Vintage Bingo Chip Necklace
These vintage bingo chip necklaces pay homage to both of my grandmothers. The bingo chips were my granny’s, and the beads came from my grandma’s costume jewelry. The bingo chips were dirty and smelled like nicotine, but they are a TOTEM (Those Objects That Evoke Memories) for sure and therefore worthy of upcycling.
My sister and I spent many a Saturday night at the Eagles Club with my grandparents playing bingo. When I shared my plans to post this blog with her, she voiced a flood of memories from those idyllic days. “Do you remember the cloth hand towel dispenser in the ladies’ bathroom?” she asked. It was a square enameled metal dispenser with a short length of crisp cotton toweling hanging from the bottom and looping back into the dispenser. It hung on the wall, and when you pulled down on the towel after drying your hands, the soiled wet towel disappeared back into the dispenser, and more fresh-pressed cotton toweling magically appeared. It was evident to our young, naive, germaphobic minds that this contraption circled back in a short endless loop which then dispensed a pressed, dry, “dirty” towel. Yuck! We weren’t sure how the towel dried so quickly, but we imagined it not too far-fetched for the towel to be pressed flat between two rollers reminiscent of a ringer washer. We pulled at the towel and stared at it, trying to identify a visual anomaly, a small hole or snag in the fabric, which we were positive we could remember when it spat back out. Once identified, we would pull and pull, feeding the anomaly back into the dispenser. We were positive we would see it pop back out. Little did we know, the short endless loop we had imagined was a long 37-yard roll which, once soiled, was rolled back up and eventually replaced with a new laundered and pressed roll when it reached its end. I wonder how many yards of clean, fresh cotton toweling my sister and I wasted.
It’s silly memories like this that inspire me to create something out of nothing. The grime on these items from years of use did not deter me. I cleaned the beads in an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner and washed the bingo chips with a little sudsy ammonia and lots of hot water. They were now ready for their next life.
I hope I have inspired you to upcycle items that evoke memories from your life, and if bingo chips are one of those items, watch my video below. It’s a fun, easy project.
