Hello readers and lovers of statement jewellery, thanks for joining me again today. I had a couple of 'catch up' days off from the day job this week,doing nothing but lounging around the house, catching up on the energy that needs replenishing from time to time. We had news that the show in Worcester that was cancelled a few weeks ago has been replaced by a smaller one-day affair, this time in the Guildhall in Worcester city centre. The event is on the 25th of July and if you are in the area, do come up and say hello, I'd love to see you. The Pink PlanetThe pink planet was discovered by NASA in 2013 - they haven't as yet given the poor little orphan a name - it is called GJ 504b and is dark cherry blossom/magenta in colour. The quest to find out more about it began in 2009, and the astronomers say GJ 504b is about four times the mass of Jupiter and has a temperature of around 237 Celsius. It's star is slightly hotter than the sun, and the pink planet orbits its star at nearly nine times the distance Jupiter orbits the sun. Don't my polymer clay beads look exactly like the pink planet?? I was really struck with the resemblance, which is entirely coincidental. The beads for this necklace come from all around the world. The brass lost wax cast beads come from Kenya, the luminous ceramic beads, from my visit to the USA, the crystals are Chinese and I picked up the flat blue ceramic bead in India, and of course, the polymer clay pink planet beads were made by me here in the UK from a tutorial by a Frenchwoman on her blog Parole de Pâté - a truly international effort! MarocA Moroccan enamelled pendant teamed with dyed branch coral in black and gold form the basis of this necklace. The coral beads are light and because they are separated by tiny seed beads, they sit comfortably around the neck. The vendor of the pendant sent me the little Sufi dervish as a gift and I hung it on a chain on the back of this necklace to add a pretty touch to the back. CasablancaA beautiful silver tone bead came from Morocco, in the same parcel that delivered the pendant for 'Maroc'. I had a strand of amazonite slab nuggets and I decided to remake a necklace I had made previously, albeit slightly different from the first one. When first put on, the necklace beads have to be settled around your neck by gently arranging them so that the ends of each consecutive bead faces in the opposite direction and gives the appearance of two rows of beads. Once that is done, it stays put for the entire time the necklace is around your neck. I love the seafoam green of the amazonite - very cool and refreshing on a summers day. PoppyI love the teardrop shaped coral beads that go into this necklace - I've used these beads in various necklaces in all sorts of colours, but red is the one that attracts my eye the most. As I strung the necklace it struck me that the scarlet of the coral looked so much like poppies. Cats eye beads give the necklace pops of contrasting colour at irregular intervals, and a large Moroccan bead in contrasting navy blue provides focal interest. Copper SulphateThe origin of the name of this necklace is instantly obvious, given the colour of the beads. Turquoise blue is one of my favourite colours and teamed with copper coiled wire beads and a handmade clasp, this necklace is made so that it can be worn in two ways and still have the copper beads to one side in an asymmetrical presentation - with the clasp at the back, or to one side. The copper wire was coiled on a mandrel, and the resulting coil was coiled again on a thicker piece of wire. The wire is coated invisibly with a coat of polymer so that it does not tarnish or react with the skin. Although I had loads of time on my hands, I didn't spend any of it cooped up in the house playing with wire or polymer clay. It was sunny and warm, and a lot of my days off were spent playing the hedonist, lying in the garden under an umbrella, drinking pink lemonade, eating al fresco, reading and playing with Charlie and Wilfred. I know a lot of my regular readers were surprised that I wrote a mid week post - didn't you see it?? Well, it was called Alchemy and you will find it here. It was entirely unrelated to jewellery and you will have to take a look to see what it was all about.
That's me for this week folks. I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place - have a lovely week in the meantime xx
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Hello readers, and a Happy New Year to you all, and the warmest wishes for love, beauty and fabulousness in 2015. Everyone else has wished you peace and good health, right - but I'd like to add a wish for a soupçon of fabulousness - the quality that brightens up your life and adds a bit of zing- us Caprilicious women need that! Having been on call on New Year's Eve, I relaxed the next day by playing with clay without any intention of actually producing anything. I just kneaded and rolled and made snakes - just like being a child with plasticine - until I decided to try out the box of coloured chalks that had been delivered to my door just before Christmas. I was inspired to use chalk on polymer clay by a number of artists - it seems to be the latest fad, but no one actually says how they do it - perhaps it is a trade secret. I coloured the clay discs I cut out with a background pigment, and then added tiny amounts of a contrasting colour - I loved the effect so much, I spent a while ensuring that the pigment stayed attached to the clay. I tend to take photographs as I go along when I am claying just as an aide-mémoire in case I want to make the same thing again - and to show you part of the process that goes into making Caprilicious Jewellery. I know that quite a few people are curious about the 'how', from the questions I get. And then I thought, why not put together a mini tutorial?? There were loads of times I would have been exceedingly grateful for a little instruction that helped me to make a cogent piece of jewellery - so it is for beginners I wrote this mini tutorial. I know that a few very experienced clayers sometimes read my blog - it is not my intention to introduce grannies to eggs. The pigment adheres to the clay if liquid clay is painted onto the clay discs before curing them - this is an alternative way, but it will not give you the shiny and deep effect in the earrings above. However, this method is pretty too and I made some earrings using it. I play this clip from this unlikely couples' concert in Brussels - you'd never have dreamt of saying Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga in the same breath a few years ago now, would you - yet here they are making sweet music together, and revelling in it. I watched this concert, and loved it so much, I bought the CD - and my motto for this year is.... you guessed it, ANYTHING GOES!! The Caprilicious women amongst you - and I hope that's most of my readers - will have already recognised that anything does indeed go. Art jewellery is just that - art you can wear - and should be accessible to everyone. Just to show you what's out there - exciting and new in the use of new materials, I put together a montage for you - click on them to go to their respective websites. When I last spoke to my mother I asked her what she thought - and she said that although she might not buy my stuff (!) because she's been brought up to buy precious metals, she enjoys the work I put into my pieces, be it wire or polymer clay - now, how diplomatic was that - for someone who's usually as blunt as the back of a knife! On reflection, I think my mom might be quite pleased with what I make if she took a look at some of these!! I however, want to go as avant garde as I dare - and have been discussing playing with concrete. The concrete isn't bought in a builders yard - it is jewellery grade and doesn't chip. Watch this space... This is what Nicole Hanna has to say on the subject of 'perception' When someone says to you your artistry is not real… it’s not “real” wire wrapping, it’s not “real” jewelry… their perception of what is “real” is based on their limited personal experiences as regards the subject in question, likely bred from a similar situation in which perceived opinions were delivered to them in a similarly negative light. So there, she said it first!! And I say again - ANYTHING GOES, if you wear it with panache and aplomb! Pixie People EarringsI seem to turn to my face cane at regular intervals - this time I made earrings from it. Because all the work went into the actual making of the cane, putting the earrings together was relatively simple and they turned out bright and pretty. I made another WIngs of Love necklace - I just love those beetle wings - the colour is simply divine. I have enough stock of the wings to make one further necklace - I want to take a couple of pieces to my exhibition as they are not widely available there - something entirely new for the good folk of Bangalore, who I hope will love them - perhaps once they get over their initial squeamishness. Tropical TurquoiseThis is a replica of a piece I made earlier with turquoise chip nuggets and pyrite - the pendant is similar too. I try not to replicate my designs, but sometimes I love one so much that if I have similar materials in stock my muse will not move me along in another direction, she forces me to make the same thing over and over. Having been on call on New Year's Eve, I will be working on the first weekend of the year. I hope to start packing my stock for the exhibition, so that I get some sort of a handle on what I have ready, and what I have yet to put together. I hope all of you welcomed in the New Year with panache, that a lot of Caprilicious Jewellery was worn, and loads of compliments were had. Do send me photographs if you have any. Here's wishing you all the best for 2015. Have a lovely week, and I'll catch you next week as usual, same time, same place xx Look into My EyesHappy Friday readers, I hope all of you are well this fine morning and rocking it with your statement jewellery. This week started with my muse following one of my previous avatars and going into a mesmeric mode. I qualified as a clinical hypnotherapist a number of years ago, and still use my skills from time to time, although not as much as I would have hoped - a girl can't do everything! But, when this polymer clay bead formed itself in my hands it reminded me of a traditional stage hypnotist's induction tool. I made two, but lost one to the process ( i.e. it was consigned to the scrap pile) but I saved this one in the nick of time. I put it into my 'orphan beads' box- and one day, my muse decided that this pendant would be made with it, using the tutorial I won from a competition on the lovely Nicole Hanna's website. I love the way the swirls of colour go towards the centre point - perhaps it should be worn by someone trying to persuade people into following their will - or someone who is trying to keep those eyes focused at a point away from their cleavage!! There are earrings to match and I have talked about them in a previous post. Spellbound - The Keeper of SecretsThis jade pendant came from China - I bet you guessed that! I love the face on her - Les Dawson (the late comedian who was famous for his mother in law jokes) would have said that the face reminded him of his own MIL. In an attempt to soften her profile a bit and make her look less like Les' mother in law, I added a frame of woven wire - I did think of adding other embellishments - but the severe lines of the face go with the straight lines of the frame - curlicues would have been out of place here - although she did get one or two - and a dangling bead, I simply couldn't resist. Raziel is the Hebrew Archangel and Keeper of Secrets and is the ruling God of the Second Heaven - I think the face on this pendant looks a lot like a Raziel - don't you?? And finally, after all the work put into it, the necklace is a true statement piece - certainly arresting and worthy of a second look when it is worn. Precious Metal Clay PendantsI have talked a bit about precious metal clay before - it is a great medium that yields silver that is 99% pure, as opposed to Sterling Silver, which is only 92.5%. The heat in the kiln scared me a bit to start with, but I am rapidly getting more relaxed about it. I made a couple of pendants earlier and strung them on some extremely pretty semi precious gemstone necklaces. Pitter PatterThis pendant has tiny feet carved into it, and I set a little red cubic zirconium into the second toe on one foot - like a bejeweled toe ring. Strung with labradorite and peridot the necklace is extremely delicate and pretty. This particular string of beads has exceptional labradorescence - it flashes every time the light shines on it from various angles. StardustWith this little scrap of deeply engraved silver, I went a bit overboard when I was setting the cubic zirconia - I put in so many stones, that the piece twinkles like a starlit sky. I found the beautiful, tiny squares of apatite in India and when teamed together, the result is soothing and pleasing to the eye. Someone who likes their statement jewellery a bit on the small side will love these pieces from my kiln. A couple of pairs of earrings rolled off my pliers while I was watching late night movies with Mike - there has to be some benefit to being an insomniac! These were made with inspiration from mini tutorials donated to the cause of wire workers everywhere by the very generous Nicole Hanna. The Dragonfly's DellI acquired this slice of agate from my friend BN - it has beautiful striations deep within when held up to the light, but when held against the skin, it resembles the blue green waters of a still and glassy lake - the warm summer weather has brought out the dragonflies and I was reminded of a poem I read by someone who calls herself SusieA, published in Fairies World. The Dell Down past my garden, underneath the trees, There is a place of magic that no-one ever sees, A little grassy clearing, plain at ones first sight; But if you take the time to see, you shall find delight. If you come to see this place, take heed: you've found the Dell. I wire wrapped the stone, and then added a dragonfly to the bail, along with some extremely shiny iridescent Czech fire polished beads - when I finally decided it was finished, I thought any respectable dragonfly worth it's salt ought to love it in this dell! And finally, my last piece this week - drumroll................ Sea BreezeMade with a handmade toggle clasp as the focal, and a string of graduated turquoise heishi beads. Lot's of blue air around me - I dropped the beads, and spent time scrabbling around on the floor on my hands and knees, and then reassembling them into the graduation on a bead board, swearing softly to myself all the while - then stringing them so that the focal bit was to one side with the larger beads at the bottom of the necklace. One of my friends asked if I would write a guest post for her blog on 'What is Statement Jewellery and How to Wear it' - I began to put some thoughts together - I found that I had so much to say, that I decided to start a mini series here, on the Caprilicious Blog - each week, I'll start off with a paragraph or two on how to rock your statement jewellery - I am very excited about this little project - if you have any questions for me, do post a comment and I'll try my very best to answer them.
That's it for this week folks, have a fabulous weekend and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place xx Hello readers, I hope the summer is treating you well - here in the UK it still hasn't caught up with us, but we live in hope, now that June is here. The foxgloves, whose seeds I collect from seedheads in the garden and strew around the garden and on the bank opposite the house every year, have come up and look ever so pretty. I'm not sure who the whimsical person was who named the flower, but I can just imagine Mr and Mrs Urban Fox - and there are at least two of them in the park opposite our house - slipping their paws into the flowers and going off, tripping the light fantastic, arm in arm. So with that bit of whimsy at the forefront of my imagination, I set about making this weeks pieces - advance warning--- a lot of them involve flowers. Daisy MaeI bought strings of clear quartz beads in India in a prayer shop - they were strung into a 'Mala' which is meant to be an aid to meditation and prayer, clear the mind and get your chakras spinning. I'm afraid I bought them because they were pretty and shiny, and paired with pewter daisies, tiny turquoise beads and a very lovely turquoise clasp worn to one side, they make a very pretty necklace. If it helps the wearer with their psychic health, well, that's an added bonus, but I cannot vouch for that particular outcome. I had to string the third strand while wearing the piece and looking into a mirror, to get the daisies in exactly the right place, so that they would hang at the bottom of the necklace when the clasp is positioned to one side. It took me ages, to get the positioning just right, and Kevin and Betty looked on in amusement while I struggled - I couldn't use either of them as I needed to have the necklace on a 'real' person to get it just so. Stone RosesHand carved turquoise roses and teardrops are assembled using bead weaving and knotting techniques in this very different necklace which sits close to the base of the neck. Necklaces with Afghani PendantsI had two last pendants in my most recent delivery of pendants from Afghanistan and I made polymer clay beads to go with them over the weekend. As I had all the canes made and stored earlier, making the beads was quick and easy and the necklaces almost made themselves once the beads were ready. PsychedeliaMorning GloryBright and sassy, the necklaces in the Tribal Bling section are able to effortlessly go from day to night, and from Eastern to Western attire - one just needs to be brave enough to wear them. I have strung them on two strands of beading wire so that although the pendants are heavier than most focals, the necklaces are robust and will take everyday wear and tear. This is my little kiln, and I have ignored it for a while - I am always trying to run befor I can walk, and then, when I have a spectacular failure, I retreat to lick my wounds and the technique that unwittingly caused me grief gets put on the back burner. I decided to break my duck and try some simple designs again. Having cracked a 20 gm packet of Precious Metal Clay in 99% silver, I made three pieces of jewellery, and these worked out more or less how I wanted them to - maybe I'll play some more! Summer RainI combined a piece made with silver with a polymer clay and resin 'cabochon' made with inspiration from a class taken with Debbie Carlton. The polymer clay is embellished with silver foil and the pattern on the clay looks like raindrops hitting parched earth - hence Summer Rain. I made earrings to match with a piece of leftover clay. I hope you've liked what you've seen this week - do leave a comment and tell me what you think. That's a wrap for this week folks, catch you next week, same time, same place
xx Hello readers, and thanks for dropping by the Caprilicious Blog. I hope you have all had a good week - we have rising temperatures here in the UK, and this has naturally turned our thoughts to the summer that is so tantalisingly near, but yet,.............. But first, I took on a couple of challenges this week - I do so love a good challenge. To my mind, it sets the creative juices flowing, and focuses ones mind on a task, rather than thoughts aimlessly milling around like a swarm of ants. I spotted the first challenge on Facebook - it was a 'finish this' challenge by Nicole Hanna - she published half a tutorial for a piece of wire-work jewellery, and the competition was open to anyone who cared to join - I saw the notice only two days before the competition ended, so I set to work almost immediately. I'm aiming for the completed tutorial that she is offering to all the participants, that's prize enough for me. The Unfinished SymphonyWe were given a recipe for the ingredients, and weren't allowed to make more than one substitution, or add any others. The results will be shown in an album on Flickr, and when I have the whole tutorial, I will make the pendant accordingly and am most interested to see how different it will be from mine. I played with clay all last weekend, and made up a bunch of scarf jewellery for my friends from Look in the Bag. Once I had finished, my workspace looked like a bomb had gone off over it and I despaired of ever tidying it. I find it hard to work in a messy environment, and when I saw the next challenge, it inspired me to try and clear my table of all the stuff I had on it. "Clean-up, Fix-up" your workspace BLOG HOPSharyl McMillian-Nelson of Sharyl's Jewelry and Reflections challenged us to clear up our workspace and blog about it. She has a long list of participants from all around the world - jewellery making, chronic untidiness and the internet, have brought us together. If you clink on the link above, you will find the list of the other participants in this challenge. Well, I have two workspaces - one for the weekends, when I have time to play with clay, and another where I sit of an evening, in front of the telly with Mike, and the beads and wirework come out to play. There is a third, in the conservatory where I have my kiln and enamels, but as it isn't very active, there isn't much point talking about it for now, although I hope this will change fairly soon. I had just finished making the multi strand necklace with beads, and wire and polymer clay pieces you will find below, and my stuff was all over the place. I keep a limited amount of beads and some findings right by my chair, in boxes on the floor, being too lazy to get up and walk to my storage area each time I need something. Unfortunately, I do not have a 'before' picture to show you, just the 'after' one - you can see the boxes balanced precariously on each other, but all the beads went back into their respective boxes without too much trouble, and the wire was coaxed into going back onto the shelf, so the area looks relatively tidy - and that's the best I could do! As you can see, the pliers refused to move and stayed sat on one of the last naughty spools of wire in a sulk - they should have gone onto the plier holders on the top shelf - I left the refuseniks be, as I didn't have any energy left after that monumental effort. This is the room where I play with clay - it is only tiny, and I have a trestle table to work on, a trolley with paints and stuff on it, a computer table with the buffer, all jostling for space with a filing cabinet, a cupboard that holds our coats and outdoor wear, another cupboard meant for cleaning implements which I share with my cleaning lady ( and am sneakily encroaching on when she isn't looking, shelf by shelf ), a wall that is lined with books, and shelves that hold photography equipment - a lot to fit into that tiny space. I consider it nothing short of a miracle that I can see the white ceramic tile I use as my work surface. I took all the clay off the table and put it back into boxes under the table, all my implements were wiped down with wet wipes, and stashed in their mugs and glasses - all the mugs that get chipped in our house find their way to my work space - they know I'll give them a good home in my efforts to stay organised. A set of library steps have been encroached on - I use any flat surface to hold something temporarily - and that quickly becomes a permanent fixture, but as these steps are my husband's pride and joy, I daren't do that for longer than a day or I will find all my stuff unceremoniously dumped on my table when he goes in to look for a book! Anyway, this is as tidy as it gets - but very far from being all shipshape and Bristol fashion. I have to tell you that before I went all 'crafty' the room was a third bedroom, converted into a sort of library for all the books Mike and I own. I used to play with clay in the kitchen, but that meant I had to clear up my clutter every evening, and projects had to be finished or binned at the end of the day - we all know, that doesn't work one little teeny weeny bit! Club TropicanaI made this polymer clay veneer for another project, but then ended up using it to make a few small pendants instead. I used one of these pendants in a bohemian necklace in bright colours - just right for the summer ahead. The inspiration was beach jewellery from Thailand - usually made with macrame, but I decided to use the look, and recreate it in my own way. There were a pair of earrings to match, and I think this necklace will look great with summer whites. I used polymer clay beads, wire, African trade beads, which my sister in law kindly found for me when she was on a safari holiday, and I had a ball putting this piece together.
That's it for this week folks, cleaning up after myself has exhausted me and I need to lie down with a cold compress on my head, catch you next week, same time, same place - have a lovely weekend xx I bought a couple of tutorials previously from Nicole Hanna, who is a young woman, (well, compared to me she is a littl'un - unfortunately, these days a lot of people fall into that category) who has got the 'wire world' weaving - one by one she has infected people with this bug, and I am a recent infectee (??). She is also incredibly generous, and set up a competition where she put out an unfinished tutorial on her blog, and the competitors had to finish the piece in whatever way they saw fit. I resisted the urge for the longest time, and finally, made a couple of three pieces which I submitted - not to win really, but just because I could! As I said, I am new to wire weaving, and I'm sure there are plenty of worthy people who will make the most beautiful stuff. Also, the half tutorial was a starting point, and I was kinda testing myself to see how many ways I could use it - I might just carry on, well after the competition is over. It reminded me of the books I read as a child, where a tattered piece of a map has to be deciphered to claim a lost treasure, and hundreds of people are fighting over this torn and tattered, barely decipherable piece of paper in the hope of getting to the treasure first. Neptune Named for the God of the Sea - this pendant has a rather masculine brown picture jasper bead, with beautiful splashes of red, and I added swirls of wire, and turquoise beads for femininity. Too much wire, woven too closely together, in my opinion detracts from the femininity of a piece - I like the embellishment of negative space, and although not a 'girly' person, and like my jewellery large, I tend to appease my feminine side more. So, this pendant is meant to represent Neptune rising out of the waves - what do you think?? My second piece was called Through the Moon Gate - I saw them in China - they are circular openings in a garden wall that act as a pedestrian passageway, a traditional element in Chinese gardens. Moon Gates have many different spiritual meanings, depending on the tiles on the gate. The sloping roofs of the gate represent the half moon of the Chinese Summers and the tips of the tiles of the roof have talismans on the ends of them. I put scroll like imaginary dragon heads on either end of the 'roof' - Chinese dragons are symbols of power, strength and good luck, and used by Emperors as the yang that complements the yin, which is the phoenix. I raised the degree of difficulty by using a turquoise doughnut - I had to figure out a way to hold it in, without it having a bead hole through which the wire would pass, and then work out how to finish off the ends of the wire. Since the doughnut is encircled by bead encrusted wire, it spins around inside the bezel, and the tactility of that unexpected result pleased me - I like nice surprises! I eventually used eight and a half feet of the thicker wire, and miles and miles of the finer wire to weave the pendant - and it took me an entire day - but what fun it was. My fingers were sore and my joints creaked in protest, in the wire workers equivalent of writers cramp. But, here it is, and I think the pain was worth it in the end. Through The Moon Gate I had one more day left to submit a piece with Nicole's unfinished tutorial if I wanted to - she allowed multiple pieces - by this time, I felt I could make the first half in my sleep - so I did, but this time, I upped the degree of difficulty yet another notch - I decided to make earrings - with a smaller bead than specified in the tutorial, with two pieces that had to match, and mirror one another - which is more difficult than you can imagine. Both earrings have to be made simultaneously, as a difference of a millimeter will look terrible when they are set down together. Now to figure out what to do with it - the rules allow more beads, more wire - in fact, more anything - hmmmmmm! Carmine The upside down tear drop shape flatters the face, and the perfectly matched carnelian beads are dramatic and dressy. I didn't add any more wire in the end - the earrings would have been too heavy. At 2.8 inches long from the top of the bail to the tip of the freshwater pearl dangle, they are bound to be easy to wear, and Barbara, who got to model them (it) certainly likes them. Oh, Happy Day! I wanted a pretty and colourful piece to take on holiday with me - polymer clay jewellery is ideal for travelling with - the jewellery is light, and relatively inexpensive - no one will attempt to steal it or mug you for it, and it looks fab in the holiday pics. Lotions are not a problem, and the pieces travel well, just thrown into a case - not like metal/wire which might bend or break, and all in all it is a win, win, win situation. This necklace was inspired by Donna Kato's squiggle beads from her book, but as I wanted it to be as colourful as I could make it, I made a rainbow blend using a tutorial from Polymer Clay Central - I just love the colours and the way the necklace looks - it makes me want to sing - Oh Happy Day.....
That's it for now, folks - I will write again when I get back from my holiday in gay Paree - catch you next week
xx Hello folks, I hope you have all had a good week. I have been busy at the day job, and picking out a present for my husband - he has just had a birthday, and we have a wedding anniversary later on this month. Please forgive me if I go all romantic and soppy on you, but that's the way I'm feeling - I will snap back to the more recognisable snarly, irritable self - he's sure to annoy me soon enough! So this week its all flowers, and sweetness and light - as I said, do forgive me, it's not often I go soppy like this. The week started with a bunch of coral tear drop beads I teamed up with some really bright red and green Nepalese Yin Yang beads - when I first had the Nepalese beads, I wondered what on earth I would do with them - they were that bright - but nestled in the middle of this Lei, or garland, they look very much at home. A Haku (Hawaiian) is a braid - I got this from Wikipedia, in the process of researching my coral Lei. In my heightened state of hopeless romanticism, I thought this was soooo sweet (sick bucket, now, quick ) so I thought I'd share this with you. Haku mele - to braid a song. A song composed out of affection for an individual is considered a lei. Anyway, the Lei I made is not sickly sweet, fortunately my muse isn't following my mental state, I am lucky in that, if nothing else! LeiOf pomegranate studded fish and love - the moonThis is the painting I bought for Mike as a wedding anniversary present. I saw it while browsing idly on Face book - the artist was from Bangalore - I come from there too, so it seemed like kismet that I should find it at a moment when I was at my most romantic (!). I originally thought I'd visit the artist in India, later on this year, but the jewel colours of this painting attracted me so much that I could not resist it. I found her shop on Etsy - here's a link, http://www.etsy.com/shop/youandispelljoy?ref=seller_info and bought it straight away, so that it would be here in time for the day. This is what the wonderful Kalyani Ganapathy has to say about herself in her profile on Etsy - and I think that exuberance of feeling is well demonstrated in my painting - can't wait to get it back in its new frame - I am sure he will love it too.
FloretteMore flowers! I have got it bad, haven't I ?? - never mind, this phase wont last too long! I made another Nepalese pendant oriented necklace, and used some carved coral roses - they are so pretty, and they contrast so well with the bland white howlite beads also in this piece. To add texture and interest, I put in some translucent black crackle agate - I would love to make a necklace of just these beads, but really nice ones are quite expensive, so I just bought a few - maybe one day! NightshadeDeadly Nightshade Still on a floral note, but this time, a darker theme ( yes, slowly getting back to normality, then), Nightshade comes from a genus that produces the potato, tomatoes, petunias, gooseberries, aubergines, chili peppers, and tobacco. Deadly Nightshade produces belladonna or atropine which has been used as a poison. The lovely puffy, faceted onyx squares (which gave me a whole load of trouble - well, I would insist on using what is meant for a bracelet in a necklace, so its really my fault), contrast with the coral roses and turquoise pillars - very showy, and definitely night time jewellery - worn on a cruise perhaps?? - who knows where it will end up! Persimmon PoetryOne more necklace in The Eastern Promise series - I tried this pendant on one or two different strands of beads, and what seemed to be just right for it was a lovely strand of light orange sponge coral cylinders, and some large turquoise beads. The coral is lighter coloured than any I have used previously, a pale orange rather than red, and it struck me that the colour was like a Persimmon or Sharon fruit. I had been hoarding these beads for a while now, and this seemed the perfect time to use them - the pendant was so large, it needed to be balanced with a multi strand necklace, or one with chunky beads. When finished, the name Persimmon Poetry just came to mind - and stuck - so here it is ....... And finally, I decided to go back to wire wrapping a cabochon - with a simple neat wrap - the kind that attracted me to wire work in the first place - I just wanted to see if I could do it again, after all the wild and woven stuff I have got used to making - this piece is simple and sweet, but I couldn't resist twisting the square wire and making loops around the cabochon with the addition of tiny green aventurine beads, like little planets surrounding the sun. The cabochon is a green and black druzy, and is very pretty - a very soothing shade of green. Planetary Influence That's as much as I have had time for this week folks, thanks for stopping by, see you next week, same time, same place
xx Thank you to all the ladies - and a gentleman, who bought stuff in the Caprilicious Boxing Day Sale - strangely, most of the people who decided to get a piece of Caprilicious were from the USA - your stuff will be with you soon after this blog comes out - and I am sure you will love your chosen pieces. I know people have spent a lot of money at Christmas time - presents and entertaining, and travelling, but a nice piece of jewellery is something to lift your spirits, and I hope Caprilicious can do that for you. Trade BeadsI have been researching Trade beads this last week - they were known as African money, and were used as currency for goods, services and even slaves. They were used by European explorers instead of money, and a lot of them were made in Venice from glass. The African people were thought to love them as decorations for their attire and in jewellery, and of course, this love of colour and adornment was exploited thoroughly and ruthlessly by early visitors who exchanged glass beads for ivory, slaves, gold and other commodities. As making Millefiori is part of attempting to be a polymerista ( I don't consider myself one yet- a trainee maybe!!), I took it on myself to make some chevron beads. I found a tutorial on the internet from the multi talented Desiree McCrorey, and modified it to suit my requirements - and I think for a first attempt at this technique, made quite a creditable job of it. A complex cane of different colours was constructed as per the instructions in the tutorial, and covered over with a transparent layer of green coloured clay - so far, so good. Then the beads were cut, rolled smooth, and cured - even better! Now for the pain in the proverbial - sanding - every bead had to be sanded smooth under water with five varying grits of sandpaper - finer and finer each time, and then with Micro mesh cloths - ever finer and finer, till the last cloth felt like there was no grit in it at all - apparently, this one is used to polish the wind shields of aeroplanes! A lot of the green/ transparent layer was sanded off, to reveal the stripy lines of the cane within. Fortunately, I recently moved all operations from the kitchen to my 'studio' ( Ooh la la, aren't we getting grand!) and the mess there was semi contained - at least it was not in Mike's way - he has been very patient so far, but I know not to overstretch the limit of his forbearance - things could get explosive - you can't keep a man from his kitchen especially when he is chief cook and bottle washer! And then, for the buffing wheel - the beads are so small, the wheel kept snatching them out of my hands and flinging them halfway across the room, leaving a gouge mark on the bead, which I then had to buff out again - what a load of fun! Without this bad boy, I would have to have used the Dremel, and that would have taken ages - even longer than this little lot! I moved it into an alcove, rather than have it on the table, facing the stained glass window - Yikes! - the consequences of a bead flung at the window doesn't bear thinking about. So finally, with a lot of swearing and huffing and puffing, I produced twelve beads - two hours to roll out the clay and make the beads -and almost five hours to sand and polish them! I was reminded of the time I used to play badminton as a child - the main exercise was from picking the shuttlecock up off the floor when I missed the shot, which was most of the time - I hadn't learned to swear back then, being a good little Indian girl - my, how things change! Real, antique chevron beads Anyway, I hope you will all agree from this picture , that my beads look like chevron beads (please agree, oh, please, please agree) and that they shine like glass - that, they most definitely do! I am my harshest critic, and even I have to grudgingly agree that my beads are most definitely usable. I still have some of the cane left, and when I make another batch, I will shave off some more of the green with a knife prior to curing them - and so reduce the five hours of sanding and buffing and picking the beads off the floor...... to possibly, two! But still, I like the beads, and that's reward enough, for now. I started to put together a few necklaces this week. Of course the Nepalese pendants had to get a first look in - I have been collecting gemstone bead components with this day in mind for a couple of months - now, finally it is time to introduce them to each other, and arrange their marriage - hooray! HoliColoured powders sold in a market at Holi Holi is the Indian festival of spring. It is a riotously colourful celebration, full of dance and song, and people fling coloured powders in the air and anoint each other with daubs of colour to celebrate the coming of spring. Of course, by the end of a hard days celebration, the revellers look bedraggled and dirty, and a lot of them are p!££** as newts, but are very smiley, happy, tired people. As the days are now getting longer, spring will soon be here - after the holiday season is over, this is the thought that keeps us going through the grey days of January and February. Already, the daffodil shoots are poking up out of the hard ground in my garden. My necklace was made in the colours of Holi, with an artisan- made Nepalese pendant, and dyed mother of pearl shell beads in jewel colours, with a few accents of coral, turquoise and Czech fire polished beads. The beads came all jumbled up on a string, and I spent ages separating them out into little piles of exploding colour, and I am glad I did, as it simply made the colours pop in the necklace. It took me a while to get a decent photograph of my new creations, with so little sunlight about, and very little time due to the demands of the day job. I decided that some of my old pictures were rubbish, so I retook them as well. When I finished, I had a large pile of colour sitting at one end of the living room, and when a ray of sunlight fell on it,the colours shone like a glass picture in a kaleidoscope. With the next Nepalese pendant, I used some amber beads - amber is pine resin which can be many years old, and contains fragments of the hapless creatures that perished when they got stuck to it, when it was still soft and newly dripping from the tree. The colours are so pretty, they remind me of the toffee my mother used to make when I was a child. A third pendant got a coral heishi ( pronounced hee-she, as in hee - haw! ) bead necklace, with brushed silver tone accents. I got a bit 'over - pendanted', and made a piece without one - I used some lapis chunky nuggets, with extremely pretty, and colourful, orange jade beads - a few silver tone accents, and it was done - the clasp was meant to sit to one side as a focal, but it didn't seem right, so I cut it up and started again, this time, putting it where clasps are usually - at the back of the neck - it seems such a shame though, to have something so pretty where it is not visible - the wearer will just have to present her back to people and wear her hair up - or simply revel in her secret. Henna Named for the orange of the jade beads, henna is a plant whose leaves when crushed give out lawsone, a burgundy organic compound that has an affinity for bonding with protein. Lawsone is primarily concentrated in the leaves, and is released more quickly when in contact with a mild acid such as lemon juice. The Henna paste is piped onto the skin like icing on a cake, in what is basically a Zentangle pattern, and when it dries and is washed off, it leaves a deep orange stain, which lasts until the skin exfoliates. I have added a video of such an application, for anyone who may be interested. My pièce de résistance this week is a piece entitled NIGHTFALL. It is made with onyx squares which are actually meant to be wired together for bracelets - the beads have two holes each. After a lot of tweaking, cussing and manipulating the engineering, I made a necklace using turquoise spacer beads, and added a showy Nepalese triangular pendant, and some pipe shaped turquoise beads - a contrast of shapes and colours that is very very stand outy ( for want of a better word). NIGHTFALL I am quietly pleased with my little collection of necklaces this week, they are different, and colourful - I would wear them!
That's all for this week folks, have a good week and I'll see you same time, same place next week xx Christmas is here folks - by the time I write next week, the goose will be well digested and we will be looking forward to the New Year! Here's wishing all of you a Joyous and very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Melusine, the lady dragonMelusine was a fresh water sprite in sacred springs and waters around Luxembourg. This tale, from medieval times, told by ladies when they sat spinning at their looms claims her as an ancestress of the rulers of Luxembourg, who magically made the castle of Bock appear the morning after her wedding. On her terms of marriage, she required one day of absolute privacy each week (only one???). Unfortunately, her husband could not resist temptation, and spied on her in her bath - she was discovered to be a mermaid! When he let out a surprised shout, her bath immediately sank into the solid rock, carrying her with it. Melusine surfaces briefly every seven years as a beautiful woman or as a dragon, holding a small golden key in her mouth and legend would have it that whoever takes the key from her will set her free and may claim her as his bride! I used her as inspiration for the necklace that bears her name, of beautifully marked, glamorous, tactile dragons vein agate rondelles. The addition of sparkly crystals as spacers made the sheen of the gemstones even more prominent - I love this necklace. RemyThis one is yet another 'wear three ways' offering from Caprilicious - the abalone clasps I have in my stash have green, purple and a golden yellow colour to them, and I have already made necklaces in green and purple - this is the golden yellow one - the colour resembles fine cognac, when poured into a crystal brandy balloon - all warmed up and ready to slip down your throat like honey. More Arabian Nights DreamsI hate the thought of being a one trick pony - stringing beads onto a pretty clasp is a lovely way to get instant results, but I'd get a bit bored if I did that all week - so, I alternate making up necklaces, wire work, claying (clay - polymer and precious metal) and now enamel. I don't mind admitting, I am not enjoying the enamelling quite so much, especially after my last debacle! Mike laughs at me - he says I think I should have been born with a perfect skill set - I don't enjoy the learning curve - maybe he is right. Next year, I shall set aside one weekend every month to play with enamels - till I get it right. Just now, it's a bit of a sore point. So, I went on to play with wire - a couple of weeks ago, I set out to make a pendant in the shape of a lotus - it took me a while, and some very sore fingertips, but I cracked it. The pendant ended up extremely colourful, with the addition of loads of coloured alexandrite, apatite, jade beads, and onyx danglers, and instead of just leaving the pendant as a stand alone piece, I hung it on a necklace made of tektite - meteoric glass, from Australia, and freshwater pearls. I particularly like the tactility of the tektite - and of course the rough, sparkly centre of the druzy cabochon. It's All Coming up RosesI have a fairly sizeable collection of rose quartz in various shapes and shades of pink, and decided to use some of it - pale pink is a very subtle shade and difficult to design with unless the wearer is a Barbie doll. It is extremely easy to design a piece for myself, but as I am not a Barbie, I needed to think outside the box to come up with these two designs. Now that they are made up, I think the chunkier one would be what I would instinctively pick in a shop, if I had to buy pink - the addition of the bright colours in the spacers would appeal to me. I made the spacers in both necklaces myself out of wire and some fire polished beads. I do like Rosy Posy as well - it will be interesting to see which one gets picked up first, and by whom - watch this space.................... I spend as much time looking for fancy clasps, as I do beads and gemstones, as I think that often a clasp elevates a piece of jewellery from the ordinary to something special. The other side of that coin is that I design my jewellery with the clasp as an additional focal point - and I think you would agree that the butterfly in this necklace deserves to be seen, sitting sweetly on the shoulder of the wearer. Last Tango in ParisIn a complete departure from the 'pinkness' of the last two pieces, I made use of some cinnabar beads I happened to have lying around - I meant to make one necklace with red and black elements, but in the end, two of them emerged - can't think how that happened. The combination of red and black is so aggressively sensual, that it brought to mind a Tango - The Last Tango in Paris, Bertolucci's beautiful film with the fabulous Marlon Brando. Cinnabar beads are made of a soft wood that takes a heat impression, so the beads have some very detailed design work imprinted on them. I added lava rocks and a couple of large bean shaped crystal beads, to add interest. Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone are Tango dancers par excellence and we were lucky enough to watch them live in a show down in London last year - I have a little clip for you here that illustrates the power of red and black when put together - sizzzzzle....... Every day this week, a bit at a time, I wrapped a pyrite chunky fan shaped nugget with antique brown wire, added gemstone beads, dangles and embellishments till it begged me to stop - no more, please, it cried - I was surprised, as I had planned many more additions and curlicues and beads, and..... and..... and.... But, I heard the piteous cries of the pendant, and let it go - last seen, it was on a simple memory wire choker, legging it in the direction of my storage box - I wouldn't admit this to anyone but you - in the end, it seemed like it was right to stop me from over egging the pudding. I thought I would take a short break over the next couple of weeks, and chill out over Christmas - at least that was the plan, but I found that my fingers developed a mind of their own - pliers and snips seemed to attach themselves mysteriously to me! No matter how much I try, I can't seem to get away from them - I tell you, it is an addiction!! So, I gave in and decided to make up some earrings, to replace the ones I sold at Caprilicious' birthday bash - I shall take my time photographing them and uploading them onto the page - perhaps as one lot in January. By request from some of my favourite customers, I have put on a Boxing Day Sale for a week - please have a browse and message me with the name of any piece you like and I will invoice you with the discounted price.
Have a fabulous Christmas, catch you next week, same time, same place xx No, I don't mean blood from a stone, you read it right first time - Light from a Stone - this epitomises Labradorite. This greyish brown stone is, at first sight boring - in fact it resembles something you might find lurking at the bottom of a cat litter tray - but, wait .... move the stone till it catches the light - and you get that fabulous flash of light from within it's depths - a flash of yellow, blue and green - and you are hooked! Labradorite is a feldspar, first found in Canada, formed by the slow cooling of magma, giving the crystals time to arrange themselves in large clusters before being locked into place in layers - these layers reflect light at different angles, giving that characteristic flash - the Schiller effect. The Inuit thought the Northern Lights had been captured by the stone, it is that beautiful. I once bought a bracelet with a large slab nugget - and was immediately hooked - grey brown is difficult to design with, and of course, the stone needs to move to catch the light, so still photographs do not do it justice - Oh well, I can but try - I am not sure if any one will be discerning enough to actually want the necklace, but I love it, and will happily wear it myself. Aurora
The Harnessed PeacockThis is my nod to Mary Wesley, whose books I read and enjoyed a long time ago - she published her first book at the age of seventy, and wrote a number of best sellers after that - the women in her books are all extremely unconventional, and she has a sharp and dry wit. Harnessing Peacocks is one of her books, and it was also made into a motion picture. Mary had a red lacquered coffin made for herself by a local artisan, and kept it in her living room - she offered to be photographed in it for an interview by a magazine - politely declined, of course! I love that story, she must have been such fun - even her biography is called Wild Mary. The copper non tarnish wire bird has a crystal tear drop dangling from its beak, and brilliant green and blue crystal and glass 'tail feathers'. I kept the chain simple, but not so simple that I didn't embellish it with a few crystal dangles. CandyThis one was made to complement a turquoise clasp - I used zebra howlite, square onyx beads, shiny crystals, blue glass beads, dichroic glass rectangles and pressed glass beads in the shape of pansies all the way from Czechoslovakia. I love Czech glass - they have some beautiful beads, and I buy them whenever I can find them. They looked like sweeties from my childhood when I finished the necklace, hence the name.
I made these pendants for Scherezade - to wear when she told her prince stories, night after night, holding his interest by withholding the ending - just to live another day, and tell yet another story - a cruel tale, but, we got all these stories from her plight, and she got a stay of execution - and he got the girl - a win win (win) situation, by all accounts! The druzy cabochons came all the way from Jakarta, I love the crystalline centres that sparkle in the light - once again difficult to photograph. I have been taking online photography lessons and tips, but might make my way to some real ones at the local college come January, I so hate not being able to share my enthusiasm with you. Lashings of wire, and tiny gemstone beads embellish the druzy, but I have kept the whole thing simple, on a ribbon instead of making a whole necklace around it to keep the focus on the pendant itself - this will turn heads anyway, so a whole 'statement necklace' will probably be a bit of overkill. I have a few more cabochons, and have been trying to set one into a pendant in the shape of a lotus - and struggling, I don't mind admitting. There's something missing, and I just can't put my finger on it - don't you just hate that feeling - but I have put it away for the time being and hope that when I look at it again, inspiration will strike me like a bolt of lightning and I can show it to you next week. Till then, have a lovely weekend, and a fabulous week. See you same time, same place,
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