Hello folks, how are you? After a couple of extremely busy weeks at the day job, I have time off to chill at home - I usually save part of my annual leave allocation to visit my mother in India, but this year, I'm spending it at home. Late nights on Netflix and morning lie-ins are becoming part of my daily routine. I'd better not get used to it as I will soon have to go back and apply nose to grindstone. Last week, I showed you pictures of La Fenice as it was being made, and this weeks I have pictures of it all finished and ready to wear. The necklace was made to commemorate the Biden/Harris inauguration and I have a poem written by someone who calls themselves the Dragon Ryder. Rebirth, by Dragon Ryder
La FeniceAs I said earlier, I've had time off, and Ms. Muse decided to play ball. After a couple of days where I did nothing and slobbed around on the settee, I started on my next piece. It started with the pretty lamp work glass nigella beads I got from Russia, and a few enameled flowers from Beijing. I decided to make a necklace in shades of blue and orange/red.
I've accepted a date on The Earrings Show on Facebook at the end of February and thought I'd make a couple of new pieces to take to it. Here's my first pair -I love the colours - what do you think? That's me for this week, folks. I hope you have a great week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place,
Until then xx
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Hello folks, how are you today? In the UK we are in yet another lockdown situation which, truth be told should have come a bit earlier, and the USA has turned into a Banana Republic. A hard frost grips the land and it is very cold outside, although not as bad as the temperatures in the Ban.. sorry USA. At least they have ratified a new POTUS now and can begin to heal. I've had a long week off work, sleeping late every night and lying in every morning. I usually save up a lot of leave till January so that I can make my customary visit to India to see my mother but this year I have plenty of days left that I have to take before the end of the financial year for fear of losing them. On the first day of the New Year, I received a note from a customer in the USA who is herself a jewellery maker. She dropped in on my stint at The Earrings Show and picked up three pairs of earrings, which took four long anxiety ridden weeks to get to her in South Carolina, due to Covid and Christmas. I was worried that she might complain about the length of time her parcel took to get to her, but no, she was so complimentary that she started my year off with a warm glow! I guess it goes to show that everyone needs validation and encouragement, and a virtual hug goes a long way towards giving people a sense of value. In turn, I send one out to you, do feel free to pass it on. I spent the week chilling out in front of the TV making 'fringies'. I also taught myself some new bead embroidery stitches from videos on You Tube - I'm so grateful to the ladies who posted them, as I couldn't have learned these new techniques without help. Here is an 'alternative' view of the earrings I made this week - once made, I wrapped the fringes with an elastic band, having wet them first. This 'sets' the fringes overnight, so that they drape properly when released. I have a few more days till I go back in to work, and will most likely start on a new necklace tomorrow. It is hubby's birthday and Leicester theatre has announced an online showing of Sunset boulevard - we're going to dress up and watch it, I only hope the technology works. If you want to join us, and support the theatre at the same time, click on the link - it costs only £20 per home. That's me for this week folks. Stay warm and safe, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Hello good people, Merry Christmas to you all. I hope Santa brought you everything you asked for and that you are all safe and well. We are probably going to pay for our one day of fun with a national lockdown in all but name - Tier 4 across the UK, but I'm now past caring. One day at a time, that's all we can do just now. I'm working this weekend, and it feels like just another day although we're all trying frantically to make it a bit special to bring some cheer into our humdrum lives. No decorations have been allowed in the hospital and the wards look drab and boring. I'm determinedly wearing my Christmas waistcoat - I bring it out every year on the 1st of December, but this year I waited till the 21st - I felt like I would stick out like a sore thumb, whereas previously, I blended in with the decorations. I spent this week putting together a bunch of earrings for all the ladies working on the unit on Christmas day and put them into individual cellophane wrappers all ready for them to help themselves. It seems little compensation for the awful year we've had and yet more to come. By the time I'd finished I felt as if I'd been working on a conveyor belt system and had made up 35 pairs of earrings and packed them in a satisfying box full of baubles.
I just hope that in the New Year, we get the vaccine on board and it works with all mutations/ new strains or whatever of this virus. That would be the best present ever. I would love to go on holiday/to see my family in India and go to the pub, even if it is only to drink a diet coke or an alcohol free beer, in common I suspect, with the rest of the country/world. The ad-men seem to be a bit nonplussed this year - what do you say to a country that has been battered by a virus, poor leadership, impending food shortages, Brexit, multiplying food banks and a shower of bankruptcies - spend more money? Not much to go with in such an atmosphere, is there? I think that's the reason John Lewis are advocating the giving of love and Coca Cola have made such a convoluted ad about very little. Have as wonderful a Christmas as you can, folks, and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place.
Until then, xx Hello people, how are you? It's cold out there, although still warm for this time of year - I still haven't had to get my winter coat out of the cupboard. 28 days to Christmas and I now have boxes full of my decorations filling a room in my house, delighting Wilfred the cat as he thinks the boxes are a new hidey hole for him, and the baubles are toys to play with. Lockdown is due to end in a few days time and we are now in Tier 3 - this means Christmas is kinda cancelled as we're only allowed to meet in groups of six in parks and other public open spaces. The only places that will be open will be gyms (Oh joy!) and churches, neither of which I frequent. Everything is as clear as mud! I had invited a young student up from Bristol to stay with us over her holidays in the festive period, but it isn't about to happen as both Bristol and Warwickshire are in Tier 3 and transport links are bound to be severely disrupted. The situation will be reviewed in two weeks time, but I'll bet that there won't be too much change. Never mind, I still have my Christmas tree and a few lights and baubles to keep me occupied. All of last week was spent sewing tiny beads, one at a time onto the latest necklace I started up a couple of weeks ago. I was inspired by a piece of Swarovski 'coral' that was given to me by friend and fellow beader, and a photograph I saw of a huge wave - I tried to recreate the wave in a painterly manner in the true tradition of 'painting with beads'. I decided the Swarovski crystal could be used to represent a piece of driftwood lying on a beach, and even found a couple of crystal starfish in my stash to add a bit of colour and interest. I spent what was left of the week making up a few earrings from the components I have collected in a little tin box for my last appearance for 2020 at the Earrings Show on Facebook - do drop in if you have a minute between 830 pm on the 28th to 830 pm on the 29th of November. If you haven't the time, all the remaining earrings will be on the website once the show is over.
That's a wrap for this week, folks. Have a great week and take good care of yourselves. I'll catch you next week, same time, same place.
Until then, xx Hello folks, how are you doing today? It's so nice of you to drop by and take tea with me. There have been a couple of pieces of good news since I last wrote. 1) with the results of the elections in the USA - even though a lot of us don't live there, what happens there affects us all in one way or another. And of course, 2) the long awaited vaccine - I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed on that one - that it works, and that it is safe. However, just now it is Diwali and although I am on call this weekend, I shall light a couple of lamps in the porch. Once that is over, it's time for the Christmas decorations to go up and I've decided I'm going to drag every single one I own out of the shed, and then some. We're all in need of colour and brightness to raise us out of our humdrum lives and until there's something better, Christmas decorations will have to fill that hole. As I've been yearning for Christmas and all the colour the season brings, the necklace that arrived out of my imagination this week was unsurprisingly christmassy. I searched out all the little ruby beads in my collection, added jade that was dyed a deep red and put a couple of necklaces together with green jade and onyx, and silver toned Vietnamese beads to add extra pizzazz. A couple of carabiner clasps and a diamante pendant - and voila! a Poinsettia necklace! A bunch of beautiful connectors arrived and I started a little collection of earrings with them. I'm making my last appearance this year on the Earrings Show on the 29th of November and I will be crafting a couple of pairs of earrings each week, to make up a little collection for the show. They will also be available on the website. I often emphasise that the earrings are light and easy to wear and these are no different. I've also picked up a number of stud earring findings so that they do not drag the ear lobe - there's nothing worse than going to a party and finding that your ears are in pain at the end - it's bad enough that women are required to wear uncomfortable shoes to look stylish (and uncomfortable underwear - think Spanx and thongs and underwired bras) without having to suffer any more torture from their jewellery. That's all I have time for this week folks. I was late posting this as I had to go in to work and I'm on till Monday morning - bring on the violins!!
Have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Hello everyone, how have you been this week? I was meant to have a lovely, de stressing week off from the daily grind and as I was getting ready to enjoy it, the weather got cold, rainy and awful; and bang! the boiler died. We have a couple of oil filled radiators stashed away in an outbuilding, so we dragged them into the house, but OmiGawd! do I hate being cold. I had to keep reminding the other half that doors need to be shut in order to keep the heat in - it's funny how men don't understand simple rules of physics and there almost wasn't going to be a blogpost this weekend as I barely escaped committing murder just to end up in warm custody - I'm sure it would have been warmer in jail than it was at our place. It took 5 days to get an engineer out from Vaillant by which time I had just about managed to teach Mike the general principles of thermodynamics by alternately threatening and cajoling him into keeping the doors and windows shut. The cat, who usually has the run of the house however, was having a breakdown and sicking up onto the carpet with nervous anxiety from being unable to roam free! I'd been planning a necklace with the beautiful poppy beads I got all the way from Taganrog, in Russia. Obviously the going has been slow, as I have had to defrost my fingers every evening so that I could hold the needle comfortably. The plus side to this (if there is one) is that even if I pierced myself with the needle I wouldn't have known it. Here are some progress photographs for you. The very last flowers in my garden are out - I planted some Nerine bulbs three years ago, and it hasn't been a resounding success, I'm afraid. I put in a whole pack of a dozen bulbs and I've had three flowers this year, the rest of the bulbs are either dead or have been eaten by squirrels. I took pictures of one of the flowers every time I came into the house and captured it from the bulb stage to the full blown five trumpeted flower. They are meant to spread into the soil and give more flowers with each passing year - I'm still waiting for that miracle to occur. These earrings were made just before the boiler died and they will go into the Earrings Show - do come and join me, I'll be there from 2030 on Saturday night (10th) until the same time on Sunday the 11th of October. I love making this extremely light but showy design and I think it is very effective. That's me for this week, folks. I saw this photograph of a wall mural on Facebook - there were no artist credits, nor was there a mention of where this house is. If any of you reading this know where it is, do write in. I think the artistry is simply superb. The best trompe l'oeil I've seen prior to this was in the comic district in Brussels, but this wall beats them hands down. Have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Hello people, how's tricks? Storm Alex is with us in Warwickshire and it is raining cats and dogs out here. Thankfully I don't have to go anywhere, so it's an early duvet day for me today. The week has been busy and it is nice to finally have some respite. I have time off work next week and have a project planned for it, as there is nowhere to go and nothing to do other than chill out and play with beads. I made a couple of pairs of earrings while I was planning next weeks project as Caprilicious and I will be on The Earrings Show on Facebook on Sunday the 11th of October. I am still enthralled by Biwa pearls and the diamante elements that my supplier has - everytime I think I've picked up one of everything, he puts some more on his website. Of course, I have to have one of everything - I just love the understated micro pave look, which gives a shimmer without being too much in your face. The second pair was sewn using little Czech seed beads around a stainless steel frame - black and silver is always fetching and of course, the earrings are large, but very, very light. Smoke Gets In Your EyesA clutch of little silver pendants arrived in the post from Jaipur - I've been to this shop which is a tiny place in the wholesalers district - a bit like an Indian version of Diagon Alley, and the owner has a front of house that you wouldn't be able to turn around in with ease. However, the silver he produces from the back of the shop once he knows what you're looking for is magical, and I've kept in touch with him over the years. The pendant I used first is a Smokey Quartz, flanked by moonstones. I found a string of smokey quartz pebble beads in my stash, and to up the colour quotient, taking hints from the colours in the pendant, I added all the Peruvian blue opals I could find, as well as a string of opalite beads. Seed pearls and iolite balance the equation between the light blue and smokey brown to give a pleasing effect. I went out to Leamington Spa and retrieved Woodland Fantasy from the Temperance Bar, where the display of art has now been taken down. The necklace is back on the website now. I had a cotton mask made from a local contact for a friend/ Caprilicious lady - I took one look at it when it arrived from the seamstress and thought, 'I can't send this out, it's too ordinary and boring.' So I embellished it with little roses and daisies and put it in the post with a first class stamp - to my surprise it took over ten days to get to her in London - I had almost given up and was preparing to get another one in when she posted this picture on Facebook. That's me for this week, folks. Have a good week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx Hello good people, it's lovely to be back here with you again this week. I enjoy reaching out to the wider world, I've met so many lovely people through the blogosphere and Caprilicious already; and I look forward to more such encounters. This week has been hard, with the news of a looming second wave of the dreaded virus, inefficient governments and no end in sight - as yet. And of course, it is the 'as yet' that keeps human nature going, we hope one day that there will be a breakthrough and things will get better. Until then, friends, we have to get on with it as best we can. I've just been watching Dr Zhivago, again, after ages and ages. The triumph of love, with a beautiful tapestry of a love story sewn against the background of a country in great turmoil, with some of the most beautiful actors in the world, Dr Zhivago is a firm favourite of mine that oddly I haven't revisited in a long time. I just finished this week's necklace as I watched it and it turned out all romantic and fuzzy - it is called Lara. With pale green jade, diamante elements, prehnite teardrops from Jaipur, and baroque pearls, I think it is suitably romantic enough to be associated with the name. LaraTo continue the romantic theme of the week, I made a couple of pairs of earrings with beautiful diamante components and baroque pearls - the pearls are dyed a rainbow grey - like an oil slick on water and are simply to die for. I am very fond of the contemporary sterling silver ear wires I used - they are very different and give the earrings a fun look. There was also a pair that took two weeks to make in a stop start manner - I sewed seed beads and dyed jade beads around malachite and hung them on kidney ear wires. The passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week was painful too. She was an inspiration to women everywhere and a voice for equality and women's rights in the USA. I know that we will miss her presence in the world, and I couldn't end this weeks blog post without giving her a mention. This Milagro was made by Lorena Angulo, a metal clay artist I admire - here's her Instagram link. That's me for this now, folks. The working week has been hard at the salt mines and I will need all of the weekend to recover. Have a good week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Hello lovely people, how are you? I hope you're all safe and sound this week and not on the verge of another lockdown, wherever you are. I'm thoroughly fed up of all the craziness, aren't you? I never thought when I watched those disaster movies that I would one day have to live through one. I've been keeping up with all my Caprilicious women, and only two of them have had the lurgy - one has recovered completely and the other is slowly getting there. Do take care of yourselves, especially as they are predicting another wave come winter. I've hit a roadblock for the time being with ideas for new jewellery. It's hard when all around there's doom and gloom and no one wants to wear jewellery because there's nowhere to go. However, I feel the need to make things - it's very hard to sit still and do nothing of an evening. Clickety clack, nickety noo, go my pliers and needles as I sit in front of the telly. We're watching Curb Your Enthusiasm - Larry David makes us laugh, but the language!! If you are against swearing on the telly, go for Seinfeld instead, Curb turns swearing into an art form. So, what did I get up to this week? I decided I'd make some earrings. I was on the Jewellery Show last week and will be on the Earrings Show in October, so I thought it warranted some new pretties. Besides, winter is around the corner, and winter to me means ........drumroll.......CHRISTMAS!!!!! Everyone wants a bit of glitz and glamour and everyone wants to be ready for that Santa bloke - whether he turns up or not. If we can forget the drabness of our lives for but one moment, everything will be OK, right?? Yeah, right! But still, one can but try to get over the humdrumness (apologies for the made up word, but it felt right). I love the little diamante elements and the Biwa pearls imported from Japan, and hunting for the right gemstone beads and crystals to use in these creations is a lot of fun. I recently discovered cotton pearls - they are made of compressed cotton with a pearl coating instead of the usual urea resin or glass finish. The weight of these beads is feather light, much lighter than normal pearls, making then ideal for beadwork and earrings. They have an interesting textured finish and as I love anything different, I picked out a few - I think they are a lot of fun, and hope you will too. I always have a pair of 'fringies' on the go - they are a great way to keep my fingers occupied and although they are showy, they are very light and boho. Next week I shall have my nose to the grindstone at the day job as the NHS tries to catch up with all the work that lay abandoned during the lockdown period - but no doubt, I shall still find time to play with beads and chat to you. That's me for this week, folks. Have a wonderful week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx When in doubt, make earrings, say I! Hello folks, how are you today. I hope you haven't been affected by the torrential rain storms in the UK - or anywhere else, for that matter. I've enjoyed the warm weather, long may it continue. I finished the Romance and Flowers necklace last week and although I know what I'm going to make next, I decided to take a break from necklace making. However, I can't seem to sit still any more and need a little project to keep me going when I get back from work of an evening. I collect earring components for when this happens and save them all in a little box, which comes out at times like this. My earring stock was depleted from an online showcase a few weeks ago so it seemed like the right thing to do. The only problem with making earrings is that each one needs to be photographed and I take hundreds of pictures that all need editing and then I make up collages - that takes a load of time and energy and I'm quite exhausted by the process by the end. Still, I have some pretty things to show for my efforts, and that's the main thing. Here are some pictures, hot off the press. These are pretty similar apart from the stick Biwa pearls in the first pair. The lamp work glass beads are hollow and light and very pretty - I love those colours. I love stick pearls, and with diamante roses and little dots, the effect is pleasing. These are long earrings that will graze the collarbone, and are very showy. Clusters of little garnets above a baroque pearl with a simple and sophisticated gunmetal stud finding. And finally, my favourite elements - jewellery beetle wings. I made two pairs of earrings with them, as well as a third pair for an old friend in India who commissioned them when I was there last. I have no idea when they will get to her, but I made them up for when that time arrives. And that's my little collection of earrings for August 2020. I have a little germ of an idea about what I'm making next, but perhaps a little break is in order before I start another piece. I have all the beads and elements I need all put together, and one of these days will start on it. In the meantime, that's me for this week folks, have a lovely week, stay safe and I'll catch you next Friday, same time,same place. Until then xx |
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