Blaugust 2 - Tiaras
The main page of my website has the story of why I have a website now - basically it's because I had one back in the 90s and wanted that small web experience again. Probably around 2018 or so I thought I might get back into having a web presence by blogging. I did have a blog from about 2007-2015 that I posted on extremely infrequently. Like once a year infrequently, some years! But I decided to start fresh, buy a domain and start my blogging adventures - but I needed an angle because not nearly enough goes on in my life to keep a blog populated with posts.
I decided I would write about TIARAS. I love sparklies and, even though I'm in my 50s, I have a small child's love of the idea of dressing up in jewels. Seriously, Jeremy from The Secret of NIMH is my spirit animal.
I started looking up tiara information and quickly rabbit-holed into a whole world of tiara and (other royal jewel) enthusiasts. It was wild! There was so much information out there already, I certainly didn't feel I could bring anything new to the table. Besides, there are people out there for whom this is a passion! I mean, every hobby has its enthusiasts but these jewel lovers were another level of dedicated to their craft of finding out everything they could about the provenance of gems. There are are least two message boards (Royal Jewels of the World and History of Famous Jewels and Collections) that are still somewhat active where the users will do things like post old newspaper photos of royalty from over 100 years ago and try to identify a particular jewel.
I gave up on the idea of a blog and ended up with a personal website (and eventually also with a blog!) that has a little bit of everything (hence the name). But I do still love tiaras! One of my favorites is the Duchess of Castro's Ruby Dragonfly Tiara. It was probably created around 1900 by Chaumet. The dragonflies can be rotated or even removed and used as brooches. It's such a fairy princess tiara!
If you'd like to get lost in the world of tiaras, here are some sites to get you started:
What about you? Do you have a favorite tiara? Let me know! You can respond through my guestbook or email. If you found this link on Discord or the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse, you can message me there or leave a message on my Neocities profile page.