Hello folks, thanks for joining me today. Another very cold week has gone by and I've been up and down to Manchester to take part in interviews on behalf of Health Education England, thankfully on the right side of the table. It was mighty cold up there with the freezing air blowing off the Pennines, turning my breath into little icicles. Back home, I turned the heating up full volume and thawed my bones out by an open fire and turned my attention to my beads and baubles once I felt human again. The interviews were held at the Etihad Stadium which is the home of Manchester City football club - the club is owned by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi who reputedly bought it for a mere £210 million. Well, what's 210 million to someone who owns a £400 million yacht! Shankha (conch)Ornaments have been made from shells for aeons - conch shells come to a point at both ends and the inhabitants of these lovely shells are marine gastropod molluscs. The molluscs are used as food and fish bait, and can even produce pearls. I found slices of conch shells in a shop in Portobello market in London and thought that they were so pretty that I had to buy them. I've hoarded them for over four years now and decided to finally use one of them in a piece of jewellery. I wrapped the slice of conch shell in yards of wire and decided that it needed a rather special necklace to go with it. Shell beads are used in shamanistic rituals in tribes all over the world. I used beads in keeping with this notion and added Chinese bone, Nepalese coral, and African turquoise to the necklace in generous amounts, making it suitable for an international shaman. NefertariNefertari came into being when I wrapped a couple of citrine teardrop beads that had slightly misshapen points in wire to disguise the tips. I liked the effect so much that I wrapped all the beads I had in my stash as I watched television, and then had to find a way to use them in a necklace. I'm very fond of the teardrop shape and have made a number of necklaces in the past with colourful crystals, and I reused that template to make a two stranded piece, along with turquoise and sea sediment jasper. When finished the colours in the necklace reminded me of the bust of Nefertari in the Museum in Berlin - The bust of Nefertari was created around 1340 BC by the court sculptor Thutmoses. The limestone core has several layers of stucco on the crown and shoulders, and there are also small areas of stucco patching on the face. The necklace on the bust is coloured red, blue and gold, and must have been stupendously beautiful in its day. I see this one worn with an evening dress, but also over the buttoned up collar of a plain shirt during the day - have you any other styling suggestions? I've been active on Instagram recently, having been encouraged to do so by a friend and posted a picture of a copper bracelet I made a few years ago. A lady got in touch with me and asked me to make one for her - who says copper bracelets have to be boring? It's bad enough that one suffers with joint pain without having to add insult to injury by wearing ugly copper bracelets. This is what I came up with for her. That's all I had time for, folks. I am working all weekend and I'm keeping everything crossed that it will remain quiet for me. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch up with you next Friday, same time, same place,
Until then xx
1 Comment
Hello good folk, thanks for coming back for a quick sqiz at the goings on at Caprilicious. As always, I am glad to see you. It is very cold outside but as warm as a piece of pie indoors at chez Shilvock, as the heating is turned on full blast. Instead of finding something to do indoors, Ms Muse is hankering after designs that use soldering and fire power, which is really irritating as all those bits and bobs are out in the freezing cold conservatory. (I keep them outside as I am a bit anxious about burning down the house) Damn the woman, contrary as she is, she has had a few good ideas recently and although I have resisted them this far I know that I will be out there in the cold pretty soon. I ran Caprilicious' annual birthday giveaway on Facebook and Instagram and Collette Debra Knight was the winner when I picked a number from the random number generator. Congratulations Collette, and I hope you love the pendant. With my fingers needing a bit of exercise, I wove a copper bracelet with an ammonite and a couple of turquoise beads as accents. I love copper with a non tarnish finish. The wire is coated with a thin nylon film to prevent contact with air, is fabulous to weave with, and as a bonus, doesn't turn the wearers arm green. However, the weave doesn't show up as well as with bare copper oxidised with Suphur and one cannot use pliers or other tools - the nylon film is easily marred and looks raggedy. Six of one and half a dozen of the other - that's life! SeychellesAnyone who has been on holiday in the Seychelles will recognise both the imagery and the reason for the name of this necklace. A symphony in blues and greens, the slab nuggets of agate are reminiscent of the waters around the beautiful island paradise. I saw some beautiful butterflies while I was there and so added a slice of butterfly cane, dangling from the back of the necklace. Each slab nugget has unique and interesting markings - they have a waxy, smooth feel and a luxurious look. Well, thanks for spending some time with me and taking a look at what I've been cooking up here at Caprilicious. Have a lovely week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx Hello folks, and how are you today? Cold, is the answer on this side of the globe - we count the 5th of November as the oficial start of winter, so these temperatures are still a bit autumnal. There are some good things about winter, although you have to think for a while to enumerate them. I suppose Christmas heads the list with all the festivity, open fires a close second, toast dripping with butter ( not for me as on a diet), mulled wine (ditto), and loads of other food related fabulousness which unfortunately, will never be my lot (apart from a cheeky, sneaky bite). I love colourful jumpers and jackets and overcoats, my patent leather riding boots - they are so comfortable, yet stylish ( don't you find that with shoes the two adjectives rarely go together?) and I love striding about in them. Unfortunately, necklaces are hard to wear with roll neck jumpers so this week, I made a necklace that is long enough to wear with sweaters, and yet can be folded over to wear close to the neck, should the need and opportunity arise. I named it Varuna after the God of the wind - probaby because the wind was howling down the chimney while I made the necklace. VarunaI fell in love with the crackle agate beads - they are a matte white, with fine crackles running through them, and I added a rhodochrosite seahorse clasp that I've had for ages (it is beautifully handcarved and tactile with a sinuous shape), and some colourful crystals to add a bit of zing! The necklace can be worn long, or inside a collar with the seahorse on show. You probably cannot see the fine crackling in the beads unless you enlarge the pictures below. I've always loved seahorses - as a child I really, really wanted to hatch them out in a fish tank and watch them swimming about, and have retained my fascination for them. More Copper BraceletsI played with wire while snuggling up in front of the TV watching the usual frightfest on TV around Halloween time. I love copper and have used both the non tarnish and bare wire in the first bracelet - my friend Divya mentioned a 'kada' in a comment on my last post and that inspired me to make the adjustable wire bracelet. The non tarnish wire sits around the wrist, without turning it green and the bare copper heart is antiqued to bring out the wire weave - the heart was designed by Nicole Hanna. The other bracelet with the blue jade beadsis an age old design and I made a little bracelet for a small wrist and then thought better of it and added an extension chain with a little citrine nugget dangling from the end. Playing with Metal ClayAll this year, when the weather was warm I sat indoors, playing with tiny seed beads and fine needles, making soutache jewellery. And now that we are in for a cold spell, what does Ms Muse have me do? Why, go out into my freezing cold, unheated studio to play with the kiln, of course! My kiln and other heat related tools are out in the conservatory along with the few props I use for photography (the conservatory roof acts as a natural light box, filtering out glare and allowing me to take pictures in natural light). Photography of course takes just a few minutes, setting up and working with the kiln, a lot longer. Loving the flowers painted by Georgia O'Keeffe at an exhibition at the Tate Modern, all of a sudden I came across Lynn Cobb who, inspired by Ms O'Keeffe interpreted the beautiful flowers in silver clay. Lynn picks ginkgo leaves, which she coats with silver clay paste and assembles into the most beautiful pendants. I love the ginkgo leaf and have made many pieces of jewellery inspired by them and immediately could see a way forward. I cut out freeform ginkgo leaves from textured copper clay and dried them in my dehydrator over Wilton flower formers. Et Voila - Ginkgo Leaves!I assembled five of these into a flower, added a couple of Cubic Zirconia and dried the flower on my mug warmer. The other flower was made from the left over clay out of the package. I wrapped the flowers in fiber blanket to prevent slumping and put them in the kiln to burn away the binder for ten minutes, then took them out to cool while the kiln heated up further. And then, woe, woe, thrice woe, disaster struck! It was my usual impatience that was my undoing. While the kiln was reheating, I tried to put the flowers into the carbon container for their second firing. Of course they were too hot to handle and I had to pick them up using long tweezers. While snuggling my O'Keeffe flower into the carbon, I handled it by the bail, which to my horror snapped off from the pendant. I looked up and caught sight of my face in the window - and burst into loud hysterical gales of laughter. 'Serves you right for doing such a stupid thing,' I thought. 'Why couldn't you wait for ten minutes longer, until the damn thing had cooled down?' Having administered myself a swift bollocking, I brought it back indoors and proceeded to repair it with copper clay spackle. Kiln ready - again!!And now, it is finally in the kiln and hopefully sintering, as I type. I will tell you more next week,
Have a great week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Good morning people, and welcome once again, to the Caprilicious Jewellery Blog. Bonfire night went by on the 5th of November, the clocks went back for us in the UK and suddenly we are plunged into winter. The world is going to hell in a handbasket all of a sudden and although this is not a political blog and I don't tend to comment about recent events, this one's a doozy and will affect all of us, so I had to say something! To hope that four years pass by without mishap is a bit much, I think - one can only wish the world the best of luck. Angels Linda Jones of The Wire Worker's Guild posted a little tutorial for Christmas angels on her blog and I decided to try it out - It was freeform enough for me to make it any which way I liked and I mainly played with the shapes of the angels wings. I used up a collection of acrylic beads I had - they have a luminous core and are called miracle beads, they shine beautifully in reflected light. If ever there was a time to need our guardian angels this is it! These will look great hanging from the tree. I spent a lot of the week making a bronze clay clasp using a tutorial by Barbara Becker Simon - I've made one of these before and my Slimming World consultant has the necklace in her collection now. This time, I had a gremlin attack, but as I was determined to forge on, I bought another wood gouge to carve the design in the clay. Of course, as soon as it arrived in the post, the gremlin tossed the other two back onto my table, so now I have three of them. The last time I made the clasp, I funked it at the very last moment and made it single stranded for fear of attaching a piece to the back of the clasp. This time, I forged ahead with making it suitable for three strands of beads and held my breath while it was in the kiln. The kiln gods were kind to me - I took pictures along the way, and here are a few from the final stages. Copper BraceletI know a lot of arthritis sufferers and some of them wear copper bracelets which they claim helps them tremendously in their fight against the disease. I think it is such a shame that no one caters to these ladies - just because the bracelet has a medicinal function, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be pretty. So, I have a little page with copper bracelets on the go just for them, and replenish it at regular intervals as the previous ones get sold. I sold the last one a couple of weeks ago, so this is the replacement, made from a design by Lisa Barth. It is one of the most difficult in the book - eighteen strands of wire are bound together with six feet of fine binding wire in a criss cross pattern. It was a lot of fun to make and I hope it affords the lady who finally wears it a lot of pleasure as well as relief from pain. That's it for this week folks, thanks for dropping by. To those of you who played the Caprilicious Treasure Hunt, I hope you love your jewellery, and those of you who still want to play, it is open till the 14th. I've enjoyed the game, and the lady at the post office now knows Mike well from all the parcels he drops off at her counter.
Take care, and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place, Until then xx Copper Bracelets for Arthritis/ Rheumatism Copper has always interested me - a lovely colour, that can be patinated and heat treated and turned into the most beautiful objects. My grandmother owned a number of copper vessels and bowls, and used to drink a glass of water from a bowl left to steep overnight - she swore that it helped her aches and pains (she also swore at her aches and pains, but that's another story). Loads of people swear by copper - health shops abound with bracelets and amulets that are worn by people with painful joints - it is well known that copper worn on the skin is absorbed in small quantities - this got me thinking - why should copper bracelets be ugly, and tucked away under clothing to be invisible - lets celebrate copper and wear it with pride - so I made up a bunch of bracelets that while allowing for supposed medicinal properties, would also look pretty enough to be worn as a piece of jewellery. Then, I began to add gemstones to the bracelets - whilst enhancing the beauty of the bracelets - the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down - c'mon, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of Mary Poppins - gemstones themselves are thought to have healing properties. Now whether I believe this or not is not the issue - they look pretty, and if you believe in gemstone lore - who am I to argue? The prettiness coefficient is very high and I have explored various gemstone sites to find the best ones to work on the spiritual. Copper has been associated with good health and archaeologists have been unearthing copper jewellery for a long time. Gold and silver are now so expensive - perhaps why there is a resurgence in the 'boho' requirement for copper jewellery. This suits me just fine - why colour gold 'rose' with a copper polish - wear the real thing - less expensively - its very rare to be able to say that! Have a look - will give you a couple of examples here, but there are many more on the way! Copper will tarnish over time as it reacts with the air and it will develop a patina. That patina will be different depending on whether the item is inside or outside, and I have tried to delay this by applying a varnish/ wax - if you prefer, it can be left off. The varnish can be reapplied at points of wear and will last a long time. Copper reacts with certain skin types and may turn the skin bluish from the sulphur in the perspiration - this is easily washed away. The only way to find out if you react to copper is to wear some. However the varnish will minimise this. Indoors, copper will gradually reach a dark antique colour of penny brown. If you add rain to the mix, the patina will eventually turn to an attractive verdigris - a blueish green - a look many people find very desirable (think of old copper roofs or the Statue of Liberty).So, for those who want the patinated look, minimal cleaning is required and certainly no polishing! Many do, and I antique some of my pieces with chemicals, and then varnish so that the patina doesn't rub off. Heat treating copper gives it further colours - looks like an oil slick in a pool of water with colours ranging through metallic blues and greens to black - beautiful - on the copper, not anywhere else, I hasten to add. Copper is easy to clean - a weak solution of vinegar and water, lemon juice or even ketchup smeared overnight will make it shine - it is the acetic acid in the home remedy that does the trick. However, it may need re varnishing after this. Next week, I will have my kiln delivered - and then, many hours of fun, more pictures - I cant wait, am so excited (clapping hands like a seal!!) |
Follow
|