Hello people, how are you? Our ordeal is almost at an end now, with the lockdown in the UK set to be seriously relaxed on the 12th of April. People - well, sensible people anyway, have had their vaccinations, knowing that the risk benefit ratio is loaded against those who choose not to get their jabs. However, travel is still prohibited, and unless one can furnish a good enough reason a fine of £5000 is likely to be involved (ouch!). I have no plans to go anywhere till the end of August, and who knows whether it will actually happen. I thought it had been ages since I used my kiln, so I made tiny earring components with Art Clay Silver - I didn't put any holes in the components on purpose, as I intend to practice soldering techniques once the weather is warmer so that by the end of the exercise, I shall be an expert. All flame making activity is restricted to the conservatory which has no heating so I can't use it in the winter apart from a bit of photography. I don't want to risk burning the house down though, so summer is when I shall play with my torch. BelleI finally finished the beetle wing necklace that has taken me ages - I think it was because I did the whole lot in black beads apart from the gold edging. I'm used to loads of colour, texture and shapes and the single colour became a bit monotonous. Here's the piece from its conception to completion. A few more pictures for you - this necklace is called Belle, the beautiful green wings of the jewellery beetle could easily be wings from the absinthe fairy, or La Fee. This is an art nouveau depiction of the Absinthe Fairy by Pearllight studio, a blog written/drawn by a mixed media artist. Now that lockdown is easing a bit, I had a friend come and visit me and we had some fun taking photographs of her wearing a few pieces by Caprilicious. Rachel is a journalist from India and we met a number of years ago through Caprilicious. I meet up with her every year when I'm in India on holiday and was pleased that I could have her over while she was in the UK at a course. She picked up a few pieces from Caprilicious and we spent a sunny afternoon taking pictures and trying on jewellery. That's me for today, folks. Have a wonderful week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx
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Hello folks, I am so happy to be home in one piece to be able to write this blog today. I've been to London (not to see the queen) to a Safety Collaborative event - we got there nice and early and wondered what the fuss was all about. There were warnings for snow and ice all over the UK and my colleague and I debated long and hard about whether we ought to risk it. Eventually we got the train at 730 am yesterday and reached London, easy peasy. There was a bit of snow on the ground, nothing to write home about. It was bitterly cold though, but I was dressed for it in multiple layers of clothing. We spent a nice day at the QEII centre outside Westminster Abbey, and got back to Euston early. And then the nightmare began! A horrendous journey back, with delays, stoppages on the track, everyone being decanted off the train in Rugby which is only 20 minutes from home to stand like a horde of zombies from Sean of the Dead on a freezing cold platform in the dark, in a bitter wind and snow, waiting for another train to pick us up to continue our journeys. Two and a half hours later I fell into Mike's car and heaved a sigh of relief. I was lucky - some of my colleagues ended up getting home after 4 and 5 hours on other routes! FiestaIt all began when I posted a necklace I made a couple of years ago on Instagram. A number of people got in touch asking if I could remake the necklace for them. The beads were made from polymer clay using tutorials written by Marie Segal on her blog, to resemble African Trade Beads. It took me ages to make the beads last time and even longer to make the canes to embellish them. I thought I ought to give it a go and dug out the tutorials, made the canes, rolled out the beads, made up the necklaces - and remade them, and remade them yet again. And now I dont like two out of three of them and am having to remake them once more this weekend. On much reflection and soul searching, it turns out that the elements I dislike are metal three hole connectors that I thought were a good idea to use at the time and I shall take them out. I thought I'd show you the process that has evolved over the last few weekends, just so you know what it entails. Polymer clay canes are made much like sticks of Blackpool rock and every slice ought to look the same, or have the same pattern. The beads were rolled out in long tubes and embellished with slices of a cane, then cut randomly into various sizes before being cured in my oven. When beads of random lengths are put together, there is always a risk of awkwardness, and I had to remake them a number of times before two of them hung to my satisfaction and I went out into the cold conservatory and took some photographs. The third necklace was made with leftover beads and looked so awkward, I didn't bother to get a decent picture of it. And then I found that I didn't like any of them at all and would have to take them all apart and start again. Oh no! I really, really didn't like them at all. As it was the third one that wasn't right in every possible way, I remade it and realised that it was the connectors that were bothering me.
That's all I had time for this week folks, Thanks once again for joining me. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place.
Until then xx Hello good people, how are you today. It has been a cold week in the UK with snow flurries and freezing temperatures. However, I've had a couple of days off and have spent them at home, keeping warm and staying out of mischief. The last couple of weeks have been exhausting, traipsing up and down to Manchester, and then being on call at the weekend, so this was a welcome respite. Li ChiI got the story of Li Chi, The Serpent Slayer from a website called Rejected Princesses, about "women too awesome, awful, or offbeat for kids' movies". It celebrates women who are unbiddable. "Part art project, part standup routine, part book report, this site imagines what if we made animated musicals about the women of history and myth who refused to behave." Li Chi was a teenager who, at the age of thirteen, volunteered to become a human sacrifice to a serpent who lived in the hills above her village. The serpent demanded a young girl to eat every year as a price for leaving the village alone for the rest of the year. She proceeded to slay the serpent and release the villagers from slavery with a little sword. Do read the story on the website. Jason Porath writes well, with a lot of humour. I've only given you the bald outline of the story as I cannot improve on Jason's telling of it. The cinnabar pendant came from China and has a serpent/dragon on it appearing to reach in to sniff the fragrance of a peony. The intricacy of the carving is beautiful and I added bone beads, hand carved into chrysanthemums, and bone discs dyed black, with characters etched into them. A few turquoise beads provide a pleasing contrast, as do the bronze lost wax cast brass beads from Kenya. Citrine and smoky quartz necklaceThis necklace was commissioned by a lady who saw another one worn by customer. Unfortunately I had too few of the beads from the original strand left and sent off for others. As the first strand had come back with me in my suitcase from Jaipur, I couldn't find the same ones, but the ones I did find are pretty too. The lady requested smoky quartz spacers instead of the iolite I used in the original necklace. I sent a parcel to Australia last week with a courier and spent hours tracking the package all the way from Nuneaton to Victoria. The parcel was given a bar code which I had to print off and stick on the front - so why oh why can't the couriers scan the damn thing at every stage as it moves from place to place? Surely that's not too much to ask! I spent hours staring at my phone, waiting for the parcel to move - sometimes it didn't move at all for two days, and then whoosh, it had moved miles and miles. I feel like someone who has spent a day watching a spin dryer, my brains are completely scrambled. Add to that mix an anxious customer and the levels of craziness rose exponentially until the parcel reached its destination safe and sound, it was opened, and the jewellery admired and worn. I wonder what would happen if I had a number of international parcels all going out at the same time - I'd probably have to be sectioned! That's me for this week folks. We have tickets to the ballet - Sleeping Beauty, at the Hippodrome in Birmingham and were going up on the train to make a day of it. Have a wonderful week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx Helloooo everybody, how are you? It is Caprilicious' 5th birthday this week and we are celebrating. Thank you, all of you, those who like Caprilicious' efforts, those who read and/or follow the blog, and those that like wearing my jewellery - Caprilicious and I thank you very, very much! To celebrate, I am hosting a giveaway as usual on the Facebook page. All you have to do is go to the page, like the picture linked to the giveaway and share it to be in with a chance of winning the pretty freebie. The Annual Birthday GiveawayThe ornate wire work hearts were originally designed by Nicole Hanna and are made using antiqued copper wire. They are hung on an organza ribbon and could easily be hung on a longer necklace should you so wish. Patience PaysLast week, I was trying to make a couple of copper flower pendants from Prometheus copper clay as I posted the blog. I had already managed to break off a bail and had to repair it and put it back into the kiln for refiring. I left it to cool over 24 hours being too anxious to rush to open it. In fact it was two days later that I opened the lid of the steel firing pan to find that I had been successful in making a viable piece of jewellery. I was so happy when I found that I had done it! The pendants needed to be scrubbed, put into the rotary tumbler, and polished up. In the finish, I had two gleaming flowers that I was very proud of! I couldn't wait to string them into necklaces. Having pulled out half my bead stash and taken design guidance and instruction from hubby, I made the first necklace. Georgia on my MindAs this particular flower was an experimental piece, inspired by the flowers of Georgia O'Keeffe and Lynn Cobb, I thought the title fitting. Ms. O'Keeffe has many paintings that inspire me and I think I might just be looking at some more of them again, fairly soon. The poppy in the picture was painted in 1927. She believed that due to the fast-paced lives people live, they merely glance at flowers, but never really observe their exquisiteness. She wished to give people who live such rushed lives the experience and the feel of the true beauty of flowers by creating large floral portraits with very little background. “Still-in a way-nobody sees a flower-really- it is so small-we haven’t time- and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” __Georgia O’Keeffe I thought the necklace was beautiful and was most gratified when a colleague instantly fell in love with it and snapped it up. The second flower is a lotus. I ruffled it's layers of petals, in a manner of speaking and the initial beads I chose seemed to indicate that the necklace would be an ethnic style piece. Orange agate teardrops, rudraksh seeds, copper Bali beads, African vinyl trade beads - they all have an Indian flavour, and I thought that this was OK because the lotus, or Tamara is the national flower of India. It was when I went to make the second strand that my subconscious mind went haywire, Ms Muse picked the strangest bedfellows to the first. However, in the end the whole piece is fun and colourful and seems to work just right! It has a Latin-American feel, probably because of the orange ceramic hearts and blue ovoids. Christmas Shopping Fair and Charity Event |
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