Spring-cleaning story-telling

Back in my youthful days, I took a lot of pride in the fact that I could remember the origin of all of my toys. From which store they were bought to how I came to like them and the such. My deluded self had hopes that I would re-sell them when I was older and become a millionaire so I could buy one of those barbie cars for kids. My greedy dreams were crushed when my mother decided to give all my toys to my cousins.

I still have the same kind of obsession with attaching a story to the items I own. Today's spring cleaning was geared towards the accesories and there were a few things that even though no longer worn, have too much of a story to be thrown away.


The first necklace is made with some beads I got on a trip to Japan. The beads came in a bag along with other random ones. I always had hopes of making many things with them but never got to it since I'm a terrible procrastinator. On one of her cleaning frenzies, my mum decided to just make random necklaces with them so they wouldn't "go to waste". Out of the many she made, I brought this one for some reason I can't really remember... maybe because the others reminded me of frankenstein.
The second necklace doesn't have much sentimental value but is is special. It's made with a peruvian seed called Huayruro. There's a tradition in Peru where a bracelet made with one of these seeds and a little metal charm in the shape of a baby is put around a new-born's wrist so he won't be vulnerable to evil. Not many people do it nowadays.
The third necklace/bracelet is also traditionally peruvian. It was my favourite necklace when I was 18 and I would wear it EVERYWHERE.
The last one is from a backpacking trip to Thailand (I know, how cliche). I got many random bits of jewellery on that trip but this one I would wear all the time with a Paul Frank t-shirt, those thai fisherman trousers favoured by backpackers (again, how cliche) and a battered pair of Adidas trainers.


The first scarf was knitted by my mom before I came to uni in the "so so cold" UK, and is the true example of a family curse where us the females get too excited and add as much crap as we can to our crafts. I do wear this scarf every once in a while, mainly because my mum stopped knitting things for me when I was around 5 (I think she couldn't be bothered to knit big jumpers) and her knitting something for 19-year-old me was a. big. deal.
The second scarf was made by my perfectionist best friend. This simple-looking scarf cost her blood, sweat and tears. If a row was 0.0001mm thinner than the others, she would get pissed off and redo the whole thing. While she could have spent max 3 hours on this, she ended up spending over a week or so. In her words, she wanted me to not find a better scarf than this one in the UK. She also recognizes it was her way of dealing with her fear that I would replace her. Alas, I have not.