Telephone Cording Trends & Free Necklaces

As I flipped through the pages of a recent issue of Elle I was struck by a small picture of a girl in a pink and gray dress. What caught my eye was the detail work on the dress. The blurb under the picture mentioned that the designer was Scottish textile designer Louise Gray and that she had worked for houses like Lanvin. What was holding my attention was trying to decide if the pink detailing on the dresses was in fact curly phone cording. I went online for further investigation and Elle.com proved me right. I have been a bit obsessed with old school phone coils as of late so this was quite a discovery to make!

The interest goes back to my collection of vintage phone cord purses. I have been picking them up for years and have managed to amass quite a nice little collection. I am not totally sure when these purses were made (the 40’s or 50’s) or why, but I’m glad they were. I have a solid yellow one that my friends call corn on the cob, several rainbow stripe models like the one pictured, black and white stripes and more. People always want to touch the purses and ask questions about them when I carry them out on the town. A few pieces from my collection are going to make an appearance in Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girls Guide to Handmade Jewelry along with a bracelet project called Thank You for Calling. I used to sell the Thank You for Calling Bracelets on Naughty Secretary Club years ago and they were always a big hit. Now I am giving you the complete instructions on how to make your own in the book. The project starts from scratch about how to make your own bangle bracelet and how to cover it! Plus there are some fun matching earrings!



I would love to know how to recreate these fantabulous purses and conquer that project for my next book, but in the meantime I might have to settle for one of these telephone bags by Betsy Johnson or a hand painted purse by Hot Pink Pistol.


If the dresses by Louise Gray don’t tickle your fancy and you are looking for something else to match your new phone cord bracelets and purses check out the rad Hotline Overalls by JEREMY loves KSUBI. According to this picture of Robyn the print also comes as a jacket!


That reminds me we are going to start doing some book related giveaways here on the blog since it is just a little over a month before the book comes out! The contest of the day is to win a How May I Direct Your Call Necklace. We only have 4 to give away, but don't you worry there will be tons more contests and prizes all July and August long. See the Naughty Secretary Club web banners for the book over on the left hand side of your screen? If you would put one of these banners on your blog through August I would love you forever! You can have it link here to blog, to Amazon or to Naughty Secretary Club, totally up to you. Leave me a comment here and let me know you put the banner up and I will email the 4 winners! Every Saturday through the end of August when I do my Saturday link round up I will include a list of all the blogs that have my banner listed!

As mentioned we are about to start getting contest crazy, so just because you don't win one of the necklaces does not mean there are not other cool prizes coming - T-shirts, Craft Supplies, Copies of the Book and more!