally different styles, and buy when you can actually get a hold of the product before paying.
I even got a lot of fun with friends during the hunt for brooches. I feel like this project is just my excuse to be able to shop for pretty things legitimately and do something crafty. No matter how it will turn out, I’m happy that I have fun along the way.
A deep red flower brooch. The red is a bit too dark for my liking, but the brooch is very well made and in good condition.
This one is another ring with a crochet base and a rhinestone flower on top. A nice touch to the bouquet, I hope.
Another ring. This is so pretty my only wish is for it to be bigger. I like both the colours and and the design.
A bracelet with a flower similar to the rhinestone flower ring from eBay above. Again, I need to find a way to paint it. This one with little pearls could be even harder to paint than the rhinestones.
This last one is from a flea market recently held in Helsinki. I got 2 pairs of shoes and this little bow from there. I like the colour of the bow, and thought it would be fun to add in the bouquet among the flowers (again, diversity).
Oh, by the way, I told you in the last post that my cousin in Australia was nice enough to go search for brooches from Down Under for me, right? Last week her package of goodness arrived in Helsinki, and there are even a lot more than in the last post. Each of them is so beautiful I almost don’t want to imprison them in my bouquet, I just want them to have lives of their own <3
And now … *drum rolls* … the long awaited moment of the whole collection’s photo. I’m sorry I forgot one or two items (and also forgot to adjust the while balance so had to spend half an hour to figure out how to do it in Photoshop) but anyway, they look amazing nonetheless 
