Happy Friday, dear readers, how nice to have your company again this week. I have been busy booking my next holiday - it will soon be January and time to visit my 89 year old mother in India again. I find that I get very depressed after a holiday ends, and the only antidote to that is to book another almost immediately. One does need something to look forward to, don't you think? A visit to Bangalore means of course, that I will take Caprilicious Jewellery with me and have a little show, once more at Raintree. I've got used to the place and the way they work, and am comfortable with the footfall there. This time, an old friend from university has a daughter who is to be married in Mysore (two and a half hours from Bangalore) and I am invited. I get to wear my silks and jewellery and it promises to be a grand affair. I love to wear my sarees and walk with a swishy/gliding movement, rather than striding and stomping along like a great galumphing heffalump in my regular trousers and skirts. The family is related to the Mysore royal family and it should be an interesting and lavish affair. Indian weddings are crazy, raucous, and a load of fun, where everyone has a good time except perhaps the hapless bride and groom who wear heavily embroidered and embellished clothes that weigh a ton, and sit sweating by a fire in the heat of an Indian summer, their eyes smarting from the smoke, with the weight of their attire, headgear and make up hampering their every move. I've done my time a long time ago, and now it is somebody elses turn. September is always a manic month in maternity units up and down the country and this year has been no different. Although I had very little time to spare, I played with my beads and braids and an amazonite cabochon caught my eye - I've had it in my stash for ages. Surrounded by hundreds of little tiny Japanese seed beads and strips of soutache braid, this stone sprang to life - I realise now why I let it sit in my stash for such a long time. Set in a conventional manner it's beauty would prove very muted and in my opinion, it's colours have been brought out by the South Western colour scheme of the pendant. I hung it on a simple torque necklace and covered the back with ultrasuede to keep it clean and tidy. I made a couple of pairs of earrings to match a couple of necklaces I made previously - I personally do not believe in wearing more than one piece of jewellery at a time as I tend to think it dilutes the effect of a statement, but a lot of people are used to this concept and ask for earrings to go with their necklaces. And who am I to argue? After all, the customer is always right!! That's me for this week, dear readers. I am due to have yet another busy week and am not looking forward to it. Caprilicious Jewellery will have a stall at a Family Fun day in Nuneaton on the 23rd of October in aid of a couple of charities with our maternity unit as a major beneficiary. If any of you are in the vicinity, do come by. Thanks for joining me today. Have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place Until then, xx
4 Comments
Hiya folks, thanks for coming by to have a look at the goings on at Caprilicious. This week, I've been stretching myself and moving waaaay out of my comfort zone. As a teenager, my mother taught me some embroidery skills and I decided then that this was definitely not something I would pursue. The needles seem to spring to life in my hands, attacking me and biting me deep enough to draw blood and stain the cloth I was working on and the threads turned into snakes that moved with a will of their own and got tangled and knotted. The air used to be blue around me and I invented a few really interesting swear words. And of course, I'd never beaded - beading work in India is done by the finest artisans and I would never have thought of ever attempting to compete with them. It surprised me then, when for no particular reason my eyes were drawn to soutache jewellery and bead weaving. Perhaps it was the beauty of the stones I brought back from Jaipur or just the need to do something different. I'm not sure what the impetus was for this new direction I am taking, but here it is!! I want to tell you a bit about Soutache jewellery. Soutache, also known as Russian braid is a tightly woven flat braid, used mainly on the uniforms of the soldiers in France and Eastern European countries from the 1800's. The braids were used to conceal seams, create embellishments and indicate rank on military uniforms. A textile designer from Israel, Dori Csengri was playing around with pieces of the braid one day in the mid eighties, and in an Eureka! moment she designed a piece of soutache jewellery. How amazing is that! Since then the best proponents of soutache appear to come from Eastern Europe. Soutache jewellery can be very colourful and that idea, as always, excites me as the possibilities are endless. The technique is painstaking and slow. The braids have to be lined up so that the weaves are all lying in the same direction, tiny stitches to be inserted invisibly into the ridge between the two sides of the braid, tension maintained, beads added, and the whole piece backed with ultrasuede - and I, Ms. Needle Hater, was dismayed. However the call of the colours in this particular form of jewellery could not be ignored. Of course being me, I couldn't possibly do anything simple and easy, could I? I decided that I had to learn basic bead weaving to embellish the cabochons as well. The stones can be attached to the backing with glue and surrounded with soutache braids, but the wire worker in me scorns the use of glue to hold a stone in place in perpetuity. I wanted to use tiny seed beads to weave a setting around the cabochon (there goes my eyesight!) and having made a few practice pieces, I decided to take a class to consolidate my knowledge of the technique and pick up a few extra pointers along the way. The class was in London and I booked it well in advance and organised time off from the day job. I took the train to London nice and early, at the ungodly hour of 7am ( well, as far as I am concerned 7am is an ungodly hour), took a tube to Whitechapel and then found that I had arrived a day too early!. Oh No! I went back home and did it all again the next day, there was nothing else for it. I even met the same Punxsutawney Phil's on the train, they were obviously commuters who go up to London on the train every day. It takes an hour and six minutes to get in to Euston, and of course, it is much cheaper to live in Warwickshire, even with the train fares. I sat in the sunshine and had a coffee at the same Turkish cafe - it really was a Groundhog Day moment. I made a couple of little pieces at the class. They provided us with ugly acrylic cabochons, cheap cotton thread with Bengali writing on the packaging that snapped as soon as I looked at it and plastic pearls and I couldn't bring myself to waste my energy on making anything that resembled jewellery with that lot - I know, I am such a snob! I can't understand why they would stint on supplies as the prices they charged were steep enough for them to have provided us with halfway decent stuff. Anyway, I learned the how to's and how not to's and was happy with that. And then the fun part - SHOPPING! I sent off for braid and seed beads, needles and strong thread, researching the best supplies and designs as I went along and adding to another Pinterest board - I really don't know what I did before Pinterest. Presently I had enough supplies to make my first piece. To my pleasant surprise the Fireline thread I bought is very strong, fishing line covered by silk and it doesn't get tangled easily - it is just hell on legs to thread the needle with it as the beading needles are tiny. CopacabanaThe colours of the solar quartz in this necklace look so much like the waters of Copacabana Beach and the swirls of braid are joyous. I started out with a vague idea in mind, and ended up with this piece... The blue quartz needles go so well with the pendant, would you agree?? Here are some pictures of another piece I started this week, my eyes and fingers needed a bit of a rest and I had to wait for the green beads to arrive. This time I kept a pictorial diary in Instagram - have you looked at the Caprilicious Instagram account?? It is called caprilicious_by_neena_shilvock, and I post updates as I go along if I remember to bring my mobile phone to my seat in front of the telly. There's a way to go yet and I may not be finished by the time this blog comes out - I'm calling this one The Girl From Ipanema! I see a definite Art Deco face here and I also have an idea of how to string it. My next piece will be from a cabochon of Bumble Bee Jasper - I love the blacks and yellows in the stone that give it it's name. That's me for this week, folks. I hope you've enjoyed the read. Do come back next week, see you on Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx Hello readers, thanks for coming back to the Caprilicious blog today. I have made absolutely nothing this week as I have had to reacclimatise to the day job and the weather. I spent most evenings snoozing in front of the TV and going to bed early, the jet lag compounded by a head cold I brought home from India and generously shared with my husband. Last week I promised to show you my booty from Jaipur, and I took some pictures even though it was snowing in Nuneaton and my body was going 'Eek!'. I found the origin of the word 'Bootylicious' amusing - it is attributed to a group called Destiny's Child - do you know them?? I thought not, but you might have heard of their most famous member, Beyonce Knowles. No?? Then you have truly been living in a cave all this time, and it is my pleasure to introduce them to you. I'm not quite sure what these lyrics mean - "I don't think you ready for this jelly I don't think you ready for this 'Cause my body too bootylicious for you babe" And now that I've woken you up with the music, let me show you my booty from Jaipur which exciting though it is, cannot compete with Destiny's Children and their derrieres. I am a clasp junkie - I just love to complete a statement necklace with a pretty clasp, so I decided that a treasure hunt for clasps would be at the heart of my search. While I looked for clasps, I allowed other beautiful things to distract me and ended up spending a day and a half in the wholesale silver market. I hunted high and low until I found these beauties - and now I love them so much, I may never use them. I couldn't possibly share them with anybody, I want them all for myself! I pounded the streets of the drab Chameliwala market working the shops one by one to see what I could find. Each one of them was tiny with space for only a couple of customers, the shopkeeper and his assistant. The bustling, colourful ambiance I had grown to expect in Jaipur was completely missing here - it was all about the grim business of commerce. The word 'Chameli' means Jasmine and if ever there was a misnomer, it was in the naming of this dreary place. I'd open the door and peer inside - if there were too many people, I'd stick my head back out of the door like a turtle and move on to the next shop. If it seemed relatively empty, I'd slip my shoes off and go in - a lot of them have mattresses on the floor and expect you to sit on them to look at your beads and silver and make your choices. The shopkeepers seemed quite surly and unhelpful until they realised I wasn't a time waster and then out came the goods. By the end of the visit, they were quite animated, calling out for tiny plastic beakers of tea that held about 50 mls of disgustingly sweet milky brown liquid and shouting to their assistant to bring out stuff from the back of the shop. I thought 'what back??' until I saw a little boy on all fours appear clutching a packet of beads out of a hole in the wall that had hitherto been covered by a wall hanging. The streets were narrow and cars couldn't get onto them, thankfully. There were even narrower side streets that led to little guest houses - I was amazed that anyone would consider walking down those dangerous little streets, festooned with naked wires where people had probably hijacked electricity from someone nearby. There was even a Western Union on one of these streets and the reason for this soon became apparent - there were a load of Dutch, American and French people in the surrounding streets buying gemstones and beads, living in cheap accommodation and generally having a grand old time. I got talking to a couple who were walking around the market. Dirty, unwashed, in baggy Indian trousers with filthy fingernails, and festooned with beads and silver bracelets, they were actually serious buyers and had the respect of the traders in the market for driving a hard bargain. These are just a few of the bits and bobs I bought, and by no means an exhaustive catalog. I wanted to pick my own labradorite and moonstone so that I could find the stones with the best 'flash', and found the bumble bee jasper in black and yellow irresistible. Solar quartz cabochons in ice cream colours, faceted lapis lazuli and hollow silver beads filled with wax were some of my other finds. The shopkeepers and tuk tuk drivers seemed to have learned their facial expressions from the ubiquitous camel - while bargaining with them, if I mentioned a price that they thought was derisory, they looked down their noses at me and snorted 'Harrumph!' - and we took it from there, with regular snorting, punctuated by head shakes, eye rolls and then, finally the smiles, out came the beakers of vile tea; and the transaction was sealed. I know they probably got the better of me on a few occasions, but by the end of the day, I was going like a goodun! A few pendants found their way into my stash, along with some strings of carnelian, tiger eye and amazonite and I was done. I took a tuk-tuk to Johari bazaar and walked around for a while, but my little legs were exhausted and I couldn't get into the spirit of bargaining with the traders, which I knew was fatal, as they would soon sense this and close in on me like a pack of wolves. I decided to call it a day and go back to the hotel to rest my weary legs and rifle through all the stuff I had bought. Fighting my way back to the hotel was a mild form of kamikaze warfare where I had to bargain with the tuk tuk drivers who deigned to stop, while I dodged the other vehicles on the road that were doing their best to annihilate me. I know I was overcharged in the end, but didn't care, all I wanted by then was a nice hot shower, so I got in and that was the end of my shopping expedition. So readers, that's the story of my amazing adventures in Jaipur. I did have a day dedicated to sightseeing and found a couple of non jewellery items to buy. Mike got a lovely Pashmina scarf and I got some colourful reversible waistcoats and then it was time for the flight back. I hope you enjoyed my little travelogue and I'll be back next week, same time, same place,
Until then xx Hello good people, here's your weekly dose of statement jewellery from Caprilicious. Once I have posted this, I am off to Hamburg, to visit with a friend and have a few days away by the Baltic in her lovely bungalow by the sea - not that I'm rushing or anything, just saying..... My muse capriliciously tripped along from one style of jewellery to another, seemingly without a cohesive thought in her head, and I followed, led by the nose - I just do as I am bid and see what transpires (hubby often wonders why I won't follow him in quite the same way)............................. ChantillyI blame my mother for my lacemania. She was/is a true lacemaniac, and in my childhood dressed my sister and me in imports from around the globe - she turned up her nose at what was produced in India. Every outfit we had was edged with a hint of lace (imports were expensive, thankfully), and that has left it's mark on us - both of us drool over lace when we see it, but today I would combine it with other elements to detract from the 'girly' effect. Chunky jewellery, leather waistcoats, boho bracelets, trilby hats, slouchy boots, 50's sunnies (not all at the same time, admittedly - the gangsta rap look doesn't suit me either) - these are what I wear 'for badness', a word learned from Gabrielle, an old Irish friend! I learned this style of wire work from an Indonesian friend - in her country these wire medallions are made into brooches to pin back their headscarves and it takes hours to painstakingly coil fine wire around a thicker wire, and then curve and coil the thicker wire into shape, embellishing it with beads as one goes along, without the use of any tools other than a pair of wire snips - but the final effect is so pretty, it is most definitely a labour of love. Chantilly lace has been made since the 16th century - handmade in France and Belgium and worn by fashionable ladies in Europe and America - and much loved by brides even today. If my mother could have laid her hands on Chantilly lace when we were growing up, who knows what damage she would have inflicted on our psyches - todays little hints of 'badness' would have become a deluge, to counteract the Little Miss Muffet-ness of my childhood - Phew! Whilst I love the colour that polymer clay and beads have brought into my life, it is no secret that wire is my first love. EclipseI make this pendant time and time again - inspired by the work of Nicole Hanna , and I love it. It's asymmetry draws me to this design. The markings on the matte blue agate complement the wire work. And as I went about my business, pottering about the house and going back and forth to work, my muse caught sight of a polymer clay faux bone medallion I made earlier, meaning to eventually turn it into a tribal piece - she decided the medallion had waited long enough and clicked her fingers -lo and behold, Zanzibar came into being! A silk, vaguely Chinese looking silk choker was unearthed, my stash raided for colourful wooden beads and Cowrie shells, and they were all put together using waxed linen. I think the necklace is fun and can be easily worn in summer with T shirts and linens, as well as in winter over jumpers. I have always wanted to go to Zanzibar which is an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, once a Portuguese and then a British protectorate, a Spice Island that sounds warm and exotic - one day perhaps. Just now, I shall have to make do with the necklace. ZanzibarSarayuThe Sarayu is a river that runs through the north of India and is a tributary of the Ganges. The turquoise beads in this necklace carrying the conch shell pendant, and the flow of the necklace, reminded me of a river - I used the 'stare hard at it and call it the first name that jumps into your head' technique. This technique works well when I like a piece of jewellery - Bang, a name jumps up and bites me on the nose - if, however, I don't feel any rapport with it, I could go cross eyed and anoxic from holding my breath and concentrating hard with no results. Needless to say, such pieces end up on the scrap heap. The pendant is a black and gold disc from Indonesia - one I made earlier was red, black and gold and equally beautiful. Earlier on in the year I made a pair of earrings I called The Bollywood Barbie Earrings - what I imagined Barbie would wear if she went to Bollywood. In the process of researching this for my blog, I came across Rachel Chitra's blog - she had written a post about the scarcity of dolls in India. We had quite a few virtual conversations, and I thought no more of it. Rachel is an Indian journalist and blogger and sent me this link today - she very kindly wrote a little blog post about Caprilicious Jewellery. That's me done before my little mini break in Hohwacht. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same place same time xx P.S - I know more of you read me than you let on - go on, put your heads above the parapet and leave me a comment, show me some love darnit, I deserve it - wouldn't you agree?? - the app might ask for your email id, but don't be frightened - it is just to make sure you are human and not a robot selling snake oil from Outer Mongolia xx Hello, and thanks for stopping by. Let's start with some music while you read on ................ This is Kevin, my latest model. I bought her on ebay - she is a polystyrene dress form on a pedestal. In this picture, she has just been given a decoupaging (is there such a word?? - Francophiles are wincing at my poor usage of the language). Why Kevin?? Well, it may sound silly to have an obviously female model with a male name - but I recently read an article about gender and sex (in my other avatar as gynaecologist) - and suddenly it felt necessary to give my model a gender inappropriate name. In the famous words of Simone de Beauvoir, “Women are not born, they are made.” At the end of the day, the making of a man or a woman is a never-ending process that begins well before birth. And the ritual announcement at birth that it is in fact one or the other instantly transforms an “it” into a “he” or a “she” assigning it to a lifetime as a male or as a female. This attribution is made public and lasting through the event of naming. Mike said, why not Mabel, or Lucy - but Kevin she was named and Kevin she shall remain! This is what Kevin was like when she first arrived and I decided to make her a bit more interesting to look at. Decoupage was what I decided on - it has been a long time since I played with paper, glue and scissors, and a long weekend at the Bank Holiday seemed to be the best time for it. I researched it thoroughly on the internet - there is a lot of information out there, but it seemed that a lot of it was incomplete - so, I took photographs as I went along - perhaps decoupage virgins like me might be pleased with the info in my little mini tutorial. AmitAmit was made from a little Balinese hand carved bone Ganesh. Last week, I made Mushika and his Master, and the Ganesh in that pendant was in profile - when I was looking at images of these, I couldn't choose between the two, so bought both. In Sanskrit Amit means 'Boundless, Limitless or Infinite'. It is one of the 108 names of Hindu God Ganesh - although how one manages to have 108 names (and why one needs that many??) without a severe crisis of identity simply beats me. These beautiful pendants from Afghanistan came to me in the post - I loved them so much, I set about making new beads to go with them straight away. It would be easy enough to just string them with beads from my hoard, but I just love the thought of hand made rustic looking beads that bring a sort of magic to a piece of jewellery. The weekend was spent pottering away at my craft table, conjuring up some pretty beads, polishing them and getting them prepared for stringing. Here they are in the oven, curing. My poor oven hasn't seem too much food in it since I started making stuff with polymer clay. It is used on a weekly basis, almost exclusively for crafting purposes, unless Mike bungs a cottage pie in it on the odd occasion. Since we are always on a diet and our house is an almost carbohydrate free zone except for high days and holidays, polymer clay is king in our oven! And here they are - pendants and handmade beads put together into new, one of a kind necklaces.................. AryaThe word "Arya" itself is a Sanskrit and Avestan/Old Persian word that means "noble". I strung this one with seed beads wound with wire, adding old coins studded with red glass. KarishmaThe word Karishma means a 'miracle' or someone saved from an inevitable doom. This necklace has my own colourful polymer clay beads - I added little bead caps of red and blue to go with the pendant. KareenaI seem to want to make flowers all the time - perhaps it is that time of year! These beads are flower shaped discs stacked one on top of the other, with some faux ostrich beads to provide contrast. I used every piece of leftover clay on my table, so there is a multi colour feel to this necklace, and the beads seem to be happy to be together, in spite of their disparate origins. Kareena is a name that can mean 'Flower', or 'Innocence' and I thought it would go well with this necklace. Readers who are into Bollywood will know that Karishma and Kareena are sisters from a famous Bollywood dynasty - India does seem to go with the dynastic concept and the cult of personality, right from politics, down to Bollywood. ScherezadeI do love the peacock - you cannot ask for better colours that nature put into that beautiful bird, and I always have one or two pieces of 'peacock' jewellery on my books. I started this pendant a few weeks ago, and added to it bit by bit until I was ready for a reveal. I added a handmade necklace so that it would hang just the way I wanted - given my penchant for asymmetry. The little teardrop shaped blue agate druzy glints in the light, but unfortunately, I am unable to capture that in a photograph.
That's it for this week folks, catch you next week. I have plans to use my kiln this weekend as I am on call and it promises to be dull and pi**ing down with rain. Hopefully it is better for you, wherever you are. See you next Friday, same time, same place xx Hello readers, how's tricks?? I have had a very relaxed week with two days off from work, and loads of time to play with jewellery. A little shopping trip to reorganise stuff in my craft room - I was inspired by the ladies on the 'Clean up, Fix up' blog hop, and suddenly just putting stuff away in Quality Street tins, begged from the nurses ( after they had scoffed the contents donated by grateful patients) at Christmas didn't cut it any more. I wanted proper storage - so off to Ikea I went, to buy storage boxes for all the texture plates, moulds, and sundries that are causing so much clutter - any excuse for a shopping trip, said my long suffering husband! Meanwhile, the call of the beads got louder and louder, so I picked up my pliers and off I went to calm the ones that were shouting the loudest. I have a couple of artisan made Nepalese pendants left from my last virtual shopping expedition, and I made Sharona with one of them - called that simply because I used to love the song by the Knack as a teenager, and it was playing on the radio while I drove home from work just before I made the necklace - I was humming it in my head as I worked. SharonaIt was a week for nostalgia - a brass stamping, imported from the USA inspired the creation of a pendant I called My Lady d'Arbanville, after the song by Cat Stevens from the seventies. The art nouveau brass stamping is very much in the Alphonse Mucha vein, with a woman wistfully sniffing the perfume from the centre of a flower, all unbound hair and flowing robes. I added a rambling rose climber with 'roses' made of wire and ruby quartz, in keeping with the mood of the pendant. As the story goes, Patti d'Arbanville, Cat's girlfriend went to the USA for professional reasons, and he wrote a morbid, but nevertheless beautiful song about his loneliness without her, as if she were dead - she is very much alive, and only 63 years of age today! My Lady d'ArbanvilleI made another scarf pin using wire and seed beads, as well as some more with polymer clay, that were commissioned by Neelam for Look in the Bag to go with her new collection. It was at this point, I decided to make another Balinese dancer's bracelet - the last one was made with a turquoise cabochon. This time, a rose quartz and copper bracelet seemed to be the way to go. Making this bracelet is an act of masochism, the likes of which I have never subjected myself to. My fingers were bleeding and knuckles grazed by the time I was finished, three evenings later. But the finished piece is so pretty, I am sure, a few months down the line, I will make another. The only problem is that just now, I gag when I look at another piece of wire - Oh well, hopefully that won't last long. The Balinese Dancer's BraceletThe bracelet is made so that the heavy cabochon does not slip onto the back of the wrist, which can be very annoying when you have a pretty focal you would like to show off on the front. I played with polymer clay on and off during the weekend - a couple of hollow cylindrical beads were embellished to resemble carved ebony, and carved bone. I love making those hollow beads - the idea of forming a bead around air, without a form inside intrigues me - so much fun! These pieces went into my oven to cure - I'm not sure how many of them will go into the necklace I plan with them - the two little faces on the top right are meant to be for earrings - the engineering conundrum it poses interests me greatly - how one piece will be connected to the other, and then to the necklace. I have left it to the end to pierce the components - I will use my Dremel, which I have become extremely comfortable with (amazing, cos I was once petrified of it), once I decide how to hang the piece. It may take a couple of weeks to figure this one out. While waiting for stuff to come out of my oven, I played with an image transfer technique, which I then coloured with inks and turned into a little brooch. It has already found a new home, where it is well loved! I have set myself a challenge - this was an experiment with a mosaic cane that didn't go quite to plan - I didn't want to relegate it to the scrap pile, so I kept playing with it till it turned into the kaleidoscope cane on the left. I'm going to try and make as many little pieces as I possibly can from this 4" long lump of clay, that should rightly have gone into the scrap pile. Thus far, some earrings have come out of this challenge, and next week, I will reveal all the pieces I can come up with in one post. That's it for this week folks - it has been quite satisfying - some clay, some wire, and some beads - what more can a girl ask for??
Have a fabulous week, and I will catch you next Friday, same time, same place xx We have been informed (hopefully reliably) that spring has finally sprung - at long last, about six weeks late this year. My thoughts have turned to my second passion, my garden, and the bluebells that are poking their heads out of the cold ground. Coming from a tropical country, as I do, it is such a pleasure each year to ring in the changes of each season, and in celebration of nature's wonder, I have written a new page for the Caprilicious website, soon to be populated with flowers and other pretty things from my garden. This is my first piece on the new page, titled THE ENGLISH COUNTRY GARDEN. Just now this is the only piece I have there, so, to keep it company, I have included a gallery of pictures of my own little piece of England - my garden. Bluebells
We went out to the pub for Sunday lunch - when I got back, I found that Pearl Blay of The Beading Gem's Journal had posted a blog about Glacier Inspired Jewellery featuring Caprilicious Jewellery. It really made my day - thank you so much Pearl. You can read about it here - http://www.beadinggem.com/2013/04/glacier-inspired-wire-jewelry-by.html Before I got this news, I was a bit fed up (that's me being polite and restrained). I had spent the day before making some really pretty beads - for once they were all equally measured and sized, and had a blue and white stripey veneer, attempting to resemble an African Trade Bead. I also made some polymer clay canes - this is a big deal for me, as I have shied away from making canes for a long time now. I constructed a complex cane of a lions face, so I could make a bracelet for a friend of mine, who is a dedicated big cat person. Although it wasn't my best effort and would have ended up a practice piece, a whole day was spent, happily wallowing in clay (brings to mind a hippopotamus), and late in the evening, the finished pieces were popped in the oven to cure. A moments distraction, and I set the oven to 225C! - 100C higher than it should have been - the result?? billows of horrid smoke, and a horrendous smell - and a load of cinders. I had to scrub the oven clean before we went out to lunch - all that hard work wasted! They say everyone does it once, but I had hoped to be the exception - alas, it was not to be, and I joined the long list of people who have had burnt offerings to throw away. Pearl's mail on my return was a sight to gladden my heart and raise my spirits. To cheer myself up, I made Reika - Portrait of a Geisha, using three faux black jade pieces I made earlier from a tutorial by Lynda Moseley. Reika means Beautiful Flower in Japanese - apparently the same word can have more than one meaning, if pronounced differently. As for writing Japanese names........ Kanji, one of the three scripts used in the Japanese language, are Chinese characters, which were first introduced to Japan in the 5th century via Korea. Kanji are ideograms, i.e. each character has its own meaning and corresponds to a word. By combining characters, more words can be created. For example, the combination of "electricity" with "car" means "train". There are several ten thousands of characters, of which 2000 to 3000 are required to understand newspapers. A set of 2136 characters has been officially declared as the "kanji for everyday use". Suddenly, the complexities of the English language seem like child's play - I don't think I could cope with the Kanji concept - I hated algebra, so it's no good asking me what A+B equals, apparently the Kanji for electricity + car = train (?? !!) Not to me, it doesn't! I do speak at least four Indian languages tolerably well, and can write in one of them, so I suppose there's hope for me yet - not that I'm planning to take lessons in Kanji anytime soon! The fluorite flower dangling from the tip of the pendant echoes the shape of the flower beads on either side of the pendant, and the colour echoes the little nuggets of the necklace. Four polymer clay 'fossil' cabochons sat waiting in my finished-but-waiting-to-be-made-into-something box. I gave one of them to my new friend BN - we decided that we would both have a go at them and compare notes. I dug up my Wigjig, and made a surround for one of them with wire, intending to hang it asymmetrically as a focal bead in a string of graduated blue agate rondelles from my stash. The Wig Jig has been waiting patiently for me to use it - I made a bracelet for one of my colleagues at work, a long time ago, and then forgot all about it. It has movable pegs that fit into the holes of an acrylic block, and the wire is coiled and swirled around these pegs, to give perfectly formed coils, each one with the exact same dimensions as the last, without any tool marks marring the wire. I bought the Jig because it reminded me of the Rangoli patterns drawn on the doorsteps of Indian households every morning, and more colourfully at festivals - the nostalgiascope at work again! The ladies draw a grid made of tiny dots, and then draw a pattern looping around the dots with white or coloured powders, and get some very pretty decorative effects. All good little Indian girls know how to do this - and I did too, once - when I was a good little Indian girl, a long long time ago There is a WIG JIG 'University' with free online patterns to be used with the Jig, and the thought of attending University again, albeit for such a fun lesson, tickled me pink! I named the necklace Silver Shadow after that hallmark of luxury and elegance - The Rolls Royce. The emblem on the front of the Silver Shadow Roller is a glorious Art Noveau Lady, with her hair and wings streaming backwards in the wind - elegance personified. The faceted blue agate beads are like fat little droplets of water around the neck - I do love this piece, simple, yet dressy and elegant. I made a cuff bracelet with a blue agate geode - I seem to gravitate towards that stone - the blue is so pretty. This piece was commissioned by a friend of mine in Mumbai - and I am so relieved that she likes it. Well folks, here it is - Caprilicious is officially a Jewellery Design Star on the Artbeads.com website. Thank you for taking the time to vote for me. People have asked me what the prize is - it is recognition and exposure - a physical prize is not important, and wasn't the reason I entered the competition. I love it when people like my jewellery, and if I could afford to, I would give it away to all those who expressed a desire to wear it - as it is, I keep it affordable and within the remit of most people, so I am almost giving it away - it must be some deep seated need to be liked - fortunately, I'm not a psychiatrist, or I would have divined some weird and wonderful reason for this pattern of behaviour. Thanks once again for stopping by, and for voting. Catch you same time, same place next week, have a fabulous weekend - we're off to the garden centre
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 Happy New Year to all of you, my readers. Now that we have survived the end of the world, we'd better make a good fist of it - so, onward and upwards we go! One of my presents from Santa was a book about Salvador Dali - I love the wackiness of the man - he even created some pieces of jewellery - he treated them as mini sculptures, which of course is what they are - and I thought I'd share a few pictures of my latest inspiration with you. Mine of course, was made out of wire, an aventurine bead for the green iris and a couple of crystals. It is called JEALOUSY- the green eye lending itself readily to the title - and of course, the crystal tear drop -there are plenty of tears associated with that particular emotion! It is to be worn as a pendant, although it can easily be converted into a pin. I didn't think anyone would want to wear it on an eye patch, that might just be going a little, teeny weeny bit too far! The pendant is made out of two long pieces of wire, bound by another extra long, slender wire. Fun to make, although extremely fiddly, all those wires wanting to go every which way but where you want them to! I picked up a two foot length of copper enamelled non tarnish wire and made a Chinese PIPA knot which I embellished with beads - it was so pretty, I made another and paired them into earrings. I love Chinese knots, but they are very difficult to put together - sometimes the instructions sound like they are in double Dutch. I would love to find someone who could teach me on a one to one basis, but in the meantime, these are what I can do .............. I read up on the history of knot making in China, essentially a folk art. When I was there, every gift, every wine bottle, came with a tag made of knotted cord. Wire of course is another entity altogether - it stays put when bent into a shape - but if bent into the wrong shape - OMG!- near impossible to tidy up invisibly, so..... practice, practice, practice is the key. ..........endless and repetitive pattern evokes one of the fundamental truths of Buddhism and the cyclical nature of all existence. In essence, knot work serves to create an atmosphere of well-being, good luck and health, longevity and harmony. As gifts, they are emotional, sentimental, and are often keepsakes between lovers and friends. http://www.co.middlesex.nj.us/culturalheritage/chineseknotting/history.html WaresaWaresa, or to give her her full name - Mbaba Mwana Waresa is the Zulu goddess of rain, rainbows, and is credited with the invention of the fermentation process and therefore, beer!! (probably a cooking experiment gone wrong or a long forgotten drink taken out of the cupboard and served to her menfolk inadvertently) - my kinda Goddess!! This pendant, also a wire knot, was affixed to a copper frame which was embellished with tangled fine black wire and silver lined seed beads to resemble raindrops. A beautiful lapis lazuli faceted oval sits in the middle of all of this. I hung it on a leather thong, embellished with copper wire curls at each end. This is a large but light piece, and can easily be worn with jeans and a jacket during the day, or on bare skin, at night. For some reason, I seem to have gone all tribal on me - but I just go where my beautiful muse takes me - I'm easily led! AphroditeAfter the holidays, I received a little parcel with a little rectangular piece of labradorite in it - the colour of the piece captivated me, and it went straight into this pendant. The stone is surrounded by ruby quartz beads, and copper wire lace, both the pendant and the lace resemble the sea foam - Aphrodite, of course was the Greek goddess of love, who was born out of the sea foam -and she was known to be a beauty by all that looked on her. More EarringsThis was meant to be a 'take a break, have a Kit Kat' period - but I am absolutely bonkersly obsessed - wire, beads and tools attach themselves to my ankles as I walk by, begging to be joined together in holy matrimony - hence all the little bits of jewellery that are on these last few blogs - only to keep the whine of the beads quiet. Now, I am left with a little pile of pendants and earrings that have been photographed and set aside, and will have to find a place to put them away before they get stomped on by a galumphing husband or eaten by a hungry cat! These are a few earrings I made - as you can see, I made simple dangles on frames I bought earlier, and then the wire wanted in on the act, so I had to wrap some more crystals around the edges - pretty, though..... So, this is what I made in my 'rest' period - I have been itching to get my hands on some of the beautiful gemstone beads I bought, and Nepalese pendants - I have at least six of those, and learn a new modern style of wire work from a lady called Lilian Chen and... and.... and... - there will not be enough hours in the day for all that I want to do, and all I have to do at the day job - it certainly promises to be a lot of fun. Do stay with me through the year, wont you, and I will do my best to entertain you.
See you same time, same place, next week xx That's another Christmas done and dusted, and it will soon be 2013. I hope all of you had a fabulous time with friends and family, and that Santa recognised all your efforts to be good in 2012 with loads of nice things in his sack for you. I have been requested to lay on a Boxing Day sale by my junior doctors at the hospital - now that Caprilicious is a commercial venture, they don't see why I shouldn't fall in line with the rest of the commercial world post Christmas - so, if Santa has been particularly forgetful (or mean), you can always indulge yourself here. All this being new to me, I did not have the time (or the know how) to set up a slick system with a code at checkout and an automatic discount, so I have requested people to contact me with the names of the items they want and I will send out an invoice - apologies for this cumbersome way of doing business in advance. I had a few days off at Christmas, and took over the kitchen to play with polymer clay. I could see my husband wincing, every time he walked into the room and saw my stuff spread out all over the counter tops - but he bore it manfully - a tiny shudder shook his frame, and was the only sign of what he was thinking! Of course, I made sure Santa rewarded him well for his forbearance - I will elaborate no further! I cleared up to cook our turkey on Christmas day, but other than that, the kitchen looked like it had been hit by a cyclone. This is a photograph taken of Einstein's office in Princeton, just as he had left it, within hours of his death. Now, I'm no genius, creative or otherwise, but I am quietly proud that my kitchen looked worse than this for a few days! That's my excuse, and I stick to it! I made a few bits and bobs, but mainly played - wallowed, really, in clay - I pulled out all the tutorials I had collected, either paid for, or freebies found on the internet and stored on Pinterest for a rainy day - and how it rained! I didn't really want to produce anything - just to know that I could, if/when I wanted to, if you know what I mean. I ended up with more scrap clay than I started with, from abortive attempts, as well as some pretty cool stuff, but that's the way it goes. Polymer clay artists are predominantly women, and kitchen implements, and other items around the house are press ganged into service in the name of art. Thinking outside the box is the name of the game - I even used the metal tube around Mike's cigars as a form, for a faux bone/ivory tubular bead! The dinks made in the piece to distress it and give it an aged look are from rolling it in coarse and fine salt, and washing it away once the clay is cured - got that from a tip off Pinterest, and it worked well - hooray!! Unfortunately, once used the implements cannot be reused in the preparation of food - indeed, they are quite ruined by the plasticisers in polymer clay - the surface goes all dull and horrid - Oh well, that just means one more implement taken out of commission from the kitchen, into my craft cupboard. AshantiThis is a necklace made of faux ivory made while I was playing with clay. I made a tubular bead, and few others, and had a lot of fun antiquing the pieces, and polishing them on the buffing wheel. They were teamed with onyx, lava beads in different shapes, black onyx, haematite, a hefty chunk of coral and a few jasper beads. A single turquoise nugget provided an extra splash of contrasting colour. I love tribal inspired jewellery and this one is definitely African - the look and feel of it is rugged, chunky and interesting, and it is for someone who likes the avant garde, and is not afraid to experiment - girly girls, look away!!! Chunky coral and lava beads add texture and colour, contemporary jewellery is all about drama, contrast and vibrancy, and I have tried to bring all of these to this piece. A few more presents were required, and I made a couple of bracelets and earrings to be gifted to some of my favourite people at work. My pliers mysteriously jumped into my hands as I was walking past, so I made a few pairs of earrings so as not to hurt their feelings, they were feeling a bit put out when I was playing with clay. RainbowI saw these beads on a website, and they were so colourful and pretty, I had to buy them. They are called rainbow jasper and it may be that they are a mosaic of different types of jasper - nevertheless, they were just too nice to pass up. I teamed them with ceramic electroplated spacers and turquoise and made this pretty necklace. Once I had cleared the kitchen in time to cook Christmas dinner, I was informed by Michael that he would do it all - my presence was not required - sweet! I sat down in front of the telly to watch Ben Hur - again - with a roll of wire and and a bloodstone cabochon. Bloodstone is a dark green, almost black coloured stone, and to my mind needs brightening in some form - you might not agree with me on that - but I am sure the pendant I made was worth the effort - it took simply ages to form all the curlicues and swirls - this is my favourite pattern from a tutorial by Gailavira, from whom I bought the tutorial originally. That's about all I had time for this week - now to get ready for the New Year. I am working at the day job on New Year's Eve, and New Years Day - clearly, I drew the short straw this year, but somebody has to be at work, while all the rest of you have a good time partying. Catch you in 2013, have a lovely time on new year's eve if you are out and about, and stay safe.
Speak to you soon, xx |
Follow
|