2 Blue Enamel Virgin Mary Medals: The Destiny of Things, Story 514 & 515

2 Blue Enamel Virgin Mary Medal Stories:  The Destiny of Things, Story 514 & 515

Very nostalgic stories!  And the last few of my sterling blue enamel Holy Virgin Mary medals!

Lost and replaced Blue Enamel Holy Virgin Mary, Story 514

Story 514:

It's a gift for my mom. My uncle gave her the pendant as a gift and I always wanted to wear it. I went to the beach one day and put it in a pouch for safe keeping. My friend's mom said she should hold on to it and she lost it :(. It's taken me 15 years to find another one similar so I'm very excited.

This one even had a marcasite on it's bail!

Photo via The Destiny of Things

Here is what I wrote back:

Hi again!

Thank you for getting back to us and I just had time to read through all your emails and want to thank you for sharing your story!

So happy to hear you found one to return to your mom after all these years! I'm sure your Mom and Uncle will be quite surprised!

Best regards,
Kennedy

PS. I am so curious, will you be borrowing the pendant again?

My second to last sterling silver Holy Virgin Blue Enamel Mary

Photo via The Destiny of Things

And she answered back!  

I was thinking of having it shipped to my mom directly but I want to see the reaction on her face so I'm going to keep it until I see her again. I will definitely NOT be borrowing it again haha. Even though I feel like I wasn't to blame. I always kick myself for allowing my friend's mom to hold on to it. I had it in my phone case (when they were huge), it would've been safe. I will be requesting it in the will.

Thanks again.

Then I asked if I could use her story on my blog and she wrote back:

Of course you can! :) I didn't see the information about your Blog until after purchasing the pendant. I feel like it was definitely meant to be for me to find it. 

I just love it when Etsy buyers feel like something they found in my hoard was meant for them!  Then I told her I'd use here story in a week or two and it's been over a year!  Yikes!  I have a lot of catching up on stories to do!

Do you lose a lot of jewelry?  I have lost a lot of jewelry, especially one of a pair to earrings!  I have been finding so many single earrings that it's quite a collection now and I hope the other matching ones show up during my hoard organizing, but it doesn't seem likely.  

Story 515 is much shorter!

This is my last sterling silver Holy Virgin Blue Enamel Mary, the rest are 800, 500 silver or silver tone or at least that's all I've found so far and I think and hope I'm getting down to the bottom of religious medal collection.  I still have a lot of sterling silver religious medals and crosses, but not blue enamel ones.

Photo via The Destiny of Things

Story 514 came in the form of a little note in review:

It is such a beautiful piece and looks even better in person. Just need a long chain to wear with it. My dad and mom were a priest and nun so its value might have more value to me.

I hope she found a long chain to wear it!  I thankful it has a lot of value for her because I have no idea why I collected so many!  

One of my best friends from my teaching days was an ex-nun who married a priest and then had a kid.  She retired way before I did.  I wonder how she doing these days.

This one was in an unusual shaped octagon, which seems more difficult to find and I love the scroll work on the front of it, reminds me of butterflies in each corner.

Photo via The Destiny of Things

Saying Goodbye:  As a recovering hoarder, I am so grateful that many of my Holy Virgin blue enamel Mary's have found "meaningful forever" homes!  I was starting to collect mother of pearl sterling silver religious medals too and I'm so thankful that something stopped me!

What I Learned:

1.  Maybe I was meant to cross paths again with one of my best friends from my teaching days and the last story was meant for me as a reminder!  There were six of us and before I retired only one other retired before me...... hmmmmm, it might be time for a reunion!

2.  I'm still not sure why I got so carried away and bought so many religious medals back in the 80s to 90s, but I do remember what I thought I was going to do with them!  I was going to make them into religious folk art pieces, like my version of milagro crosses below, but use all blue enamel Holy Virgin Mary's and all mother of pearl Holy Virgin Mary's, etc.

The black cross is my garden milagro cross that helped me turn my black thumb into a green one and the heart milagro cross, my brother borrowed until he found his true love and married her!  Garden milagro cross is available here and the Lover's Heart milagro cross here.  Both have traditional Mexican milagros and sterling silver charms, etc on them.

Photo via The Destiny of Things

3.  Which reminds me, I have an extensive sterling silver and 14k gold charm collection too!  I've started to list them at all the shops in groups, but I think they might find homes more easily listed individually.  It's just that I have so many.  I'll have to try another Etsy experiment and see what happens.

4.  It's so crazy hot here for over a week now that I haven't been sleeping or eating.  It's so hot that it doesn't even cool down in the wee mornings to even sleep with a sheet!  And I don't get hungry til around 8 pm and when I do, it's crazy hunger!  like eat everything in sight til I get a stomach ache.  Okay, I've learned to eat so I don't get a stomach ache, it only happened once or twice, lol.

I'm on a liquid diet of tons of water, green juice drinks, homemade aqua fresca, usually crushed grapefruit, blackberries and Pelegrino water.  What's your favorite summer cool down drinks?

Vintage blue enamel Holy Virgin Mother Blessed Mary ornate cross .500 silver medal art deco nouveau pendant religious birthday jewelry gift, available here

Photo via The Destiny of Things

Thank you Etsy buyers for sharing your stories!  I'm inspired to renew old friendships, instead of hoarding!

My purge pile has stopped growing.  So hopefully the weekend after the World Cup,  we can go drop it off.  Still not safe for me to go to a thrift shop alone, I'm so tempted to go in and "just" look, but end up buying who knows what!

I'm not a big fan of sports, but I am still enjoying all the sport snacks!  This weekend it's going to be some croissants for breakfast and Croatian snacks!

Speaking of snacks, I found an alternative to my favorite snack, organic chips!  It's LesserEvil Buddha Bowl Organic Popcorn Himalayan Sweetness, it's not too sweet and reminds me of eating cracker jacks without all the sugar.  We ordered a box of 12, since they have free shipping.

Everyday is such an adventure dehoarding on Etsy!   I never know who I'll meet and I have met so many Etsy buyers who share their stories with me and every time I glean some insight about where my dehoarding journey is taking me.

Thank you Etsy for the best Hoarder Rehab ever!  And for all the kind people I'm meeting who are helping me indirectly and directly in so many ways with my Hoarder Rehab! 

I think this might be my last sterling silver mother of pearl marcasite Holy Virgin Mary medal, available here.  Photo via The Destiny of Things

My goal has changed to list more weekly, so my new goal is from 170 to 175 items per shop.   I've been working on 170 items per shop and new listing and all the shops have 170 items, except for one.

Sales are still up!  I think it might be from adding at least one new listings almost every week to each shop.  I'm still trying to narrow down my crafting options because I have way too much craft supplies, but I keep flip flopping about it and still need to decide what to list and what to keep.

Soon Etsy is raising their fees across the board, except for the listing fee.  So I might be adding a dollar or more to each listing and/or add a few coin to shipping to cover the new fees.  Here are the new fees, as I understand it, correct me if I've made a mistake about it.

Transaction fee was 3.5%, but it's going up to 5% on July 16, 2018.

New shipping fee, all shipping fees get charged 5% on July 16, 2018.

Processing fee is staying the same, I think, which is 3% plus .25 cents per transaction

Listing fee is still the same of .20 cents for 4 months, or .05 cents per month.

Click on the shop names to visit new hoard listed daily and/or weekly: HoarderRehab with 170 items, The Destiny of Things- 170 items, VintageToGoEasy - 169 items and JunkDrawerAndMore - 171 items. 

Maybe you'll find something and give it new life and a new home!  Thanks for looking!

I had several of these in different  colors and this is my last one in clear, available here.

Photo via Hoarder Rehab

"Educate your children to be happy and not rich, so when they grow up they know the value of experiences and not the price of things."---Unknown

Thank you for visiting my Hoarder Rehab and The Destiny of Things!