Last week I was wandering down High Street in Northcote and went into A Quirk Of Fate – a shop I hadn’t been in before (so I guess it is relatively new) and I admired the jewellery display so much that I took a photo to remember what they had done. The reason I was so interested was that I have made some similar jewellery in the past, and I thought the wooden blocks were a great display medium.

Then … Coburg hard rubbish (this might be a theme for a few posts I fear). As I was driving along I noticed a pile of blocks of wood that were a similar size to the ones I had seen for the jewellery display.

I stopped and as I picked some out of the pile of 30 or so, I had a chat to the girl who was putting them out.  I asked where they came from and she said that her partner was a landscaper and they were left over from a job. So, the trash of someone else is my new treasure.

I brought them home, washed them (they’d obviously been in the ground and some had rotted at one end), lightly sanded them, waxed them and put screws in the back. Job done!

Looking back at the photo I took in A Quirk Of Fate, the ones I have made can only be viewed as ‘inspired by’. Mine are definitely more rustic and rough and ready rather than Scandinavian and clean and tidy.   The timber I picked up is old and worn, not perfectly sanded and generally covered in imperfections. But I am very happy with my new timber jewellery display blocks – warts and all!

I have six of them, so that we can use them in the shop at Art4All this year (if Petra and Jenny want to).  In the meantime, I am using a couple of them in my studio to store the jewellery I have made for the upcoming pre-mothers day makers market at Fairfield Primary School.