Hello readers, I'm happy to be with you this weekend - the show at Leamington Spa Pump Rooms and Art Gallery is done and dusted, and I can now chill out and relax over the next few weekends. The show was great fun, as the weather decided to play ball and people came out in droves. The Pump Rooms are at one end of Jephson Park, and to my astonishment when I pitched up at 9am to set up on the Thursday, there were people wanting to come in and had to be turned away. Admittedly they were early visitors to the park who needed to use the toilets, but I've never seen the likes of it - a queue built up by 10am and when the doors were thrown open at 1030, a bunch of mothers pushing prams followed, followed by a steady stream of visitors. There is a little cafe to one side of the foyer, and loads of people visited it for a quick cup of tea. Most of them stopped by our stalls and some of them picked up a piece or two. A couple of bus loads of holiday makers from Yorkshire were dropped off outside the Pump Rooms, and some more people were wandering around the shops having come from Hull to attend a family wedding. On the last day, there was a Classic Car rally in the park, which had loads of visitors, who took the opportunity to nip in for a walk around and a bit of retail therapy. As far as Caprilicious was concerned, it was the best show in the UK - I took a variety of stuff with me and people were amazed by the different techniques I had used to make jewellery. There was a lot of appreciation for my stuff from the visitors and they were very complimentary, even if they didn't actually buy a piece. If I wasn't a naturally modest person, my head would have loosened itself from my neck and floated off into the stratosphere!! I was exhibiting alongside a painter and a photographer, as you can see here. I took some of my larger pieces, but didn't expect them to sell, they were strictly there to pique the interest of passers by and beckon them to the show area. I had lots of modestly priced items on sale and chatted away happily about my favourite subject - Caprilicious. The people in Leamington Spa have a regard for artisanal goods, and time and time again I heard them say how much they preferred buying from the maker rather than an impersonal store. Music to my ears, really. I chirruped away happily talking about polymer clay and metal clay, wirework and all sorts, my jaw hurt in the evenings from all the talking and smiling I was doing. Quite a few people came to look at the 'trail' of artists in Warwickshire Open Studios brochure - one gentleman, in his seventies, had even taken a train up from Buckinghamshire to do the trail. He said my jewellery was 'delicious' and that it was a good thing that his girlfriend wasn't with him as he wouldn't be able to tear her away. I suggested that he bought her a gift, but unfortunately she'd recently run off with a ukulele player (he then added that the musician had more money than him, as well as the ability to play the ukulele - obviously an irresistible combination ). Then there was the gentleman dressed in a steam punk top hat and a vial around his neck which on closer inspection contained three tiny skulls (he said they were some of his relatives). I reminded him that Angelina Jolie and her then husband Billy-Bob Thornton wore a phial filled with each others blood around their necks while they were married - his wife looked a bit alarmed at the suggestion! They were dressed so eccentrically, I'm sure they had a classic car parked outside in the rally but I didn't like to ask. Besides, I was too busy taking their pictures! I had a couple of days off from work to put things away and calm my nerves. On the Tuesday I picked up a pendant I found on the internet from Lahore in Pakistan - it is a vintage pendant, originally from Afghanistan and suddenly a necklace seemed to come together, who was I to stop it? MehfilA mehfil the Persian word for a gathering of poets and singers sitting around drinking wine and eating delicately spiced, aromatic food. In my romanticised version (I've probably watched too many Bollywood movies in my misspent youth!) a candle in a hurricane lamp is passed around from poet to poet, and whoever the candle stops in front of recites a poem or sings - a kind of 'spin the bottle' for Persian intellectuals in their version of a Roman orgy. I can easily imagine a woman sitting in semi darkness, wearing fine silks and this necklace and when the candle arrives in front of her, she raises her head and delivers the most beautiful poem. I wish I could be that woman, but as I am not a poet, and would die a million deaths if the candle stopped in front of me, I thought I'd at least make the necklace. That's me for this week, folks. I've decided that I would like to try and empty the website of earrings so that I can make some more. I've dropped them all in price - all except the Shibori ones, so wander on down to the website and see if you fancy a couple of pairs. I've also reduced the silver earrings and the mixed metal earrings on the website until the 1st of August. Have a good browse, and enjoy your week. I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place Until then xx
1 Comment
Hello folks, thanks for joining me again this week. Well, they're calling it a summer monsoon (I've never heard of a winter monsoon) here in the UK, there has been flooding in low lying areas, continuous rain, very reminiscent of my childhood in India when the newspapers reported a 'depression in the Bay of Bengal'. As a child I had a very literal imagination, and I thought millions of people were sad and crying in the Bay of Bengal for some reason, and the rain was their tears falling upon us. Just now, I can certainly tell you that I am very depressed and fed up in Warwickshire, although the garden doesn't seem to mind it at all and is smiling away. I love the photograph in the 'ad' above - I took the picture and turned it into an ad for my show at Warwickshire Open Studios using an app called Canva. I told Danielle that she looked like 'The Lady of Shalott' from the poem by Tennyson. We read it at school, and it is such a romantic poem about this lady who is cursed to never look out of her window. She spends her life in a turreted castle weaving tapestry, using scenes of the world outside from reflections in her mirror. One morning she sees this beautiful man ride by in said mirror and cannot resist it. She takes a direct look at the fair Lancelot who is generally thought to be one of the most handsome men in literature, and 'the mirror crack'd from side to side' - she meekly went and lay down in a little boat and died while floating down the river. I think I might have fought death a bit in her place, and a bit of screaming, kicking and biting might have happened, but hey! that wouldn't have been quite so romantic. If you haven't read it, I commend it to you, and here's a link. GhazalI must have been in a very romantic mood (see above) in the last few weeks, although Mike hasn't seen too much benefit from it. A Ghazal is a poem set to music in Urdu or Arabic originating in Persia. Once religious, they are now mainly romantic, and speak of unrequited or unfulfilled love. There are some really beautiful Ghazals I learned while growing up and I so wish I had a better singing voice. I found this pendant online in a shop based in Lahore, Pakistan - it originated in Afghanistan. I've made necklaces with such pendants before, but usually use lapis or coral to give it an earthy, folksy look. This time I used titanium coated quartz nuggets and lost wax cast beads from Africa to add a bit of dull gold to the mix. I love the way it came out. I can see a woman in this necklace, wearing loose skirts, drying her long hair, humming a ghazal as she adorns herself with jasmine and perfume while she waits for her lover - unfortunately, the lover is probably married and she is wasting her time waiting for him as he's gonna go straight back to wifie. But who are we to burst her bubble? Let her dream awhile yet! Spirit of the SeaI made this clasp from copper clay in my kiln a while ago, but I don't think it made it to the blog as I hadn't polished it to my satisfaction. I spent an entire evening shining it up recently and put it with a string of raw blue quartz nuggets and freshwater pearls. The clasp is meant to be worn to one side, but can be worn so that it acts as a pendant. Have I used shades of blue all week because the weather is so lousy?? Who knows? Either way, I'm very happy with both pieces. Do you like them?
That's my lot for this week, folks, have a wonderful time and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Hello folks, how are you this week? I've been tending to my husband who has been struck down with the longest lasting, worst man flu in Christendom, or so it seems. But while he slumbers, medicated with antihistamines and other cold remedies, I have time to create, right? Yes, that's what I figured too! So I dosed him with meds at regular intervals and got on with it. RusticanaIf you've read my blog on my return from Bangkok, you will know that I went to the Palladium mall there where I picked up a few things for Caprilicious. My sister in law was with me and she bargained the traders down until we got what we felt was a fair price - the process can be exhausting, because we have no clue how much an item actually costs - just a ballpark figure where one starts at just below half the asking price and works up. However, my sister in law is made of stern stuff, and she started at one third the asking price, which sometimes made me cringe, but everyone enjoyed the process and we came away happy with our purchases. The Afghani pendant in this necklace was bought from a tiny shop in this rabbits warren of a mall, where we rummaged around in a great big knotted, balled up stash until we found something we liked. The pendant is teamed with vintage glass beads from Ghana, a Moroccan enamelled bead and a couple of polymer clay beads I made myself. Rusticana is not a brightly coloured piece, but retains an air of rustic sophistication I like. Rose ArbourA brass stamping, imported from the USA is surrounded by a stylised wirework climbing rose in this pendant. I hung it on a necklace of chunky carnelian and a couple of copper beads, made in the style of silver Bali beads which I bought in a job lot from an Indian trader ages ago and have been saving for a special piece such as this one. I call the earrings below my faux stained glass earrings - they were made by attaching a piece of Japanese rice paper to the back of the earring and colouring it with alcohol ink and many layers of varnish. I made them ages ago, but only just found the time to make them up into earrings with little crystal dangles and ear wires. The paper is translucent although you cannot tell this from the photographs below. I've had some beautiful micro pave components come through the letterbox and I shall be making some pretties for my Bling! pages next week. I am so looking forward to using these lovely components.
Having put these words down, I'm off to catch the train to Manchester tonight, as I am at interviews all day tomorrow. That's me for now folks, have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Hello readers, how are you today? Hasn't January just flown by? It is already the 22nd, and in two weeks I will be back in India in the sunshine, having escaped from the miserable cold weather we are experiencing recently. I've started packing stuff in boxes for my show and making the last few pieces I intend to take with me. I've decided to call it a day now, and pack a few things every day - to stay away from my jewellery altogether would give me the DTs. And now I have a small favor to ask. (Don't worry, it doesn't involve lending me money.) All I'm asking is, if you have the opportunity, that you help me get the word out about the exhibition on any social media platform you happen to participate in. It can be something as simple as a tweet, or a mention on Facebook, or Tumblr, or Pinterest, or Instagram, or even Google+. Anything to raise awareness would be great! Please tell your friends - and of course come yourself, I'd love to see you. It even managed to snow this week, and although it didn't last long and melted away in a couple of days, it messed up my weekend as we had planned a little shopping trip on the very day it snowed and my credit card heaved a sigh of relief. The Tuareg OasisThis year, it feels like I've thraped the Tuareg theme to death - but I love the tribal motif and it gives me a great opportunity to play with colour and shapes - to me the word 'colour' instantly calls for polymer clay in some form. As the Tuareg amulets and pendants came strung simply on black braided thread or black glass beads, there was no limit to where my imagination could take me and no precedent to block my flights of fancy. I totally agree with the Rajasthani tribal people - the desert they wander is so sparse, and well, sandy, that their clothes have to be colourful to light up their lives. If I had my way, I'd get the Tuareg people walking about bedecked in bright colours too. The green of this pendant though pretty, is not one that I would generally pick - I like the brighter green of the parrot, or even the chili - this one is a gentle leaf green, which is soothing to the eye, but not really vibrant. Prehnite is a vaseline green colour, with inky black random smudges and goes well with the pendant to give it a soft, sophistication which isn't 'in your face', which is usually my wont. Just to vary the shapes, I added a tribalistic imitation spindle whorl bead made of polymer clay in a silvery black. I played with clay at the weekend and made these Shibori Seashell earrings designed by Carol Blackburn - love the icecream colours, don't you? A bit fed up with the cold weather, I also made some snowdrop earrings. Where are you, spring?? Happy DanceI did a happy dance - I entered a giveaway on the blog written by Pearl Blay - 'The Beading Gem's Journal' and won! I won a free webinar on how to photograph jewellery. I spent Sunday rushing around the house finishing all my chores to free myself up for seven pm which was the time allocated. I have a Canon point and shoot as well as a dslr, and have been to a couple of lessons on how to use my camera - but not with jewellery specifically. She managed to talk to dslr users, point and shooters and camera phone users all at the same time and made sense to all of them. I wasn't sure what exactly I hoped to gain, but I know that product photography is of the utmost importance and any help with this is welcome. I wanted to learn how to get a clear white background, and how to keep shiny objects looking shiny - in my opinion, silver and pearls are very difficult to photograph. Pearl gave us some really great tips on this and what sort of lighting to use. I took loads of notes and am having a lot of fun experimenting with my new-found knowledge. Before I knew it, two and a half hours had flashed by - time does fly when you're having fun! On Golden WingsI found a vendor who had Jewellery Beetle's wings that have a golden tinge to them. I simply could not resist them and just had to make them up for the show - they are not freely available in India (or if they are, I've never seen them) and I thought it would be nice to offer something exotic. I've made jewellery with Elytra before, so I tried to do something completely different with them on this occasion, using earring connectors to give them a unique look. I couldn't resist showing my pictures to my teacher - 'Look miss', I cried. And she was suitably pleased with my homework and sent me to the top of the class, which is more than I've ever achieved at school! "Can do better," my report cards always said, which I took as a compliment - at least they didn't say "DUNCE". Indian schooling is very competitive and my entire childhood was spent looking crestfallen at being made to feel a bit of a duffer. When I got to the UK, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that children were not put through the mill with hundreds of exams each year. If I wasn't such a resilient character, I might have believed that I was stupid. Happy Dance No 2At the end of last week, HOLY S*1T ( I mean WOW!), I HAD MY FIRST SALE IN MY ETSY SHOP !!! Pardon me for shouting, but I was so excited, all of it could have been in capitals, and we all know how annoying that can be. Anyway, it turned out that my first Etsy buyer is an artist called Julie Dumbarton who won Visual Artist of the Year in 2013 and 2014 and is totally in love with colour. OMG, pressure, or what?? I chewed my nails until I couldn't wait any more and sent her mail asking if she'd received it. Eventually that day it reached her in Scotland and I had an email from her to say she loved the piece - Phew! I can breathe again. That's me for this week, folks. Here's a picture of my boys having a snooze on my bed - aren't they sweet? Have a fabulous weekend and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place. Until then xx Itchy feet, that's what I have! Hello folks, nice of you to join me. Yes, as I was saying, it's been a while since I've packed my bags and ventured out to pastures fresh. My next trip will be to India to visit my mother, but that isn't for another couple of months, so I'm having to travel vicariously through Caprilicious. Last week, I was in Rio, and this week I am in Africa, with the Tuaregs. Here are some of the necklaces I made with Tuareg/ Berber tcherot amulets, there have been quite a few of them in the last couple of weeks. The most striking attribute of the Tuareg is the indigo veil, worn by the men from the age of twenty five, giving rise to the name 'the Blue Men of the Sahara', or 'Men of the Veil'. The women do not veil themselves, and are the boss of the family - good for them! The Tcherot is an amulet that protects the Blue Men when they cross the desert. This one is made of tooled camel leather, with engraved silver and copper set into it. I added the most colourful beads I could find - polymer clay, coral, fire agate, shell pearl, a couple of lapis lazuli nuggets - anything colourful in my stash, and then added beaded tassels to either side of the Tcherot (just in case it wasn't colourful enough!!). Tiny African trade beads and ceramic beads from India went into the making of the tassels, and at last, I was satisfied. Escape Arts is a charity enabling adults and young people to become involved in creative projects. They are based at the Old Slaughterhouse, The Yard, Sheep Street, Stratford Upon Avon and are running an Artisan Christmas Market on the 12th and 13th of December. For the love of Caprilicious, I decided I'd brave the cold weather and give it a go - if any of you are down there do come and say hello, I'd love to see you. In the run up to the market and Christmas, I've made a load of little earrings - if there are any left over after Christmas, I shall upload them onto the website as I haven't photographed them as yet. OasisWith the last little Tcherot amulet I have in my collection, I made a colourful necklace using vinyl trade beads with a splash of even more colour from a couple of polymer clay beads I made earlier. The vinyl beads are in turquoise and mango and as the amulet is small in comparison with the others on the website, I made a three stranded necklace to give it some Oomph! The Ginkgo AngelOh, come on, be fair, it is Christmas! I love the shape of the gingko leaf - I had never come across it until I began to make jewellery. The ginkgo tree is originally from China and is also called the Maidenhair tree. The leaves are bilobed and pretty, and the lady who ran the jewellery school where I went for my classes had a tree growing in her backyard. When it came to making a piece of jewellery with silver clay using a leaf, I picked a ginkgo leaf that had come off the tree. As it was autumn at the time, the leaf was slightly worse for wear, and even had a hole in it - which I thought was part of it's charm. The pendant was made by painting over the leaf over and over again with liquid clay and drying it between coats. When it was eventually put in the kiln, the leaf burned off along with the binder in the clay, and a perfect 'death mask' of the leaf was left behind. I kept the silver leaf for a couple of years and this year, I added a couple of sterling wire bilobed ginkgo leaves and lo and behold, there appeared an angel in the room ( quite unexpectedly, as is their wont - angels, I mean) - well, the rest is seasonal history! I added coral teardrops and tiny slivers of brilliant labradorite that glint in the light to make this bright and pretty Christmassy necklace. Over the years, I have made a number of pieces of jewellery with the imagery of ginkgo leaves and I dug out the pictures and compiled a little collage for you. Pink MoonThis little pink crescent moon pendant is from Afghanistan. Teamed with silvery glass beads and a few pink agate beads it make a pretty necklace which can be worn in the neckline of a shirt to make a simple but effective statement. That's it for this week folks. I intend to spend the weekend packing the pieces of jewellery for the Artisan Market in Stratford on Avon. If you happen to be in the vicinity or fancy a drive into the countryside, do come and say hello. Introduce yourselves as readers of this blog, and I will give you a 15% discount - a kick start to your Christmas shopping!
Catch you next Friday, same time, same place, have a fabulous week, xx Hello, readers, it's nice to catch up with you again - I almost didn't make it this week, what with toothache and a root canal treatment (ouch!) and an outage of my internet all day yesterday. It was at midnight that I found the cable reconnected - Hooray! I thought I'd play a bit of music for us. There's nothing like a bit of sultry Norah Jones at midnight, although this piece of music really belongs to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. I have decided to do a couple of craft fairs in the UK this year, the first one in Worcester in June, along with my friends from Look-In-The-Bag. I have decided that I will make a few pieces to take to the fair each week. Having never done this before, I'm not quite sure how Caprilicious will be received - will my jewellery be too difficult to sell at a craft fair? Well, there's only one way to find out, so I have decided to test the waters this year. I bought a tutorial to make faux Czech glass and antique Roman glass from Ginger Davis Allman of The Blue Bottle Tree, and made some beads last weekend. I sent Ginger pictures of the necklaces I made up and she shared them on her Facebook page - I think she was quite pleased with the way the beads turned out. She said " Neena of Caprilicious Jewellery used my Faux Glass tutorial as a starting point for these orange beads and made them look like ancient trade beads. And the faux turquoise and lapis are made from Diva Designs, Inc.'s tutorials. What a well-conceived piece! If you like the ethnic look, you'll love Neena's work." I was now drowning in a sea of beads - so I decided to use some of them and deplete my stock. I had three Afghani pendants left in my collection - they must have come from the same necklace as they are all the same size and shape. I wanted to try and make the necklaces as different from each other as possible. Love AffairThis title comes from the run-of-the-mill Bollywood 'Boy meets Girl' movie. Boy, rich, Girl, poor or vice versa. They elope and Boy sets Girls' mind at rest (in common with all boys, this Boy too wants only one thing) by exchanging garlands at the conveniently located local temple. She promptly gets pregnant - completely ignoring the Indian government's exhortations to use contraception posted on every free wall and surface, at every turn. But she's married in the eyes of God - because she exchanged garlands with said Boy, didn't she? And then, the story goes on to tell us what happened next, to Boy, Girl and Baby. Cosmic MelaA Mela is a gathering or a fair - the largest one in India is the Kumbh Mela. It is said to be the largest peaceful gathering of people on the banks of one of four holy rivers, every three years - they estimated that a hundred million people attended it in 2013. I used Rudraksh beads, donated to the Caprilicious cause by my mother - these are worn by the sadhus who attend the Kumbh Mela and I have written about them before. Isn't the young sadhu in the picture cool?? He's gone for a less traditional way of wearing the Rudraksh beads. and is obviously aware of the camera and posing for it. Cosmic Mela is named after a swirly bead I made with some leftover offcuts of clay, some of which happened to contain specks of silver foil - it ended up looking cosmic - that's the best word I can find for it. Flower MelaCzech glass beads can be expensive- almost as expensive as gemstones. I welcomed the opportunity to replicate them in polymer clay. I used a bunch of flowery moulds I have collected over time, some of them had their first outing with this tutorial. That's it, I will make no more ethnic/ tribal jewellery for a little while. I quite enjoy making the kind of jewellery that can be worn with any sort of attire and do not necessarily wish to be pigeon-holed as an 'ethnic jewellery' maker. Preferring the internationalist's approach, I like to make stuff that is loosely applicable to everybody, indeed any sort of pigeon-hole is an anathema to me. SummertimeI fell in love with the whimsy of these millefiori glass pendants, flowers and ladybirds. Put together with dyed jade beads, I reckon these necklaces will be ideal to take to the craft fair. I continued the whimsical theme with a toggle clasp in the form of a dragon fly. Reach For the StarsI was beginning to develop withdrawal tremors from a lack of wire in my life. Just as I was really beginning to feel the pain, a couple of bismuth crystals arrived in the post. I have used them before and simply adore the beautiful colours and crystal formation. These two crystals seem to soar upwards, reaching for the stars. Bismuth said to relieve emotional and spiritual isolation, facilitating a state of oneness, connectedness and serenity. Useful when experiencing change, providing for calmness, vitality and orderliness. Bismuth facilitates the enjoyment of travel and stimulates group and relationship cohesiveness. That's it for Caprilicious this week folks, have a great week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
xx Hello readers, and thanks for joining Caprilicious today. It has been a hard week, I worked all over the weekend, and one day seemed to run into the other seamlessly. I did have time to play with clay and a few beads though, and here are the pieces of jewellery I made. PaterosThe focal bead in this piece is a lucite bead which resembles a salted duck's egg yolk. One of the methods by which these eggs are made is called Pateros. The duck eggs are buried in clay taken from termite hills, mixed with salt and water, and slowly dehydrated in this mixture at room temperature for over two weeks. The salt enters the egg shells by osmosis, and at the end of the curing period, the eggs are dyed a pretty pink with food colouring to distinguish them from ordinary eggs, and then hard-boiled. The eggs have a salty smell, the whites are gelatinous and the firm yolks are a bright orange-yellow in colour. The yolks are used in Chinese Moon Cakes and as a condiment in bland rice-water gruel and are a delicacy. I made the black and gold heishi beads as well as the faux amber beads from polymer clay, and put this necklace together. I ran a little competition on the Caprilicious Facebook page - people had to guess why the piece was called Pateros to win a discount on anything they wanted on the Caprilicious website - and only five people made the connection - congratulations! Ms. Muse was going crazy this week - I wanted to make necklaces for the last couple of tribal Afghani pendants I had - but she could see the pendants that had arrived from Istanbul last Friday and was itching to get to them. She stamped her little foot and tossed her ringlets - 'I'll thcweam and thcweam until I'm thick' she said, paraphrasing Violet Elizabeth Bott out of the Just William books. I paid no attention and went serenely on my way, collecting materials for and assembling my necklaces - and I must have done a halfway decent job despite her non-cooperation, because one of them was bought within minutes of me posting it on the website. So have a look at my Tribal necklaces first, and then I'll show you what she helped me make. JaipurThe Funky TribalI love this pendant - it is just the right size and colour and I teamed it with purple and gold marbled beads. Midnight in MoscowAnd then, finally, it was time to let Ms. Muse loose on the Turkish beauties. The first was a beautiful 22K gold plated bead cap, studded with rhinestones and little Hamsa hands, with a tassel of teal blue crystals. Teamed with titanium plated quartz needles which remind me of the night sky in Red Square, and a large blue agate, this necklace is arguably the best piece Ms. Muse has come up with in a while. TopkapiThe Topkapi palace in Istanbul is one of the most beautiful places I have visited. I was in awe at the huge uncut emeralds, some weighing a few kilograms that are in the treasury. It also houses one of the largest collections of Kaftans or robes from the middle East. This pendant is an enamelled kaftan with tassels - it was so unusual, I just had to buy it for Caprilicious. I hung it on a simple necklace of creamy white faceted shell pearls, and a few steel grey ones left over from a previous necklace as accent beads. SufiSufism is a religion whose roots are in Islam. Jalaluddin Rumi is the best-known scholar, poet and founder of Sufism. 'Sufism espouses a well-founded and thoroughgoing interpretation of Islam, which focuses on love, tolerance, worship of God, community development, and personal development through self-discipline and responsibility. A Sufi’s way of life is to love and be of service to people, deserting the ego or false self and all illusion so that one can reach maturity and perfection' Dervishes appear to whirl in a hypnotic trance to the untrained eye. However, it is actually a ritualistic dance where the Dervish performs a ritual or a 'Sema' in order to be one with his God. The Dervish in this pendant is beautifully fashioned, with Arabic calligraphy across his robes. Hung on a necklace of black onyx, I think he looks sumptuous. A bronzite flower, given to me by my friend BN and the enamelled bead caps donated by another friend, Sheela have only enhanced the beauty of this necklace. Gather Ye Rosebuds
This pendant was made in stages over a few weeks - it is meant to resemble a piece of ceramic pottery - I used alcohol inks to colour it and then coated it with resin to give it a beautiful sheen. The 'rosebuds' - agate beads - were added at the very end. It must be something about spring and the new shoots poking their heads above ground that make me go all floral with my designs. Whatever the reason, I like this little necklace and the earrings I made with the leftover clay to go with it. That's it for this week, folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
xx Hello again, readers, and thanks for joining me this weekend. I have a few fun pieces of jewellery for you this week - that's what I want my jewellery to be all about - to bring a smile to your lips and a song to your heart as you walk tall and feel great in your Caprilicious. Lily The Pink
I used beads made from shells and dyed in a shocking pink - just looking at the beads brought a smile to my face and this song popped into my head and just wouldn't go away. With one of my vintage 'mini' pendants from Afghanistan and a few Czech glass and polymer clay beads, a very quirky and sweet piece of jewellery emerged. This week, Ms Muse seems to have gone all African on me - perhaps she spotted my stash of Moroccan beads, and the beautiful orange beads I have been hoarding for over a year. Heat and DustThis necklace was made using polymer clay beads I made myself, using inspiration from a German polymerista who calls herself Margit B - I just love her colourful work and she is a pioneer in the usage of chalks on polymer clay. I mixed in some bright orange lucite beads and added a Berber bead and voila - Heat and Dust! The 'dust' part of the necklace comes from the colours of chalk on the beads which have smudged delightfully into each other. While watching a movie late that night I played with a design for handmade wire bead caps by Iza Malczyk, and a couple of orange - yellow dyed jade teardrop beads that seemed to match Heat and Dust perfectly. Mombasa Sunrise'Twas time to use some of the faux turquoise beads I made using Lynda Moseley's tutorial - Ms Muse had spotted the orange lucite chunks I was hiding from her - I'm not sure why I was hoarding them, it's just a magpie instinct to hoard bright and pretty beads. Anyway, out they came, and I think they are rather effective with the 'turquoise' and a couple of African lost wax beads. Wasabi and WatercressI love the acid green of Wasabi, the Japanese Horseradish. Apparently Wasabi is now being grown in Dorset, by the Watercress company - I think that's what being an entrepreneur is all about - no one who has ever eaten a watercress sandwich would ever imagine that the two of these plants could come from the same soil! Premo makes a Wasabi coloured clay and I teamed it with a blend I made up myself to match the colours in a focal bead I made a couple of years ago. This colour looks so much like watercress, that I decided to name my necklace after the entrepreneurs whose story I found so inspirational. Berber SunriseThis one is a remake of a necklace I made earlier with almost similar beads. For the longest time, no one paid Berber Sunrise the First any attention apart from a desultory 'like' when I posted it on Facebook. I took it to my exhibition at Raintree - still no luck. People picked it up and then put it back down again and moved on to pastures new. I was beginning to think I had lost the battle design-wise, with this necklace and then..... the very last two ladies at the exhibition almost had a pistols-at-dawn situation over it. It reminded me of my two kittens prowling around a mouse one of them had brought in, making growling, warning noises at each other - I thought fur was going to fly (or beads), when after a major standoff situation, one of them suddenly gave in and handed it to her opponent. I loved the piece and had worn it to work a couple of times, and all I got were compliments, so I decided to make another. If lady No 2 is reading this and wants it, I'll be happy to put it by for you - thank you for being so gracious. These sweet coiled wire earrings came from a couple of copper coils I happened to spot lying around in the middle of all my beads. A lot of wire coiling is involved in the making of these earrings and it takes many feet of wire wound around even more wire! I used non-tarnish wire for the first two coils and bare copper for the third, which I then dipped in a chemical bath to darken it and rubbed it with steel wool to get this pretty contrasting effect. A friend from work gave me a broken rainbow fluorite wand - 'do something with it', she said - I held on to it for a while and then made a pendant for her with one of the pieces - I've yet to decide what to do with the other piece. She said she loves her little pendant. Fluorite is a very soft stone and prone to cracking and breaking, so I made sure it was caged in a wire surround so it wouldn't get knocked about again. That's it for this week folks. I have some fabulous goodies just arrived from Turkey today and will probably have them out on the website next week, when I've made them up into pieces of jewellery. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place xx Hello readers, thanks for joining me this week. Caprilicious went tribal - bold and bright seemed to be the order of the day - every time I reached into my stash, my hands came out full of components for tribal jewellery. Pendants from Afghanistan are the basis of this collection - they are vintage, and a bit battered and bruised, but looking all the better for it. I replaced some of the crystals that had fallen out and cleaned them up a bit, but no more - the patina of age is what makes them special. Combined with brand new polymer clay beads made at Caprilicious, they evolved into one of a kind pieces of jewellery. BanjaraBanjara was made using faux turquoise and lapis lazuli beads from Lynda Moseley's tutorial, and the faux ancient glass was made from a tutorial by Ginger Davis Allman. Both these techniques were great fun to use and produced credible results. The Banjaras are Indian gypsies found all over India today, known for their colourful dress, ornaments and bangles. There is talk that they originated from Afghanistan, which explains why some Banjara jewellery is similar to that obtained from there. DeekshaDeeksha is the initiation into a monastic order, or preparation for a religious ceremony by the guru handing his disciple a mantra, and teaching him the art of meditation. I used faux Tibetan mala beads made at Caprilicious using polymer clay - the beads are strung into malas of 108 beads and used much like a rosary by Tibetan monks. RathiRathi is the Hindu goddess of love, lust, passion and sexual pleasure. She was married to Kama, the Indian equivalent of Cupid. She is often portrayed holding a bow made of sugar cane - perhaps she was carrying it for hubby as she was his assistant - in those days, Indian women didn't mind doing the fetching and carrying for their partners, even if they were goddesses. Today's woman might have something to say about that! As befits a goddess of carnal love, she was very beautiful and sexy. Curiously, she is depicted in more than one drawing I have seen, riding a composite bird-like creature made of semi-naked women. Whether this has some sexual significance given Rathi's day job, I have not been able to ascertain - but I would imagine it does - perhaps she was holding onto them for hubby, along with the bow - who knows? The necklace was made of tiny lapis lazuli and golden quartz nuggets, interspersed with coins that are embellished with glass. Red Hot Chili PeppersThis is a fun necklace in two strands, made of African vinyl trade beads, carrying a pendant from Afghanistan. Folklore had it that vinyl beads were made from old records, but they are actually made from an early rubber product called Vulcanite. Vulcanite is a hard, moldable rubber that has been formed by “vulcanizing” natural rubber through a curing process that involves high heat and the addition of sulfur. The 'chili peppers' are little polymer clay beads made at Caprilicious over a year ago, waiting patiently for just this moment! The fastener is a box clasp given to me by my friend BN - she received a bunch of these from China with Mabe pearls all set awry - I dismantled them, threw away the Mabe pearls and filled the space with polymer clay, and I think this one is rather pretty, don't you? By this time, I was all Triballed out and felt the need to make something from another genre - just to prove to myself that I could! I had made this next piece a while ago but didn't really like it. I realised that what I disliked was a couple of large shell beads I had used in the centre of the necklace - I whipped them out, and Hey! Presto, I loved it. CalderaThe beautiful blue agate druzy set in sterling silver with blue topaz reminded me of the caldera in Santorini - a caldera is a crater-like depression in the land caused by its collapse following a volcanic eruption. The centre of the stone has the typical druzy crystals that glitter like sugar in the light. I added blue topaz, pearls, pyrite and lilac crystals to the pendant - all the colours of spring. That's me for this week folks, have a fabulous weekend and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
xx Hello, readers, nice to see you here again. I've had a few days off from work, using up the annual leave owed me for 2014 - we didn't really have a lot planned apart from a bit of gardening, so I fell into a nice, easy routine, playing with clay after a lie-in each morning, finishing the pieces off in my own time and playing with wire and beads at night - a crafter's dream break. Last week I made colourful beads with a petal cane on a fuchsia pink background and some Tibetan Mala beads. This week, I unearthed a tutorial by Lynda Moseley and made faux lapis and faux turquoise beads. I have had this tutorial for ages, but had to collect all the ingredients, of which there are many - by the time I collected all the paint,inks and chalk required, I lost the impetus to try it out until now, and I'm so glad I did - it is a fabulous tutorial and I got some pretty credible results. The solar eclipse, which occurred on Sunday was a major planetary and astrological event. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the earth and the sun, totally or partly obscuring the image of the sun for a viewer on earth. Everyone was in a tizz - should we watch it, can we look at it, what's the best way to prevent UV burns to the retina, pinhole cameras, glasses - it turned into a frenzy - all for something that lasted a couple of minutes - and we don't even live in the Faroe islands or Svalbard. Philistine, you say?? - too right - I slept through it and watched it on the telly like any self-respecting person on holiday should. And, I'm not afraid to admit it, so there! I did spend some time researching it though - and read about the Penumbra, which is the region in which only a portion of the light source is obscured by the occluding body. An observer in the penumbra (where we are in the UK) experiences a partial eclipse. The 2642 people who live in Svalbard and the eclipse tourists who flocked there would have witnessed the Umbra - the innermost and darkest part of the shadow, where the sun is completely blocked by the moon. The Antumbra is the region from which the occluding body appears entirely contained within the disc of the light source. An observer in this region experiences an annular eclipse, in which a bright ring is visible around the eclipsing body - this is due to happen in September 2016 and will mainly be visible in Africa. PenumbraMade to commemorate the event which looked spiffing on the TV and is meant to have all sorts of astrological significance, I used a handmade lampworked bead and set it in a wire weave, hung on a leather thong - very Penumbra-ish. TaraTara, in Hindu mythology, is a Tantric Goddess. As the story goes, the Gods and Demons decided to have a little game and churned the oceans of the earth, which produced a poison so strong, it would have killed off all mankind. In a blind panic, trying to save the world, Shiva drank the poison before they could dispense it to the people and fell unconscious. The Heavenly Hospital probably didn't possess a stomach pump in those days and everyone was running around like headless chickens. Tara came along - the saviour Goddess - and squeezed his throat, preventing the poison from going any further, giving him a permanent bruise on his neck. She then suckled him and her breast milk counteracted the poison. I think the CQC (Care Quality Commission) might have something to say if we adopted these methods today. Tara is meant to be 'blue' in colour - which is the post-colonial Indian way of saying that she was dark skinned and not worth much on the arranged marriage market - but that was the least of her problems, the most important being that she enjoyed the occasional drink of human blood - she would make do with animal blood at a pinch, but human blood was what she loved best for a light snack! This necklace is made with a pendant from Afghanistan and faux lapis and other polymer clay beads. EssaouiraEssaouira is a charming harbour town in Morocco - unspoilt, with a definite French look about it. When we last visited, very few people had discovered it and it seemed quaint and exotic. I've heard that hordes of tourists descend on it each year now and it is no longer unspoilt. Such is life! These capsule shaped beads from Morocco, with a low silver content were teamed with lapis lazuli and onyx. That's me done for this week folks. A few more days off and I will go back to my day job, refreshed and rejuvenated. In the meanwhile, I have all my new beads to use and ideas bouncing around in my head. Perhaps I should carry a little noteook around with me to write down my ideas- I forget so many well before they are executed.
Have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place xx |
Follow
|