Hello there! My name is Tess and I'm the hands, brains, and smile behind Gilded Days.
Vintage sheet music combines my love of music and pure, sentimental, romance. I started using old sheet music in my decoupage work, but I wanted to find more mediums in which I could utilize the teeny pieces left over. Now I'm addicted to searching through my sheet music for romantic, odd, witty and heartwarming words to use in my jewelry.
I believe that the past is a gift for us to treasure and learn from. My work celebrates the nostalgia and beauty of the past, while making it accessible and relevant to the modern world. Everyone deserves to indulge in these little connections to history!
18. Random Things About Me
1. I love to dress up. Doesn't matter if it's just a trip to the store, or if I'm sitting around at home. I would rather be wearing a cute dress!
2. My husband and I adopted a cute little Corgi/ Australian Cattle Dog mix who we named Roland. I liked the name because of the old French poem "The Song of Roland" and he liked it because of the main character from the Stephen King Dark Tower series.
3. I have something called an AVM (Arteriovenous malformation) in my arm. It's basically having too many blood vessels in one place. It looks like a birthmark and is hot to the touch (from all the blood right there). People always think I got punched in the arm or have a sunburn!
4. Veggie sushi is my favorite food. I could literally eat it every day for the rest of my life and never get sick of it. Thai everything is a close second.
5. I'm addicted to tattoos. I don't have that many, but I am constantly planning my next one and collecting images for them.
6. I started playing violin when I was 8 years old and eventually became quite good, playing first violin in my high school orchestra. After a nearly ten year hiatus I am playing again!
7. Don't ask me to do math. It doesn't matter if it's just calculating a tip at a restaurant or making change... I WILL break into a sweat and just throw money all over the place!
8. I love school and learning as much about as many things as I can. In college I majored in Anthropology and double minored in Middle Eastern Studies and Medieval Studies. My MA is in Historical Archaeology, and I'd like to go back for another degree someday.
9. I used to work at Monticello dusting and mopping the floors
10. In high school I worked at a pet store. I used to keep my bedroom door closed so my mom wouldn't know just how many pets I had accumulated. At one point I had: a cockatiel, a giant millipede, spotted salamander, newt, two or three kind of frogs, a fancy rat, and god knows how many tropical fish.
11. I love Latin! I love to translate it and sit down with a dictionary and look up words. I find it soothing for some reason!
12. I want to play every instrument ever.
13. The smell of movie theater popcorn makes me sick
14. Apparently my hair color is somewhat rare (auburn), and I've been approached to sell it several times
15. I cannot bring myself to kill anything. Fly, spider, nasty little bug...they all get a free pass at our apartment
16. My sweet tooth is a force to be reckoned with. The lengths I will go to satisfy it are absurd!
17. I hate soda, and pretty much anything carbonated. I've never had a full serving of soda in my life, just a sip and then I have to put it down!
18. My favorite animal is deer
I'm honored to have been featured by the Etsy blog in their "Quit Your Day Job" series! If you'd like to learn a little more about me and my journey to becoming a full time creator then I invite you to check it out!
You can reach me any time at tess.fedore at gmail dot com for custom work, interviews, guest posts, and general chit-chatty goodness.
