Leila's Lockets and Crafts

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Leila's Lockets and Crafts

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Sharing estate fine jewelry, personally assembled gemstone lockets, and vintage fashion jewelry for timeless style & sustainable fashion.

Leila's Lockets and Crafts - Every piece has a past and a purpose. I curate estate fine jewelry, design gemstone lockets by hand, and revive vintage fashion finds — all chosen for their craftsmanship, history, and enduring style. Repurposing what’s already beautiful means less waste, more meaning, and jewelry that never goes out of fashion.

09/11/2026

This bracelet and choker share the similar oval link construction, the kind of bold, open chain design that was everywhere in costume jewelry through the 1970s and 80s. It's a deceptively simple pattern, rings interlocked and repeated down the length of the chain, but it reads as substantial and architectural rather than delicate.

The bracelet carries the Monet name right on its toggle closure, which tells you something about how the brand thought about clasps. Monet has been making jewelry since 1937 and built a reputation on that kind of detail, a functional part like a clasp becoming a design element instead of an afterthought.

The choker shares the same link style but no marking on this one though, so it's listed honestly as unmarked even with the strong family resemblance.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

09/09/2026

Long before phones held our schedules, women carried dance cards, small printed cards where each dance of the evening was numbered and a partner's name went next to it. The problem was always the pencil. Purses weren't standard evening accessories yet, so jewelers solved it by building the pencil into the jewelry itself. This is a Ketcham & McDougall dance card pencil, a floral engraved brooch with a slim mechanical pencil that extends on a retractable chain, so it stayed pinned to a dress and ready the whole night.

Ketcham & McDougall's roots go back to 1832, and by the 1870s the firm had built a real reputation for finely made functional accessories, thimbles, eyeglass holders, gold and silver mounted pieces, the kind of jewelry that was meant to be used, not just worn. This same retractable pencil mechanism also turns up in some nurse's pins from the same era, worn on the uniform for quick notes. Either way, what's notable here is that the mechanism still works. It extends smoothly, retracts on its own spring, and the lead still twists forward, which is a genuinely rare thing to find fully functional after a century or more.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

09/07/2026

This is the one that has weight to it. Vintage Elgin ladies bracelet watch, 1980s-90s. Wide engraved band, raised geometric motifs on every link, 5/8 inch across, 62 grams total. Before the conversion this piece announced itself just by sitting on your wrist. That part hasn't changed.

What has changed is everything inside the case. There are three layers happening under that domed crystal and they're all visible at once. First: a mother of pearl watch face from another Elgin, adhered to the interior caseback as a luminous backdrop. Second: select movement components, gears, copper coil, mechanical parts placed on that surface. Third: just over 3 carats of garnet, white topaz, opal, and pink tourmaline floating loose over all of it. Deep red, soft pink, opal's play of color, white catching whatever's left.

The domed crystal gives the interior more depth than a flat crystal would. Which means you see all three layers simultaneously every time you look down. This is the statement piece of the collection. It knows it.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

09/05/2026

I bought a lot of gold plated jewelry at auction; and it's been fun going through it all. Half of the pieces won't show up here, or in the shop due to their quality. But I will highlight some of the fun (and affordable) ones I am reselling - starting with this leaf cuff.

Nature has been sneaking its way into jewelry design for over a century, and this leaf cuff is a nice example of why. Look closely at the surface and you'll see swirl and scroll patterns fanning out across the metal, almost like veins running through a leaf or the barbs of a feather catching light. That kind of fine engraving work takes real tooling, not a simple stamped texture.

The whole piece hinges open, so it slides on and closes securely rather than needing to be forced over your wrist, a common design solution for cuffs like this one. At 62 grams it also has genuine weight, more substance than a lot of the thin, etched cuffs you come across in vintage costume jewelry.

No maker's mark on this one, so it's one of those pieces that's a mystery in the best way, all the character with none of the paperwork. If you're drawn to jewelry that borrows its shapes from the natural world, this one's worth a look.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

09/04/2026

You know I can't resist a black and white combo! Natural white zircon gets misidentified constantly — most people see a bright, colorless stone in a silver setting and assume cubic zirconia. The two materials aren't even close to the same thing. Zircon is a natural gemstone, one of the oldest minerals on earth, with a refractive index that rivals diamond and a fire that CZ simply doesn't replicate. Black spinel gets similarly overlooked — it's a distinct natural stone with its own optical properties, regularly confused with black onyx or dyed material. This ring has both, confirmed with thermal conductivity testing. The design is a fully pavé-set bow in rhodium-plated 925 sterling silver, alternating diagonal rows of white zircon and black spinel across the entire surface with a center twist where the bow crosses. It's a bold piece that photographs dramatically and wears with real presence. Worth knowing what you're actually looking at before you assume it's costume.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

09/01/2026

Orange is one of the hardest colors to find in a natural gemstone. The market is full of blue topaz — it's everywhere because colorless topaz is routinely irradiated to produce that familiar sky blue. This oval is 14x10mm, which puts it at approximately 6 carats — a substantial stone by any measure, not a token center stone in a setting that's doing all the visual work. The setting does plenty on its own: 925 sterling silver with a 22k gold vermeil surface, which is how Indian jewelry makers have been working for centuries — much higher karat gold than American gold-filled standards, applied over silver with artisan attention to the result. The shank is square-profile with open filigree scrollwork covering every surface including the interior, the kind of detail that separates hand-worked pieces from cast production. The shoulders are set with colorless topaz, not CZ — the same stone family as the center, confirmed with thermal testing. The warm gold surface against the orange stone is not an accident. It's a considered combination that's been working in Indian jewelry design for a very long time.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

08/31/2026

Sometimes the band is the whole point. This vintage Pulsar bracelet watch from the 1980s-90s had a band worth saving. Polished leaf-shaped links, substantial and dimensional, the kind of design that catches light differently with every movement. It was already doing the work of a piece of jewelry. It just had a watch attached.

So the watch part came out. All of it. And in went just over 3 carats of sapphire, opal, and topaz, floating loose under the original crystal. The stones shift every time your wrist moves. The band does what it always did. The whole thing became something else entirely.

No gears this time. No circuit boards. Just a beautiful vintage bracelet with a better story than it started with.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

08/28/2026

The steampunk bracelet line is open. This started as a vintage Pulsar quartz watch from the 1970s. Pulsar was one of the brands that pioneered quartz technology, the electronic movement that quietly made mechanical watches obsolete almost overnight. The resistor, capacitor, circuit board: all still there, now visible through the original crystal.

What's also there: just over 1.5 carats of opal, sapphire, topaz, quartz, and citrine floating loose on top of all that history. Opal and sapphire as the anchor stones, the rest catching light around them every time your wrist moves.

Same philosophy as the pendant conversions. Genuine vintage components, real gemstones, one deliberate decision. Different format entirely. It sits on your wrist the way it always did. It just has a completely different story now.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

08/14/2026

Sold! The Lucerne found its home. For those who missed it: that was a 1960s Swiss mechanical pendant watch with the guilloché chevron exterior, gears visible through the original crystal, opal, garnet and white topaz floating loose on top of the movement. Someone saw it and just knew. That's exactly the energy.

Good news though, there's still plenty to explore in the shop. Vintage pendant watches in their original form for the purists, and steampunk conversions for the ones who want something nobody else has. Real Swiss movements, real gemstones, real history in every piece.

And here's a little teaser: vintage wristwatches are about to become steampunk bracelets. Same idea, worn differently. Details coming soon and I think you're going to like where this is going.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

08/12/2026

Three things happening here and all of them are working. First, the watch itself. This is a 1960s Caravelle by Bulova, pink guilloché enamel front, concentric gold and pink bezel rings, mod era design that committed fully to its moment. It winds manually. It runs. A vintage mechanical pendant watch in working condition is not a given, and this one delivers.

Second, flip it over. Instead of a plain caseback there is a see-through crystal showing the full mechanical movement. Gears, balance wheel, jewel settings, all of it visible and running. In modern watchmaking this is called an exhibition caseback and it is a premium feature on fine mechanical watches. Caravelle put one on a pendant watch in the 1960s. The steampunk aesthetic built an entire visual language around exactly this kind of mechanical transparency decades later. This piece was already there.

Third, the chain. Genuine Monet, 28 inches, 3mm snake style, 26 grams. Monet has been making serious American jewelry since 1929. The patented pull-lever clasp opens from the center like a claw and holds like it means it. At 26 grams this chain has presence you can feel.

https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

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https://www.ebay.com/str/leilaslockets

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