Hello folks, how are you. Brrr, it's freezing cold outside and as you find this blog in your inboxes, I will be driving up to Birmingham, to the Etsy fair at the Custard Factory where I will be all day till 8pm. If you live nearby, do come and visit the stall. There are plenty of handmade offerings for Christmas and I will probably be doing a lot of my Christmas shopping there myself. I'm told it will not be warm in the market hall - especially for us traders, so I've got my thermals and UGG boots on - as the sun sets and the temperature drops, I will probably bring out hats and scarves and mittens, until you might not even be able to tell it's me under all those layers. I hope the Michelin woman look won't put people off, but I'm afraid I shall have to value comfort more. Mike is going to drop me off, and then pick me up when I'm done, and we might even be able to sample some of the street food that will be available in and around the Custard Factory as it is the First Friday of the month. I shall have loads of pictures for you next week. PiscesI make jewellery because I like to, becauses it relaxes me and is a stress buster and so much fun, not as preparation for a fair or show - so I always have stock in plenty and can probably do a show anytime I'm asked, without too much panic or anxiety. I haven't made many new items for the show, but I made this necklace with some of the beads that came with a large consignment containing the shiny crystals from last weeks post and a pendant I made earlier. The pendant is made from dark green, almost black jade, carved into a pair of fish. I put a wirework fish under the pendant and surrounded it with a frame - I originally strung it on leather, but re-thought the design and made a necklace with green turquoise pumpkin beads and coral - very Christmassy, but it will be great all year round too. I love the turquoise pumpkins - they are so pretty. The second necklace I am going to show you, I've had for a while. I talked about the making of the clasp on this blog, I'm sure I did, and then I made the necklace and forgot to show it to anybody. The poor thing was sitting all forlorn and unloved in a corner of my jewellery case - and that would never do! So here we are, here's Blue Hibiscus!! Blue HibiscusThe blue hibiscus is not blue, it is a dark purple, and it isn't a hibiscus - it is a mallow. Nevertheless, it is pretty and well worth a second look. I have some in my garden and took some photographs earlier on in the year when it was in full bloom. I made the clasp in bronze from a design by Barbara Becker Simon who is a top instructor in anything metal clay. I do love the hibiscus flower - it seems so exotic to me now that I live in Britain. When I lived in India, we had bushes that grew in profusion in our backyard and flowered all year round, yielding offerings for my grand mother's prayers - she would place the hibiscus flowers reverentially at the feet of the idols of her favourite gods - the lesser ones got a couple of jasmine, and least favoured of them all probably got a leaf if she could spare one. As you probably know, Indians have a whole lot of Gods, one for every purpose, much like the ancient Greeks and each household has its deity - grandmas household deity got the largest share of the flowers and prayers, and all the others had to catch as catch can, and be happy with their lot. It's a wonder that there were any flowers left on any of the plants in the garden - perhaps this is why they grew so tall (not because of the sun and the climate, of course) to escape my grandma's pilfering. If she couldn't get at them, though, she would use the crook of grandpa's walking stick and do her best to pull them down - she didn't care about the plants missing their offspring, her Gods had to be propitiated, or else! Enough reminiscing, I'd better get my a** into gear as this won't get the baby washed - I need to be in that car in about ten minutes time if I want to get into Birmingham and set up before the hordes ( Oh please, let there be hordes!) arrive.
I'll catch you next Friday, have a fabulous week in the meantime. Until then xx
5 Comments
Hello readers, and lovers of unusual handmade statement jewellery, it is nice of you to drop by the Caprilicious blog this week. All of last week I was blinging up my shelves in preparation for the party season and this week I decided to make the last one for a while - overdosing on bling isn't good for the eyes! TyrianTyrian was a purple dye used to colour the robes of kings in Phoenician times - it was extremely expensive as rather than fading with time and weathering, it got brighter and deeper. The dye came from the secretions of a sea snail and was extracted by milking the snail (how does one milk a snail?? - the mind boggles!) only tiny amounts were collected by this method, which was probably another reason why Tyrian was so expensive. By the time I put this necklace together, I began to feel as if my eyes were dropping out of my head - I had overdosed on bling. My reels of wire were getting really annoyed at the inattention they were subjected to - and I was getting withdrawal symptoms due to the prolonged break from wire. Mellow YellowI was looking through the website, and I saw a picture of a blood stone cabochon I had photographed for the magical components page about three years ago. When I bought it, I thought it had a masculine vibe and wrote that I planned to put it together with copper and possibly coral. I forgot all about it until I found it by accident the other day when looking for something else on the website and had an 'Aha!' moment. Mellow Yellow is a colour very close to the colour of the citrine beads I used in this necklace (there is also an 'unmellow yellow - don't believe me?? - then go on and google it ) and the title of a song by Donovan in the 60's. According to legend, Mellow Yellow was about the feeling one gets when one smokes dried banana skins - I am not sure whether that is the case or not - and am not about to test that theory. BeijingColourful oriental components went into this necklace - porcelain beads , cinnabar, coral and black agate - I just love the vibrancy of it. Old cinnabar beads had hundreds of layers of lacquer which contained a sulfate of mercury applied to them, which were then carved into beautiful shapes. Today, the toxic mercury/cinnabar is replaced by combining layers and layers of colored polymer lacquer, which are then hand-carved (or in some cases, machine carved) into intricate patterns. Casbah Caprilicious is doing a globe trotting act this week - we haven't been on a holiday for a while and I am doing it through my jewellery - a bit like leafing through travel brochures or Trip Advisor! I've been saving these beads (Ok, hoarding, really - I just love shiny, pretty things) and I thought this was as good a time as any to use them. Faceted smoky quartz - faceted beads are my favourite, the extra shine appeals to the magpie in me - and a beautiful Moroccan bead went into this simple and sophisticated necklace. I bought three of these beads a while ago - the first couple were made up into a bright and exciting necklace called Berber Sunrise, and this one is smoky and sophisticated in a completely different style - which one do you like? Or will you be a Caprilicious Woman and match each of them to a different mood? Jazz in The ParkThese buttons were made a while ago and I sanded and buffed them as and when I had the time. Buttons are the simplest and least expensive way to embellish a garment, and these are vibrant enough to brighten up a dull outfit. They were cut from a polymer clay cane I made using a technique pioneered by Alice Stroppel. I used my fabulous cane slicer to cut even slices of the cane, and was well pleased with the result. The Boho Babe - back to MoroccoAnother Moroccan bead - this time a large one, teamed with green and black agate nuggets. I wanted the piece to be long and the bauble sized bead to sit low on the chest to avoid looking like a cow bell. I strung the beads on cream coloured genuine leather, with knots between each bead and macrame knots all the way to the clasp. I am not a fan of large nuggets and beads sitting high in the neckline - perhaps you feel differently - do tell... Stygian BeautyThe beads in this necklace came to me in the post only the other day and I had to find some way of using them immediately, they were too beautiful to put away in a drawer. Golden Obsidian is formed from cooled lava - the silica inclusions deep within the rock and patterns formed by gas bubbles lined up within the molten lava give it a golden sheen. The same post brought me a book by Lisa Barth, and in it I found a design, which when modified to suit the shape of a black and white agate pendant stone, would make a perfect focal point. I hung it on the obsidian necklace with Chinese black quartz embossed with dragons in gold, as accents - a beauty straight from the Stygian depths of the earth. The Ancient and the ModernA prayer box, Gau (also spelled Ghau or Gao), is a Tibetan Buddhist amulet container made of metal and worn as jewellery. They incorporate a small container used to hold and carry powerful amuletic objects such as chunks of coral, turquoise and a written prayer, or sacred mantras such as the Kalachakra. I love the secret compartment and have made a few necklaces using Ghau boxes over the years. I have made them with simple necklaces, and sometimes with outrageous wirework that none but the boldest woman would wear. The two that I have here are both inlaid with turquoise and coral - the one has been put into a simple necklace with turquoise and the second, into a necklace made of multi coloured shell beads. HoliMandalaYou can see I have been busy all this week - but now, I have to call it a day - that's as much as I had time for - catch you next week, same time, same place
xx |
Follow
|