Hello readers, thanks for joining me for this week's edition of the Caprilicious blog. I have been laid low with a cold, and spent a few days in bed, waiting for it and the jet lag to pass. There was very little time to miss my muse, although a niggly thought remained at the back of my mind - 'where on earth is she' ?? In the meanwhile, I kept myself busy between snoozes, rearranging the website and sorting out a couple of pieces that I made just before I went to India but hadn't photographed. The Ottoman NecklaceNamed for the beautiful green of the crystals and the agate in this piece, the necklace is called The Ottoman Necklace after the emeralds so beloved by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. The necklace is made to resemble a lariat, but has a magnetic clasp at the back which facilitates easy fastening. The bunch of crystals, agate and bling that drips into the décolletage is particularly pretty. The beautiful green of the stones is a fresh and vivid colour which conveys joie de vivre. Monochromasia Monochromasia is a medical condition of complete colour blindness in which all colours appear as shades of grey. This necklace is made of three strands of rutilated quartz teardrops, a focal coffee agate bead and an onyx clasp. Rutile is an ore of titanium, which often forms hair-like crystal inclusions inside quartz. It is meant to have metaphysical properties which enhance creativity and relieve depression and loneliness, and slow the ageing process (worth a try I suppose). And then Ms Muse was back! I woke up one morning and found that she had snuck back in without saying a word to anyone. She had already picked out the beads for my new necklace, all bright and colourful, a celebration of her return to work. We did a little joyous 'welcome home' dance together, and then I settled back in my chair, with my bead tray in my lap, Ms Muse at my shoulder, whispering in my ear. The Gypsy In StilletosThe most colourful and vibrant beads in my stash came out to play in these two necklaces - unashamedly bright and in your face. There's no way you'd be a wallflower if you wore one of these. By the way, a lot of the beads on this page came from Itsy Bitsy in Bangalore - Ms Muse simply loved them. I made the colourful polymer clay toggle clasp in the first one and the green and black dangle at the end of the other a few months ago. And then she pleaded with me for a rest - 'a couple more days off', she begged. I too was just getting into the swing of things at the day job, it isn't easy after such a long time away, so though I pretended to grumble, I was secretly relieved. I allowed her a couple of days to rest up and find her feet again and this is what her imagination came up with. Cinderella's NecklaceShe said 'imagine poor Cinderella, sweeping up after her stepmother and the Ugly Sisters, sighing over her broom - along comes the Fairy Godmother (I think Ms Muse secretly believes she is mine), and with a wave of her wand gets Cinders ready for a night on the razzle. Just before this, she'd been wearing a necklace made from lumps of coal, which was converted by the FG into a piece of Bling'. This, then, is Cinderella's necklace, mid conversion! And because I wasn't sure whether Cinders would have preferred to go silver tone or gold, I made two versions, to give her the choice. The black beads are made of clay and were also found at Itsy Bitsy, just before I started my second workshop. The silver tone beads are electroplated quartz nuggets and the gold tone are Kenyan lost wax casting bronze beads.
That's it for this week folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place, xx
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Hello readers, and lovers of unusual handmade statement jewellery, it is nice of you to drop by the Caprilicious blog this week. I've been getting ready for my second exhibition at Raintree in Bangalore, India - the invitation cards were designed by my friend Neelam Madden of Look- in- the-Bag - consummate artist that she is, she designed three of them for me and they are all so nice that I cannot make up my mind which one I want to use - perhaps you, my very kind readers will point me in the right direction. These are the three invitations - do drop me a line and tell me which one you like best - I will use the one with the most votes between the blog and the Caprilicious Facebook page. If any of you are in Bangalore at the time, do be sure to save the date and I hope to see you there. This week, I went back to my old routine of playing with wire and polymer clay. Rummaging around in my little hoard of cabochons, I found four pieces that I was inspired to turn into pendants with a wire surround. Shangri LaA piece of carved black jade was set into a wire and seed bead surround and hung on a necklace made of citrine nuggets. Mystical good luck symbols and phoenixes (yes, that is the correct plural form for phoenix - it must be correct, Google says so) are carved into the stone and I called the piece Shangri-La, after that famous utopian land in James Hilton's book Lost Horizon. The people from this land live in a state of permanent happiness and are immortal - I'm not sure if being permanently happy is a good thing - you wouldn't even know how lucky you are to be so happy if you haven't known the other, and that is most unfortunate. La La land might not be so much fun after all! TiramisuTiramisu is a coffee flavoured dessert originating in the area of Venice in the Sixties. The stripes in this coffee agate pendant bead reminded me of the stripes in this dessert. The pendant was surrounded by wire and seed beads electroplated with copper. The red quartz beads in the necklace are very pretty and glow gently in the light - I hope my photographs have been able to capture their beauty. SylvanusSylvanus was the ancient Roman God of the Woods - protector of forests, plant life and fields. The pendant in this piece is made from a piece of petrified wood and this name seemed apt. The petrified wood fossil is set in a wood jasper surround in a composite or Intarsia stone. I wound yards of wire around it to make a pendant loosely inspired by Nicole Hanna, which I hung on a necklace of blue howlite beads. Petrified wood is a fossil. It forms when plant material is buried by sediment and protected from decay by oxygen and organisms. Then, ground water rich in dissolved solids flows through the sediment replacing the original plant material with silica, calcite, pyrite or other inorganic material such as opal. The result is a fossil of the original woody material that often exhibits preserved details of the bark, wood and cellular structures. MeenaThis sumptuously enamelled pendant came from Jaipur in India - it is heavily gold leafed and enamelled, and studded with CZ's in Meenakari work- this form of enamelling came originally from Iran to India probably via the Mughals, and was originally meant to decorate the back of heavy gold jewellery, which was studded with uncut diamonds. I let the beauty of the pendant do the talking and put together a multi strand necklace of shiny seed beads and gold crystals - the number of strands was determined by how many I could get past the pendant bail. Stringing seed beads is not my favourite occupation, I can tell you - and by the time I had finished, there were more on the floor than in my necklace. The kittens were having a fine old time. They jumped to attention each time one clattered to the wooden floor and tried to help me pick it up. This meant I had to stop work and find the bead before they did - they were only trying to be helpful, of course they were! Pixie BeadsThese beads are made from inspiration and help from a number of people - Layl McDill's face cane, extruder canes from Marie Segal's blog, and Barbara McGuires face beads among others. I used my cane slicer and have to say it really does work, although it's engineering is a little bit clumsy. The pendants are meant to be Christmas presents for my juniors, and as they don't read this blog, and I know you won't tell, I can share the making of these with you. There are ten lentil beads to go with them to finish off the necklaces that will go out to the ten young ladies who work so hard, they deserve a little treat come Christmas time. Here are the beads in the process of being made, starting with the face cane, going clockwise. I will show you the necklaces when they are finally finished later on in the month. Unfortunately the fourth pendant I was attempting to make was an abject failure. It is a fossil coral, in a very pretty salmon pink and grey, and I meant to team it with spectrolite beads - I can see the necklace in my minds eye even now, but alas it is not to be. I spent a whole evening weaving a cage for the stone, and then I hated it - I cut it up before I could justify it's existence to myself - 'it took ages to make, it's not so bad, actually it's quite pretty'- you know the kind of thing. I went to bed, quite disgusted, and tried again the next day - that wasn't any good either, and went the same way as the first - straight into the bin. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. At this stage, a bit dispirited, I decided to call it a day for the week. Thank you so very much for stopping by and do leave me your thoughts about the invitation for the exhibition - have a lovely week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
xx Hello readers, thanks for stopping by to read about the statement jewellery made at Caprilicious this week. It was my privilege to provide a piece of jewellery to the Children's Unit at the hospital as a raffle prize - the manager who requested it of me was very complimentary about the piece I handed in - I was quietly pleased with it myself, and the reaction on the Facebook page was heartening when I posted some pictures there. The carved jade flower had been lying around in my stash, just waiting to be used and this is a very worthy cause, very close to my heart. If you're wondering what the mention of statement jewellery in the opening line was all about - I've been reading blogging guides - and the theory is that a googlebot, which in my imagination looks like the picture above, worms it's way into a website and if the raison d'être of the blog is mentioned in the first few sentences, the botworm gets the message - and when people look for 'Handmade Statement Jewellery', the Caprilicious Jewellery website comes up in a Google search - having done this for a few weeks, I was quite gratified to find that I haven't been misguided by the bloggers guide. However, I don't know any woman who goes to Google when she wants to look for handmade statement jewellery! I certainly wouldn't do a Google search to look for jewellery, would you?? What beats me is that knowing this fact doesn't make me chase the botworm any less frantically - just shows how competitive I really am, I suppose, and also that I like to test a theory before I accept it as common wisdom. AnatevkaAnatevka was a fictional shtetl in Imperial Russia where the musical Fiddler on the Roof was set. We went to the Eutin Festival in Germany, where they had this musical on, inspiring me to create this necklace. I acquired a necklace of hand knotted shell pearls in beautiful colours of bronze/ cream, peach and shades of grey - the pearls are large and very beautiful, and though I normally would have cut up the necklace to restring the pearls, this one was so well made, I couldn't bring myself to wantonly destroy someones painstaking work - in fact, I had to agree that I couldn't have done it better ( a rare admission for me ). I decided to make a pendant for it, and string it onto the necklace directly. An agate druzy cabochon, surrounded by wire lace, with pearls and crystals thrown in just grew and grew until two days later, my muse declared it finished. Although wire lace looks pretty, it is hard work on the finger tips which resembled Shreddies by the time I was done - but hey! I love the way it looks, so won't complain. The pendant is very baroque in appearance, and suits the necklace - and the name! If you want to know what shell pearls are, here's a link to a very well written article I found during my research - I couldn't have put it better myself. And with this, I decided to put my Lacemania aside for a while - and my fingertips heaved a huge sigh of relief!! I've had two new helpers this week - Charlie and Wilfred have moved in with us - they must have been techies in a previous life, they are fascinated by the moving cursor on my laptop screen, and keep trying to help me type this blog and won't take no for an answer. They are also interior decorators of sorts, and are helping me to remodel my house and change the decor, by systematically destroying anything they dislike - Mike's 40 year old German oil lamp (he's had it 40 years, but it was an antique when he first bought it) is something they have taken a dislike to - only he refuses to part with it - the boys are most annoyed that it is now out of reach! Silver MonsoonWith my fingertips sore and out of commission, I decided to give them a rest. I have these peacock feather pendants in from Indonesia - the ends have been fringed, much like a Rastafarians dreadlocks, with beads, and I love the effect. I used shards of electroplated quartz needles in the necklace, strung with spacers of crackle quartz in a deep peacock blue and a couple of enamelled beads from India. The quartz needles remind me of the silver rain that sheets down during a monsoon - the rain in the UK though persistent, is usually gentler. DurgaDurga is a wrathful form of Parvati, otherwise known as Mrs Shiva, and the mother of Ganesh the elephant God. Kali is an even more angry form - women of all ages, at different times of their cycles have fleeting resemblances to one or another avatar of this multipurpose Goddess. According to legend, Parvathi was peed off at something- or someone (possibly, but not necessarily hubby), and she knitted her brows together in a frown - a third eye originated there ( watch out - the gaze from that third eye when provoked into opening can burn you into a frazzle). When someone else peed the already irritated Durga off, she went wild, hair unbound, arms akimbo - and she didn't stop until she killed the annoyance, hung his head around her neck and drank his blood. She laughed and laughed, and did a dance that a whirling dervish would have envied, until suddenly to her horror, she found that she was trampling on her poor husband Shiva - Oops! she said and stuck her tongue out - and an ancient photographer took her picture (or maybe the wind changed and her facial expression stuck), so she is doomed to being immortalised as the crazy one with her tongue stuck out, hair wild, with strings of demon's heads hung about her person. This story, I am sure will resonate with my female readers - we've all been there, pootling along, minding our own, when along comes this nuisance - whether we turn into Durga or Kali depends on the irritant! Anyway, I digress - this necklace is made of a pendant from the Banjara tribe in India, with two paisa coins from 1962. I put them on a rope, which can be tied so that the pendant sits where you would like it to and can be worn with all sorts of necklines. It looks like something Durga might like to wear - well, she's most definitely a Caprilicious woman.................... That's it for this week folks. Charlie has destroyed a bunch of silk flowers I had prettifying a dull corner of the house, and the two brothers are now flicking the flowers around the house like crazed confetti - I'd better go and rescue what's left of those poor flowers. Have a fab weekend, and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place
xx When I first started to make jewellery, I was given a piece of advice which has stayed with me - a pretty clasp lifts a simple necklace to greater heights, like nothing else can. Since then, I have been a clasp junkie, spending prodigious amounts of money on store bought clasps. When I had the exhibition over in India, I watched ladies walking around the room, and to a (wo) man they all noticed the clasps. In fact, one woman chased me around the room asking me where I had got them from, and would I please sell her some, forgetting that this was an exhibition of jewellery, not jewellery findings, and that I was highly unlikely to be carrying extra clasps in my suitcases! My love affair with the clasp has continued to the extent that I am now making clasps for myself, in an effort to make them one of a kind and different from the ones that other jewellery makers use. Tutorials from the likes of Nicole Hanna and inspiration from Sharon Solly have helped, as well as a book by Denise Peck in my latest endeavour. I sent a sample to my friend BN, and she used the clasp in ten different ways and sent me photographs to show me what she had done with it - she still hasn't told me which one of the ways was her final choice for the necklace she made! Ten Ways to Use a Clasp, by BN I also made some faux lamp work glass toggle clasps out of polymer clay and wire using a tutorial written by Amber of Caterpillar Arts and inspiration from work by Sharon Solly - these are colourful and playful and I will need to find the right beads for them. The Dryad Another toggle clasp inspired by Nicole Hanna was used in a necklace made of wood grain jasper and gold coloured crystals - I tried to break up the browny - golds of the necklace with blue crystal beads and dichroic glass. Dryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology, each one looking after a particular tree in the woods, punishing thoughtless mortals who injure their trees. Ariel This necklace was named after the beautiful mystical, serene, angelic face in this pendant. The Archangel Ariel, predominantly in Hebrew writings, is thought to be the angel of nature - had she been Greek, she would probably have been closely related to a Dryad, as she too guards nature and trees and punishes humans who harm them. The quartz needle points in the necklace have been heat treated and coated with titanium and gold vapour, and teamed with green crackle quartz. I made the wire accent beads myself out of yards and yards of fine wire wrapped over a frame. African Queen It was a beautiful weekend, the sun was shining, the peonies were out and we went to the pub for Sunday lunch. These hollow faux ebony and ivory focal beads in my hoard were just right to wear with white linen summer clothes - I strung them on waxed linen cord, with bone beads and cowrie shells - summer necklaces for the boho chick! Cosmic Spirals Spirals are a compelling shape and have universal appeal - I'm not sure why this is, perhaps because they are the most natural shape seen by our eyes and enter the subconscious right from the very beginning. The spiral shows up often in nature - in the pattern of seeds in a seedhead, in the growing tips of ferns, in the pattern that leaves grow on a stem, in the shape of a nautilus shell, and imprints itself deep into the subconscious mind, so that when seen again the shape is familiar and pleasing to the eye. I too love spiral patterns, and made these faux bone hollow beads with spirals of bright coloured 'zippers' wound around them. Teamed with faux ostrich egg beads and a large chunk of sponge coral, they make a light but chunky necklace - another one to go with the summer linen outfits. I found these two shell pendants in a most unlikely place in the house - I think my house elf got fed up of hiding them from me and tossed them out for me to find - I quickly turned them into pieces of jewellery, before he pinched them again. I asked my Facebook fans to help name the one and Minerva's Prize was the name bestowed on it. I called the second one the Whirly Shell Pendant. With both, I have echoed the pattern and shapes in the shells with the wire. I hope you've enjoyed looking at this weeks 'makes' - catch you next week, same time, same place - have a fabulous week
Hello all, I hope you have all had a good week and beat the pre Christmas anxiety bug by getting it all ready beforehand. If you haven't, don't forget, Caprilicious offers a free gift wrap service and your gifts can be sent straight out to your friends from here. Last week was all about bracelets - Neelam Modi, of Look in the Bag kick started this orgy of bracelet making by buying one that I had tucked away somewhere, and almost forgotten about. She sent me this lovely collage, and I decided straight away that I ought to make some more in a similar style, it looked so good on her (she is a graphic designer who conjures up the most beautiful silk scarves with her own designs on them, paired with a little piece of jewellery, all presented in a bag that can be used as an accessory, as well as packaging for the scarf - what a fab gift idea). So I looked around for stuff I could incorporate into this sort of bracelet, and here's what i came up with. The first one is a blue agate geode - not dissimilar to the one on Neelam's wrist - except that one was green. I also used an amethyst flower, and a bronzite flower that I got off my friend BN, in a bead swap. I sat in front of the telly the whole week making nets out of wire - I hope you think all that effort wasn't wasted. Then, I had a phone call from my sister in law who suggested I make some more bracelets in the Chinese Whispers mode - out came the polymer clay and these rolled off the table a few hours later..... Sisters go to TeaI played with the face cane, made a week ago and under instruction from Alice Stroppel, I manipulated the cane so I got three different faces from the same cane - I wouldn't say these ladies are beauties - not by a long chalk, but their faces have character ( is that one way of saying they look like old boots!) and they look like they are related to one another - so, 'Sisters go to Tea' was the title of this little offering - since I still have some face cane left, there may be a 'Sisters...' series forthcoming. I think the bracelet is whimsical and fun, and my sense of humour ensures that I will wear it - what do you think? - do you think it's a fun bracelet or do you prefer you jewellery to be more ornate and conventional/sedate?? I think there's a place for both kinds. For some reason, I was a busy little bee and felt like making a few more pieces - every time I took a break from the wire netting, I made a necklace! MirageKyanite and opalite in different shapes and sizes carry the last of my leaf skeletons. Dyed red and blue jade teardrops were added to the leaf with a wire flourish. I love kyanite, which resembles shards of blue cracked ice, with a shimmer deep inside the stone. The molecules are arranged in sheets or layers, which give the stone it's distinctive shimmer - to me it resembles a mirage. MajorelleThe main colour in the Majorelle gardens in Marrakesh is a cobalt blue, which is vivid and cheerful. At the entrance however, as if the architect wanted to ease you into the brightness, is a restful pond in a very different shade of blue. I named this necklace after the gardens, the blue chalcedony in it is such a restful colour. The yellow agate and creamy jasper provide a calm counterpoint. I know these colours are very summery - but the very drabness of winter makes me want to create in Technicolour - and these days people follow the sun for holidays, so there's no such thing as a seasonally inappropriate colour. Rose GardenA song from my youth - Rose Garden! I made some roses for the Caprilicious birthday giveaway a couple of weeks ago - and I made these two fairly robust, so that they could be used in a necklace - much like the wedding garlands worn by the main protagonists in Indian weddings. Along with an Afghani pendant, the necklace looked pretty festive - I test drove it one evening, to rave reviews! I love that I made almost all the elements myself - in fact all the elements except the pendant and the crystal beads and clasp.
This weekend, I will bring out the tree, and put up all my decorations, get all my presents wrapped up and ready to go, and work at the day job - HELP! At least I've posted off my Christmas cards, so there's one thing crossed off the list. Have a good weekend, and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place xx I have recently begun to scour blogs with tips about photography in the time when I am not working or making jewellery, and found a blog post called " Thirteen Things Your Camera Wishes You Knew" and found out that apparently, I have let my inner chimp roam free - I will have to talk sternly to myself from now on! I have spent a lot of time wishing I knew more about my camera, sometimes getting a bit annoyed with it because it seems so complicated - I never thought how I might be offending it by my ineptitude. "Photographers call it “chimping” when someone looks at every shot on the LCD after it is taken. The name comes from people looking at the camera and repeatedly saying “oooh” like a chimpanzee." This photograph is from Zambio. Chinese WhispersThis is a limited edition archival print by Kalyani Ganapathy, an extremely talented painter from my home town, Bangalore. Her paintings are filled with whimsy, and they speak to my funny bone - she says, sometimes my work reminds her of her own - obviously a kindred spirit thang going on here! I am the proud possessor of one of her original paintings. Banter I thought about what happens when gossip becomes vicious, and how rumours are born - and my next piece was conceived right there. I made some triangular flat bangles from polymer clay and added bits of coloured spots in different shapes and sizes on one side, spilling over and through the centre, turning into a completely different coloured spots on the other side - this is how Chinese Whispers work - they are converted into quite something else by the time they spread far and wide - the dark side of a good gossip. I like the idea of quirky jewellery which is contemporary at the same time - something that makes you smile while making you look good, don't you?? We went to the German Christmas Market in Birmingham over the weekend - unfortunately, there wasn't a single thing that was German in it! Even the sausages were Lincolnshire and Cumberland - the burgers were made from kangaroo, ostrich, reindeer and Aberdeen Angus meat - not really known for hailing from Germany - the whole thing defied the Trade Descriptions Act! But I took some pictures - and here are some for you to look through..... Meet Coral, the Goth - she is actually a pharmacist who has a degree in Infectious diseases and comes from Mauritius - I saw her in an otherwise empty Jazz club, and was blown away by her pizzazz - I overcame my natural reticence and went in to chat to her - she most obligingly posed for me - and once again, with her friend when they came out of the club. Isn't she fabulous?? - she says she doesn't feel the cold!! Lenten RoseThis flower blooms obligingly in the dead of winter, through the snow and frost, and comes back faithfully every year - it grows in shade, so I grow it under my evergreen trees in the shade of my garden fence and I can see it from my bedroom - it is probably the only colour in the garden in winter. The Saga of the Caprilicious Rose GiveawayI pulled out some polymer clay and made a bunch of pretty roses in the orange, yellow and red combination on the Caprilicious logo - and then I thought, wouldn't it be nice to give them away as a birthday gift from Caprilicious - so that's what I did - a bit ( a lot) of confusion ensued from this one single light bulb moment - I didn't realise how hard it was to give things away. I did say at the start that people would have to pay for the postage - just the jewellery was free. One of the ladies took exception to having to pay for postage - and then it ensued that she thought I was asking for payment for the pendant - too late, I had offered it to someone else by then. Paypal began to play me up and charged people double the amount, so I had to cancel and resend the invoices, one person asked for earrings after they had all gone - but as she is a bit of a favourite, I will make more for her. I posted news of the giveaway on the jewellery forum I belong to on Facebook, thinking to give something back to the ladies who offer constructive criticism, and stroke and soothe the old ego (stroking is always welcome) when I post my pictures on the forum, but the administrators deleted the post - no giveaways allowed! - PHEW! - it began to look like the proverbial badly organised p**s up in a brewery! Anyway, all but one lot have been posted out now - I worried that they might be too fragile to go in the post, so had to put in a load of wadding - which in turn made the postage costs go up - remind me please, not to do this again - or to do it with more robust, easily posted items - I ought to think things through rather than acting on a light bulb moment!! Made of the Mist
Silvery quartz points were interspersed with Czech glass teardrops that seem to glow in the light. One of the points was wrapped with enamelled copper wire and Japanese rectangular glass beads and used as a pendant - I think the silver of the quartz resembles the gray mist - there's something mystical and magical about them - it was as if sorceress had imprisoned the mist and hung it around my neck. The necklace is both delicate and substantial at the same time and deserves a good home...... any takers??
That's all I had time for this week folks. Have a good one, and I will catch you next week, same time, same place xx Hello and welcome again to the Caprilicious Blog, where I talk about my jewellery and other incidentals that have attracted my attention over the week. http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-tips/fireflies-in-the-dark-richardson/ The week gone by has been a bit warm (understatement - but who's complaining?) - those of us in the UK know how we longed for a bit of this last year. We have a Level 3 heatwave on in the UK - what that means is that you can fry an egg on the pavement at midday, and fabulous it is too, after all the sogginess of the winter gone by. I showed you some of my latest acquisitions - little sterling silver pendants - in a blog a couple of weeks ago. A couple of them have the most beautiful fire opals - I love opals, don't you? The little lights that dance deep inside them reminds me of the fireflies I used to see in the park when I was a little girl - haven't seen one of them in ages. Fireflies glow due to a phenomenon called Bioluminescence - to attract a mate, and they flitter around switching themselves on and off, like tiny fairy lights. They communicate with one another using a kind of Morse code - flash, flash ... flaaash - which probably means 'come and get me' or is it ' get your hat and coat, you're pulled', in firefly speak? I imagined the dance they might be doing - and the one that came to mind was a foxtrot, and this little necklace got its name from my flight of fancy. Iridescent peacock pearls fit the bill perfectly, and strawberry quartz gave the piece an extra injection of colour. Firefly FoxtrotI found these photographs of fireflies in a woodland in Germany taken with a camera using a slow shutter speed - have a look, they are simply fabulous. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308304/If-glow-woods-today--moment-fireflies-turn-woods-enchanted-forest.html Firefly FandangoThis necklace has a very similar pendant to the last one, except that the opals are blue. I teamed it with blue jade in two colours and some silver beads to make this necklace that seems to dance around your neck. The vibrancy of the blues imply a more fast paced dance - the fandango is a lively Spanish dance accompanied by hand clapping, guitars and castanets. It has a very lively, carnival feel to it, which is reflected in this necklace. Once I got started, I was on a roll with the firefly theme. The last pendant was six little blue fire opals set into a sterling silver cross. To complement the chatoyance of the opals, I teamed them with faceted labradorite and blue jade beads - to my annoyance and frustration, I was unable to display the sheen of the stones in a photograph. I spent ages experimenting with different lighting and backgrounds, but was forced to admit defeat in the end. Labradorite gets its sheen from being deposited in layers - each layer shines at a different refraction angle when moved in the light, and it seems to flash at you when around your neck. I do apologise for the pictures - I will ask a friend of mine who takes professional pictures if he will take some for me, but until then, these are the best of the ones I managed to take. Firefly EpiphanyThe epiphany referred to here is the sudden revelation of the chatoyance in the opals and labradorite on movement - and believe you me, the beauty of it takes your breath away for a moment when the necklace is handled. One of the young doctors who works with me bought a necklace from me for her mother as a birthday present - I think she was hoping her mother would accept the gift, and then hand it back to her to wear - unfortunately for her, her mother liked the piece and requested two more - both of which were made to the young doctors spec - she secretly hopes that her mom will give one to her - we will have to wait and see what happens. The weekend looms, with the prospect of more sunshine, which is just as well as we have a barbeque planned with about twenty five folks planning to attend. We host it each year for the junior doctors who move on to another hospital in August as part of their training rotation schemes, it is a sort of thank you for all the work they have put in over the year. The party can be as lively, or as sedate as they wish, and really depends on their personalities - they are allowed to invite guests from the hospital - midwives, anaesthetists and any others they choose are welcome, as are juniors from previous years. The neighbours have been forewarned! That's my week in a nutshell folks, stay cool and we'll meet up next week, same time, same place xx The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray!......... and I was finally able to go into the conservatory and use my kiln. I really don't know why we bother in Britain - conservatories are freezing cold in the winter, and roasting hot in the summer - ours is tacked on to one side of the house so we have to walk around the house to get to it. As we are stuck for space, my kiln has ended up there - but, come what may with the weather, I have decided that I am going to use it this year. I made a start this week, and tried out some of the enamels I bought from a lady who retired from the jewellery business. With enamels, none of the colours resemble the raw powdered glass in the jar once they have been fired, and the transparent ones look different when fired onto copper than when put on silver - why must life be so difficult??? - sigh! I have perforce to keep the area tidy - with the kiln running at temperatures of 850C, there is little room for stuff falling over and general clumsiness, which is why I have this picture of my work station - isn't it tidy??? Mike has a jar of copper pennies and I used some of them to enamel onto - it was great fun, and without actually making anything, I achieved a lot. I found out what the various colours looked like and I stuck each penny on the lid of the container, so that I would find it easily again in an attempt to take the guess work out of the exercise. This picture shows how unlike the powder the actual colours look on the pennies - at least I know what colours will be my favourites now. And, I learned that a mixture of vinegar and salt shines up the copper pennies - that old wives tale is definitely true!
Glam Rocks Glam rock was a style of music that came out of Britain in the 70's - sparkle, sequins, purples, reds and gold, outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter were associated with this era, with David Bowie, T Rex and Roxy Music being big stars of that genre. I am old enough, of course to have enjoyed their music, and I dedicated this next necklace to it. The clear crackled quartz, and the purple shell pearl nuggets in two strings with the pearls and silver crystals carrying an aspen leaf are most definitely glamorous. I like to contrast purple with green, so I added a green carved jade butterfly and a faceted teardrop, as well as a shimmery Czech pressed glass triangular bead to a squiggle of wire, hung from the bail of the leaf. The Pomegranate Tree I had a friend who had a pomegranate tree growing in her garden - as children, all we had to do was reach up and pluck one for a quick snack. I think on reflection, that the pomegranate is a very overrated fruit - there's an awful lot of pfaffing about to get an ounce of the good stuff. However, it sure looks pretty - both on the tree, and when split open. My mother found these four coral cabochons for me, and I decided to group them together into a pendant for maximum impact, as individually each one was only about a centimeter long. The minute I did this on a piece of paper, I was reminded of the pomegranate tree of my childhood. I clustered the cabochons together, and doodled around them with wire and crystals to try and recreate an organic 'tree effect'. A coral teardrop was added for movement - I love a bit of movement - otherwise the piece looses its dynamic, and is just a lump of metal and a few stones. Have a lovely weekend folks, it is Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, and traditionally, it always rains on a bank holiday - I shall stay indoors with the cat and play with my beads. However, if the weather is more like it should be at this time of year, some gardening/ barbeque action may be on the cards.
Catch you next week, same time, same place xx |
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