Wearing Your Weaknesses With Cast Of Vices Jewelry

Whether you've kicked the habit, or still indulge, the jewelry from Cast of Vices is a hand crafted reminder of our vices, be them smoking, drinking, pill-popping, snorting - or even chewing on a pen cap.

Cast in sterling silver or gold, the pendants, bracelets and pins are detailed representations of our culture's obsession with self-medicating. The fly is said to serve as a reminder of the 'stench of our addictions' and is available on any piece shown.


Cigarette butts:

Beer Bottlecaps (Corona, Budweiser and Miller High Life):

Pills, pills, pills in gold or sterling silver:


Pills bracelet:

With flies:

Fly pendants and cockroach pin:

Pen cap and pouch pendants:

Vials with sterling silver caps:


All pieces are hand-crafted in the USA with sterling silver or 14k gold using the lost wax casting process.


To find your nearest stockist, go here.

Growing Rings & Necklaces by HAF, Now Available

Talk about your green thumb. Or rather, finger. Hafsteinn Juliusson is an Industrial/Interior designer from Reykjavik, Iceland living and working in Milano, Italy who has come up with the idea of combining living organisms with sterling silver jewelry.




Growing Jewelry from HAF, designed by Hafsteinn Juliusson
Growing Rings and necklaces are a mix of jewelry and plant, couture and organism. The rings and pendants hold actual living greenery and are now available in limited production. This collection is a handmade product made in Iceland and all pieces are made out of molded silver.

The images you see below are available. Other sizes are available by special request.

The Rings:






The Necklaces:





Rings like the one shown above are available by special request only.
above photos by Harpa Hödd, Saga Sigurðardóttir and Sóley Þórisdóttir

It is important to take care of the Growing Jewelry. For best results water it only once every 5 weeks and be careful not to water too much. It’s also good to store the ring in deep freeze to preserve it. The moss can stay green for up to 8 - 12 months but Hafsteinn Juliusson takes no responsibility for that :)



The rings and necklaces can be purchased directly from the designer here.
Or from Gnr8.

Kria Bones Up On Jewelry Design, Vertebrae Necklaces and More

kria, n (sterna paradisaea) migrates farther than any other bird and in known for ferocious protection of breeding grounds.

Kria jewelry is a collection of femur bones, wing bones, caudal vertebrae, branches and twigs cast in 14k yellow gold or sterling silver. Necklaces on rope chains or leather, bracelets and rings, some embedded with diamonds, others with pearls, are all delicately rendered as miniature and elegant wearable pieces.



I'm going to show you the pieces in gold, but keep in mind, many of these are available in sterling silver, too.

Some of the necklaces:




Gold vertebrae necklace and bracelet on leather:

Gold bone and branch rings:

gold branch bangle bracelet:

Gold bone and branch earrings:


The inspiration for Kria appeared on a black lava beach in eastern Iceland in the summer of 2006 when Johanna Methusalemsdottir found a skeleton of the bird by the same name nestled in the sand. The birth of her second daughter, Lóla Salvör came soon after as did the birth of the Kria collection and both are growing.

Kria was officially founded in 2007 while Johanna was experimenting with the re-contextualization of elements of the natural world through jewelry. In an effort to integrate the shapes of organic objects such as bones and branches with the shapes of the human body, she began a fresh illumination of the grace of evolutionary design with the Kria collection.


Johanna Methusalemsdottir (above) originally left Reykjavik, Iceland for New York City in 1988 and worked her way into the world of fashion with Me & Ro jewelry as their first employee before she took time off to give birth to her first daughter, Lóla Salvör. Later she became a press officer and a fashion media liaison for Patrick Cox, a manager of a retro-couture showroom, and finally a stylist working with magazines including Crash, British GQ Style, Nylon, Fade, Black, In Style, Oyster, Blast, Trace, Beaux Arts, Black Book, Sportswear International, Clear, Composite, Seventeen, as well as for national television advertising.

ALL ITEMS COME IN A HAND PRINTED EGG SHAPED LEATHER POUCH WITH A POST CARD.

Kria Jewelry is all handmade and produced in New York City. You can purchase her jewelry and other cool Iceland based design items at Icelandic Market

Three Artists Sink Their Teeth (And Yours) Into Jewelry

PART I*: The use of real teeth or casts of real teeth in jewelry by three very different artists.


above: porcelain tooth bracelet by Claire Johnston, 14lk gold tooth earrings by Kim Kovel, human molar ring by Polly van der Glas, silver and gold cast tooth necklace by Claire Johnston

You might have seen Australian artist Polly Van der Glas' jewelry made with real human teeth on various sites and blogs that post the bizarre, creepy and unusual stuff.

In her first collection of wearable art, the works are handmade in Melbourne with sterling silver and human teeth (she also makes jewelry with human hair). The human teeth with which she works are locally donated and sterilized, and she says' hard to come by', so she welcomes donations.

But she's not the only one turning molars and bicuspids into wearable art. Kim Kovel of Le Knockout will cast your teeth (or your child's) in gold or sterling silver to wear as earrings or a charm, some embedded with gems or engraved with an initial. Custom designs are also available at her store called Le Knockout.

And then there's Claire Johnston, with her Tooth Fairy Series, a collection of oversized slip cast porcelain as well as sterling silver cast human teeth to create bracelets, necklaces and rings.

A trend I do not plan on personally exhibiting, but one I wanted to share.

The work of Polly Van der Glas:







visit her site here.


The work of Kim Kovel:






Kim Kovel of Le Knockout:



LE KNOCKOUT by KIM KOVEL
PO BOX 10579 PORTLAND OREGON 97296
INFO@LEKNOCKOUT.COM


The work of Claire Johnston:

visit her blog to learn more.

Chomping at the bit for more?

*This is the first of a two part series on teeth in art. Because there's so much to ruminate over (sorry, I couldn't help myself), tomorrow will feature Part II Biting Art; Mouth Dioramas, Teeth Tattoos and Mini Figs On Molars