Package trip into the past
Their practical purpose as packaging may have expired but vintage tin jewellery designer Nancy Jones is giving a new lease of life to old biscuit and sweet tins and plates. Sally Clifford meets her.
THE way goods are packaged has changed dramatically over the years. Fold out boxes you can flatpack for recycling are commonplace wrappings for the confectionary and foods we consume. Reducing our waste is crucial in protecting the planet for future generations, but there is something sentimentally stirring when recalling the beauty of the tins encasing the sweet treats purchased and gifted down the generations.
A hundred years ago biscuits, sweets and toffees were encased in beautifully designed tins rather than cardboard and plastic.
And those from the ‘waste not, want not generation’, who were recycling long before it became a necessity to do so, are more than likely to have retained such tins for storing precious keepsakes, buttons, sewing essentials, and all those other ‘bits and bobs’ we accumulate through life.
For Nancy Jones her interest in vintage tins began with a bird design tin she bought more than a decade ago while visiting antique shops.
“It was from the 1920s. I researched the tin and found out where it was from and what company it was. It was a biscuit tin and I made a pendant out of it.”
Nancy makes it sound simple when, in fact, it is an extremely intricate process. In her home studio in the quaint and characteristic village of Thornton, near Bradford, Nancy’s main tool is her specialist cutting machine.
“I have a massive machine because the tins are thick and they can be quite heavy,” she says.
Conscious of producing quality pieces,
Nancy is selective of the types of tins she uses. Sourced mainly online, the tins she buys are in excellent condition with beautiful detail and
’I like to recycle everything where I can, even at home with our waste stuff. It is using an already produced product and making it into something else.’
designs to maintain the calibre of her collection.
Using the specialist cutter, Nancy extracts her chosen detail which she hammers into shape and files into beautiful pendants and striking drop-earrings.
“Filing them makes sure they are smooth. The longer vintage ones need a lot more filing down. Each piece is different so it will take a few hours to do it,” explains Nancy, who produces up to six pieces daily.
The detail in the design gives the ear-rings individuality. Bold and vibrant colours and floral patterns are a feature in Nancy’s jewellery which she attaches to 925 solid sterling silver fittings. “I like a lot of Seventies tins because the designs are so beautifully patterned.” Interestingly, America is where Nancy sources the majority of her tins. She explains, through research, she discovered while tins were mainly produced in England, many were exported to the States in the Seventies.
Scenes from tins featuring the work of artists she particularly admires also feature in her jewellery collections.
LS Lowry, whose matchstick characters epitomised the Northern working life he captured in his paintings, add a unique elegance to the pair of oval shaped drop-earrings Nancy created for her collection.
Faces, featured in some of Nancy’s designs, take inspiration from the work of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt and Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who she admires.
Echoes of the Arts and Crafts Movement are symbolised in the imaginatively detailed tins featuring William Morris designs.
As well as using her own artwork, Nancy brings to life the work of a Northern artist, whose designs she initially spotted adorning fabrics. “I liked the images and we have become friends,” says Nancy of the working partnership.
This also demonstrates Nancy’s support for fellow artists through her work which she mainly sells through independent businesses and galleries in Yorkshire, Norfolk, Edinburgh, Schenectady and Bristol. She also has a presence on Etsy after setting up her online shop ‘Hammered in Yarkshire’ a decade ago. The global reach of trading online introduced Nancy to her American customers.
“I like working with the shops because it is more personal and it is independent businesses. It is supporting other people who are supporting you,” says Nancy.
Her business name is a play on the hammer, one of the many tools Nancy uses to tap and shape the delicate tin pieces into shape, and the pronunciation of Yorkshire in her
native Lancashire where she grew up, and where her life-long love of art began. Nancy recalls during the Seventies her parents allowed her to paint a mural of a face on the bathroom wall of the family home.
Although the mother-of-four never studied art, her love of the subject never left her.
“I used to paint on the walls when I lived with my mum and dad, and when I had children I painted murals on their bedroom walls,” recalls Nancy.
Painting, acrylics is her favourite medium, continued as a hobby. She dabbled with portraits and life drawing and, along with her interest in silver wire jewellery, developed her art into what she is doing today.
“I like making things with silver and I got an interest in old tins so I put the two together.
Large 1970s tin bowls, previously used for decorative purposes and, as Nancy explains, usually displayed on old fashioned dressers, provide a beautifully busy and colourful canvas from which Nancy can select and cut the detailed designs for her jewellery.
CWS tins, whose purpose for storing biscuits has expired, are being brought to life once again as objects of beauty and stand-out fashion statement pieces adorning necks or as dangling decorations for ears.
“I like bright colours, it’s that more than anything, but I like this because it has got birds on it so I will cut out the birds,” says Nancy, explaining her plans to create a pair of earrings from another tin acquisition.
Pointing out the pattern on the drop ear-rings she created from one of her favourite tin bowls, Nancy talks of the design and colour which attracted her into the initial purchase.
Circular; diamond; oval; rectangular and square are among the tin shapes thoughtfully formed to add delicate elegance to the drop earrings and pendants Nancy produces.
“Some of the earrings are one-offs because they are so old and you never get that again,” says Nancy, referring to the vintage tin designs.
Experimenting with framing the shapes in silver hoops led to Nancy developing her eclectic collection.
“I like mixing old with new,” says Nancy. Suspending two circular decoratively domed pieces on a silver chain to create a back-toback image of art led to the development of Nancy’s flip pendant.
This is a modern dimension to her Fusion collection as Nancy explains.
“I have a vintage and modern collection – the Fusion Range – which integrates them both.”
For Nancy, the greatest satisfaction is tins that have been kept and treasured are now being re-fashioned for another purpose enabling her to pass on the enjoyment and pleasure to those wearing her pieces.
Recycling is another important consideration for Nancy’s gift packaging.
“All my gift packaging is eco-friendly, cardboard and white recycling boxes and the tissue is recyclable so people can use this again,” she says. “I like to recycle everything where I can, even at home with our waste stuff. It is using an already produced product and making it into something else.
“It is not creating anything new. It is, but it is from something that has already been made. I have some of these bowls because a lot of people would not have them out now, they may be kept at the back of a cupboard, or you may see the odd one in an antique shop, but more people will use it now and enjoy it.”