Costume Jewelry

Eye-catching, chunky, and colorful, vintage summer jewelry offers the perfect accent for swimsuits and sundresses. Bright-plastic bangles, pins, and rings show you are decorating the beach, not training for the Olympics. If the contents of your jewelry box look oh-so-boring, search out collectible Bakelite and Lucite pieces to wear during these warmer months. Find them at shows, auctions, flea markets, and online sites. Fine jewelry traditionally came out for special occasions, but faux pieces made sense for a trip to the Jersey Shore.

Faux bling is making Karen Giberson a wee bit nervous this misty morning. Giberson, president of the national Accessories Council, is headed from her home in Media to Manhattan's Fashion Center to launch USA-Made, an ambitious project aimed at helping costume jewelry designers manufacture the bulk of their baubles in America. "This can spark a lot of change in the industry," Giberson said as she anxiously scrolled through Women's Wear Daily's morning news while riding the Amtrak Cafe Car. "If everyone could make a little bit more in the U.S., we can make a lot of difference.

When Mayor Goode announced the winners of the 1986 "Philadelphia Get to Know Us!" Designer Awards yesterday, Sayida Ha'Fiz, of Sayida Ha'Fiz Design Studio, was among the 15 people recognized as the city's most innovative fashion forces. And, as if garnering the Award of Creativity in daywear weren't enough for the soft-spoken 37-year-old designer, Ha'Fiz was also named Most Promising Designer by a nine-member panel of industry judges, members of the Fashion Group of Philadelphia, who spent two days evaluating the entrants' designs.

Police are investigating a robbery in which two South Philadelphia boys were threatened and bound by gun-wielding thieves. At 6:40 p.m. Monday, police said, two men rang the door bell at the Kham- Len Shoppe, 2001 Snyder Ave. One wore a black ski mask and carried a small black semiautomatic pistol. Two brothers, ages 12 and 13, were inside the store and looked out the door window. One of the men told the boys he would kill them if they didn't open the door, police said.

Two sales next week will offer the opportunity to bid on components: textiles on Tuesday, wood on Wednesday. The textiles will be part of the sixth semiannual sale of vintage clothing, early trim, accessories and costume jewelry by Cathy Hall of the Hall Family Auction Gallery, 4644 Main St. (Route 309) in Schnecksville, just north of Allentown. The sale begins at 2 p.m. Hall says that the lace market is particularly strong in New York and that handbags and signed costume jewelry are also doing well.

A sale on Tuesday will offer auction-goers the chance to bid on 500 lots of "Fabulous Fakes, Footwear and Fashions" - including faux jewelry and clothing that belonged to a retired exotic dancer, now in her 80s. The dancer's name is Esther Henninger, and she used some of these items in her act, auctioneer Tom Hall said this week. The consignment will be among the 500 lots to be sold beginning at 2 p.m. at the Hall Family Auction Gallery, 4644 Main St., (Route 309) in the Montgomery County community of Schnecksville.

The 94-year-old grandmother heard a knock at her front door a little before 10 on Sunday morning. Living alone in a house in the city's Mayfair section, she peeked out a window and saw a man in a brown jacket with fur-trimmed hood. She thought it was her grandson and unlocked the door. The young man burst into her home, demanding money and jewelry. She resisted. He pushed her, slapped her face, and punched her in an eye. After the woman fell back on the sofa, the intruder put duct tape on her mouth and around her wrists.

Wearing a trade-show badge beneath a tired frown, John Hailey sat on a bench outside a hotel here, drooping. Thirty-six years in the jewelry business. Never had he seen it so bad. It used to take Hailey three days to visit nine floors of showrooms at the world-famous costume jewelry show in the old days. The 1996 version opened here Tuesday and ended yesterday at the Biltmore Hotel. Now, with Rhode Island jewelry manufacturers reeling from the one-two punch of low-wage foreign competition and a trend in fashion that favors the "bare-skin" look, the once-sprawling show barely takes up three floors.

When Ann Baiada returned to her Moorestown home after a Labor Day weekend trip to the Shore, she found a rear sliding door shattered and most of her jewelry gone. Burglars had rifled through drawers and ripped a safe out of a bedroom wall. They took from her Mill Street home everything from costume jewelry to diamonds and pearls, even family passports. "It's heartbreaking," Baiada said. "I'm never going to get my mother's wedding ring back. " Police said the burglary and five more in Moorestown, including four this month, could be connected.

An escaped prisoner who police say had a penchant for leaving dirty laundry behind at the houses he burglarized was charged Saturday night in a string of break-ins in Camden County. Haddon Township police arrested Robert Lee Allen Jr., 30, of Camden, at 9:30 as he walked along Route 168 in Camden. The arrest ended a manhunt that lasted more than two hours and involved three police departments and the Camden County Sheriff's Office K-9 Unit. Allen was charged with burglarizing four homes in Haddon Township, and police said he admitted breaking into nine homes in Collingswood and Woodlynne.

The 94-year-old grandmother heard a knock at her front door a little before 10 on Sunday morning. Living alone in a house in the city's Mayfair section, she peeked out the window and saw a man in a brown jacket with a fur-trimmed hood. She thought it was her grandson and unlocked the door. The young man burst into her home, demanding money and jewelry. She resisted. He pushed her, slapped her face and punched her in the eye. After the woman fell back on the sofa, the intruder put duct-tape on her mouth and around her wrists.

The 94-year-old grandmother heard a knock at her front door a little before 10 on Sunday morning. Living alone in a house in the city's Mayfair section, she peeked out a window and saw a man in a brown jacket with fur-trimmed hood. She thought it was her grandson and unlocked the door. The young man burst into her home, demanding money and jewelry. She resisted. He pushed her, slapped her face, and punched her in an eye. After the woman fell back on the sofa, the intruder put duct tape on her mouth and around her wrists.

Faux bling is making Karen Giberson a wee bit nervous this misty morning. Giberson, president of the national Accessories Council, is headed from her home in Media to Manhattan's Fashion Center to launch USA-Made, an ambitious project aimed at helping costume jewelry designers manufacture the bulk of their baubles in America. "This can spark a lot of change in the industry," Giberson said as she anxiously scrolled through Women's Wear Daily's morning news while riding the Amtrak Cafe Car. "If everyone could make a little bit more in the U.S., we can make a lot of difference.

Evelyn Arangio, 82, of Mount Ephraim, a self-taught businesswoman who for several years ran cake-decorating and jewelry businesses out of her home, died Wednesday, July 28, at Kennedy University Hospital-Cherry Hill after a stroke and a heart attack. As a homemaker, Mrs. Arangio was often cooking, but baking was "her best thing," said her son, Peter. She decided to make a business out of it. In the 1970s, she started making and decorating cakes for birthdays, First Communions, and weddings.

Eye-catching, chunky, and colorful, vintage summer jewelry offers the perfect accent for swimsuits and sundresses. Bright-plastic bangles, pins, and rings show you are decorating the beach, not training for the Olympics. If the contents of your jewelry box look oh-so-boring, search out collectible Bakelite and Lucite pieces to wear during these warmer months. Find them at shows, auctions, flea markets, and online sites. Fine jewelry traditionally came out for special occasions, but faux pieces made sense for a trip to the Jersey Shore.

During an 18-month crime spree, Patrick Lloyd Burns zigzagged across the Delaware River, selecting as his targets only the most exclusive neighborhoods, among them Voorhees, Plymouth Meeting, Haddonfield and North Wales. Officials in Montgomery and Camden Counties announced the arrest this week of Burns, 46, of Camden, suspected of pulling off more than 200 high-end burglaries. Burns, who was released in February 2004 after serving seven years in Virginia on burglary and grand-larceny convictions, was held after failing to post $1 million bail.

If you've been bitten by the collecting bug, you'll recognize these symptoms, recently documented by a compulsive-behavior expert at a Manhattan hospital: When you zero in on an object of desire, your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises, and your brain releases feel-good serotonin. And that's good news for your decorating health, says Barbara Ohrbach, whose latest book is aptly named A Passion for Antiques (Clarkson Potter, $30). Decorating with collections, she believes, is a great shortcut to charisma.

When Ann Baiada returned to her Moorestown home after a Labor Day weekend trip to the Shore, she found a rear sliding door shattered and most of her jewelry gone. Burglars had rifled through drawers and ripped a safe out of a bedroom wall. They took from her Mill Street home everything from costume jewelry to diamonds and pearls, even family passports. "It's heartbreaking," Baiada said. "I'm never going to get my mother's wedding ring back. " Police said the burglary and five more in Moorestown, including four this month, could be connected.

C. Marie Orr Heritage, 79, a retired missionary, died Monday at Landis Home, Lancaster, where she resided for the last year. Born in Camden, she was a resident of East Camden for most of her life, and resided in Oklahoma City from 1991 to 1997. Mrs. Heritage was a missionary from 1966 until 1986 when she retired because of failing health. She worked with the Trio Indians in the South America jungles of Suriname for the World Team Missions in Warrington. She entered mission work later in life, after her husband had died in 1947 and after she had worked to put her children through college, said the Rev. Timothy D. Heritage, a son. She graduated from Philadelphia College of Bible evening school before beginning her missionary work.

An escaped prisoner who police say had a penchant for leaving dirty laundry behind at the houses he burglarized was charged Saturday night in a string of break-ins in Camden County. Haddon Township police arrested Robert Lee Allen Jr., 30, of Camden, at 9:30 as he walked along Route 168 in Camden. The arrest ended a manhunt that lasted more than two hours and involved three police departments and the Camden County Sheriff's Office K-9 Unit. Allen was charged with burglarizing four homes in Haddon Township, and police said he admitted breaking into nine homes in Collingswood and Woodlynne.