Some of the jewelry that fills the cases at Erica Weiner’s Nolita store comes with baggage: The resourceful designer mixes vintage trinkets she digs up at flea markets, antique fairs, and, duh, eBay into many of her creations. And through her years of hunting, Erica has gotten a lot more adept at uncovering the stories behind her ripe-for-revival finds. These are some of the most compelling discoveries in the mix right now.“This is a decoder pin for kids that you could send away for. It says “ROA,” which stands for Radio Orphan Annie. You’d listen to the show, and they’d say, “Hey, kids, get out your decoder pin because there’s a new message.” It’s from 1937, and every year there was a different, amazing Art Deco design.” “This is a class ring from 1902—like a high school ring. I am not good enough at dating antiques to just look at something and always know exactly when it’s from, but this one’s easy to pin down. It’s printed on the piece.” “A lot of the things I find have to do with advertising. I guess the Heinz company gave these away at World’s Fairs. People were into giving stuff away, but this was a really creative form. I think they distributed five million of those—that’s a huge amount of crap to give away.” “If you look into this, you can see a naked lady. Some of these pieces are really racy. I don’t know their origin exactly, but they’re older than they look—from the 1870s, maybe.” “The black part of this ring is elephant hair—from the tail of an elephant. People would travel to British Colonial India, go on these safaris, and send back jewelry for their wives. Since elephants have long memories, it’s supposed to be a forget-me-not.” Just wait til you see the edition Erica made for us. Get on our email list for the first look.

For reals: There’s a piano. When Erica Weiner moved from downtown Manhattan to Red Hook along the Brooklyn waterfront in 2009, she traded a tiny studio for the sort of turn-of-the-century place that can hold a piano. “I found it through Craigslist,” says the jewelry designer with a rabid fanbase. “In Red Hook, you can still get a great place without a broker. The owner is Italian, and he grew up in the neighborhood.” Here’s how she and her new husband made the spot their own. “The previous tenants had painted the walls fluorescent colors. Most of it was ugly, but we kind of liked the green in this room. We made it even more fluorescent. My sister did that painting in high school. Now she has her masters in painting and is teaching art history at SVA.” “Chris—my husband—was in the band They Might Be Giants, singing back-up for their albums and playing bass. The wife of one of the band members actually married us. Hanging up there at the top of the stairs is a Victorian morning coat. I got it at a costume house in Scotland—it’s fading in the sun.” “This cabinet is something they sold to make women’s lives easier in the early 1900s. It has all of these gadgets—high-tech at the time—like a flour-sifter bin: You put your bowl under it, and it sifts flour into it from the bin above. It’s storage and sifting—all my problems are solved! I found an ad in a Ladies’ Home Journal from 1912 for the exact cabinet that I have.” “This is a chair I found. It’s the skeleton from an old stuffed armchair—it was on the bottom floor of my Chrystie Street studio. I brought it home and made seating and a back for it.” “That’s my picture wall. I’ve been reading too much Design*Sponge—that’s pretty much required in a house according to that blog. And the padded couch is seating at the dining-room table.” You’re not going to want to miss out on Erica’s Wednesday release: an updated version of one of our greatest hits. Get on our mailing list, stat, to be the first to know.

Bridesmaids dresses waiting for action. The biggest thing to go down in Erica Weiner’s life in 2011: She married her longtime BF Chris Anderson. And while the jewelry designer tried her damnedest to avoid falling down the wedding-blog rabbit hole—full of handmade napkin rings and souvenir menus—she did get a little swept away by the whole affair. But, as with everything she does, girlfriend owned it. Wedding coverage calls for a white edition, right? Check out the amazing rock necklace that Erica made us—a fresh take on her Of a Kind sell-out. “My dress was not antique—it was from Jenny Packham. I really didn’t think I would get a new dress, but I did!” “The hair was awesome. I got the hairpiece from this incredible place in Chelsea called Illisa’s Vintage Lingerie. I met the owner because I was working on costumes for a tour of Cabaret years ago, and she is the local expert and collector of antique lingerie from that period. She also has trim and pins from that era—this is made of little crystals in silver wire.” “The wedding was at the bottom of this hill at my parents’ house, and the flowers marked the pathway—it was a long, long chain of bay leaves and daisies. I had just gone to my Vassar reunion, and every year at graduation the girls wear these long white dresses and carry this chain of flowers. My mother made most of the quilts. She was way into the wedding stuff. My dad got into it, too, though he was still a little confused by the whole thing.” “I didn’t have wedding fantasies as a girl, but I did have dress-my-friends-up ones. There were seven bridesmaids, and it was hard to find seven vintage dresses like this. I actually got the idea because I was watching Downton Abbey. The colored sashes were my mom’s idea. My business partner Lindsay is on the left.” “The cool thing about this florist was she used a lot of edible stuff, like currants and kale. We served oysters and just incredible local food.” “These were my favors. I did fall for some of the wedding-blog stuff, but I made it my own.” Photography by Katie Stoops.