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Homemaker and Mama to 4 beautiful children. My daily journey through life on our farm.

Friday 20 March 2009

Beautiful lucite.


One of the great things i love about blogging is occasionally finding out things which i previously knew nothing about, be it a lovely shop, or maybe a new craft. Well, a couple of weeks ago i settled down to watch the antiques roadshow(i know im like a little old lady at 25!), cant remember which date it was exactly, Mr P must have been out as he hates it so i revel in it when i can watch a whole episode alone! I became intrigued when one of the ladies had taken some beautiful little treasures along for the valuers. The table was full of lots of different beautiful little flowers encased in pieces of clear plastic, some were brooches and others just 'pieces'. The valuer went on to explain that this was a collection of a vintage plastic called Lucite, id never heard of it before but i was intrigued as they ladys collection was so beautiful. Looking further on the net ive found that Lucite was popularized by DuPont in the 1930s, as an alternative to the more expensive (and now famous) plastic-Bakelite. According to Wikipedia, the chemical name for the tradename Lucite is 'Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). It started off being used for costume jewellery and in the 1950s became extremely popular in something called Jelly Belly Jewellery (I’m not familiar with this type of vintage jewellery). Judging by ebay the popularity of it continues to this day. Here are a few images ive borrowed from Google to show you....Do let me know what you think!




6 comments:

Sal said...

Really interesting.
I'd love to have a feel of it to see how it compares with the plastic of today.
;-)

MelMel said...

I'm a fan too!
Tho never can find it!
I watched Antiques Roadshow and a women on there had loads!

Thank you for the email hunni...back soon!xxxx

roseroomnz.com said...

Absolutely beautiful! Rachaelxo

Shabby Chick said...

I've never seen or heard of lucite before, so I've learnt something new today! It looks gorgeous, I would love to own some!

Mel xxx

Charlotte said...

Had to smile... :-) My boyfriend loves the antiques roadshow so we always watch it together on a Sunday night... We play a little game where we try to guess the value of things and get a point if we get it right. He always wins, I am generally hopeless!

Thank you again for the link to www.cottontailsbaby.co.uk - I am so, so grateful.

Love Charlotte
xxx

Audra, Green Meadow Lane said...

I've never used the stuff before, but it sure is neat! There is so much you can do with it! What a great find!