Folks in the ether reading this, welcome to the Caprilicious Blog. It's lovely to make contact with you again. The weather has been wonderful here in the UK and it is so nice and warm and sunny I almost feel the need to hold my breath in case it's a mirage and disappears, replaced by drab, drab drab! I hope you are all doing well and not finding spurious reasons to drive to the nearest beauty spot - remember, if you find that you're going blind, that is certainly not the time to put your wife and child in a car and take them for a drive - unless you're in a black comedy kinda life! (For those who are reading this from outside the UK, this is an insider joke and you can read about it and join in the laughter if you Google the words Dominic Cummings and Barnard Castle.) Last week I was just putting in the eye in my Hamsa as I wrote the blog post, and I told you all about its symbolism. Since then I put in some colourful beadwork around the eye, and a lotus above it. The lotus symbolises spiritual enlightenment and rebirth. Much is made of the fact that the plant grows in murky water, and yet gives forth a beautiful flower. The Secret Meaning of the Lotus Flower tells us more about this issue and it is the most beautiful flower from a plant that is actually ever so easy to grow. I grew some miniature plants in an old bucket once in my garden. If you fancy a go at growing them yourself, here's an article that will help you do it. Crystal and beaded fingernails, paisley and chevron patterns were added, the Hamsa padded out with felt, backed with ultra suede and edged. And then, all of a sudden it was finished! I almost felt a sense of loss when the last bead was put in, as if an old friend had left and gone away. I would have to perforce, put it away - and eventually send it to a good home. Eye Protect - a Hamsa NecklaceAnd then, how to hang it? One lady suggested citrine and pyrite - 'for prosperity,' she said. However, I decided that this was a playful piece and deserved a playful, colourful necklace to carry it. Frosted amethyst beads that appear like blue grapes with a bloom on them and are very pleasing to touch - they have a soft rasp to them - contrasting shiny carnelian rice beads and a couple of hand made fire polished Czech glass beads that I ran up - the packet of glowing, purple glass beads had been sitting on my work surface for the whole time and I thought it would be rude not to include them. A protective amulet then, in difficult times. The amethyst is thought to bring peace of mind and calm and the carnelian brings vitality, warmth of spirit and prevents illness. Fin! Finito! Well not quite, as the necklace still had to be photographed, the pictures edited, a blurb written and the whole thing posted on the website. And since then, I've sat out in the sunshine with the hubby and the cat, doing absolutely nothing during the Bank Holiday weekend. 'Hope Springs Eternal' was sold to a lady from Maryland a couple of days ago, and will be on its way later today. That's me for this week, folks. Have a lovely week in the sun and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx
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Hello folks, it's lovely to connect with you again. The sun is shining, the garden is blossoming and the birds - well the birds have procreated and are doing unspeakable things all over our cars and making a nuisance of themselves, especially the pigeons. The world is settling into an uneasy new equilibrium and no one knows what comes next. There are fierce pitched battles between the two opposing factions - those who think it's just another flu and we should get back to work, and those who run around flapping their hands hysterically, swallowing large quantities of Vitamin C and zinc, chloroquine and azithromycin. I think it's best to keep a weather eye on developments, but plod on, trying to keep it together while taking as much care as I can. I entered 'Hope Springs Eternal' into the Creative Hope Jewelry Project and decided that I would donate the proceeds from the necklace to the NHS. It is now on the website and I will put it up for auction at a dinner dance planned in October and hand the money over. This week, I planned a Hamsa pendant - I've written about the Hamsa in a previous blog post and I'll tell you a bit more as I go along. I researched designs thoroughly for a couple of days before deciding that the project was a goer. The plan is to make a Hamsa pendant and then find a way to hang it - I could just hang it on a beaded necklace, or could make a choker to carry it. Will it eventually be a single pendant, or part of a totem? The possibilities are endless and I had to take the plunge and get on with it - this was my original sketch and you can tell that drawing is not my forte. Oh well, we're all friends here, so I don't feel embarrassed to display my lack of talent. I had a piece of orange 'stiff stuff' left over from the last necklace I made and didn't want to waste it. I had to cover it with blue velvet as I didn't want the orange to peek out between the beads. The palm and fingers were outlined with diamante cup chain and I was ready to embellish it to my hearts content. An eye was embroidered onto the palm - It would appear that there are two types of Hamsas - one with an eye and the other without, the former is a symbol that wards away evil and the latter a mere good luck charm. The Hamsa with the eye symbolises protection. It is believed that the eye will watch over you and scare away evil. I thought, 'in for a penny...Let's go the whole hog, belt and braces,' and proceeded to put in the eye. The evil eye is a curse or legend believed to be cast by a malevolent glare, usually given to a person when they are unaware. Many cultures believe that receiving the evil eye will cause misfortune or injury. Talismans or amulets are created to protect against the evil eye are also frequently called "evil eyes" and if you've been a tourist in some parts of Europe or the middle east you will have one of them somewhere in your souvenir collection - you can't get away from them in the markets and bazaars. As a child, growing up in India I came across the 'evil eye' phenomenon - Just about anything that went wrong was blamed on the power of the evil eye. My grandmother worried when we got sick, or 'lost' our homework once too often and attracted a scolding from school (miss, the dog ate it) - if we were bad, she worried that someone's evil eye had got us and if we were good and were praised excessively, which was rare, she worried even more that some jealous,malevolent spirit would cast it's evil eye on us out of spite and cause problems for us. Poor grandma, she was one worried lady. To get over herself, she would sit us children down in a row, grab some sticks out of a broom made from a palm frond, light the end with a match and mutter incantations over it while making circles with the fire over us. She'd then put the sticks behind a door and spit three times in its general direction - and the fire - oh! It crackled and spat, and we knew that each crackle, the louder the better, was a spell she had got rid of single handedly! Our hero! One summer holiday, we'd been particularly naughty, and after a spate of bollockings my cousin and I decided to get rid of the evil eye we were sure had cast a spell on us - we found a palm frond, but instead of pulling off a handful of sticks, we lit the whole thing, saying the spell out loud and dancing around it in the knowledge that we were about to go with impunity once the evil eye had been dispelled. Fortunately the gardener was around as was the hose, or the bonfire we made would have caused major problems. Needless to say the evil eye stayed with us the whole summer as the number of bollockings we got seemed to multiply. That's me for this week folks. Who knows why I decided to embark on a Hamsa project at this time - maybe in my subconscious, I'm a believer and I'm out to fight the Corona virus with my protective amulet. I suppose it can't do any harm, much like sucking on a lemon or eating loads of avocados, which are some of the remedies being bandied about by people I've spoken to. I am, I hasten to add, not a believer, but it is a pretty symbol and will be a lot of fun to make - I have been meaning to make one for a while now. Onwards and upwards I go! Have a great week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place. Until then xx Hello folks, how are you this cloudy, rainy morning? Of course, it may not be raining where you are, but here cats and dogs are falling from the skies with sickening regularity. At least the gardens are looking green and lush as there is no shortage of water. I've been away from home for a lot of the week, so had to make what time I had productive. At the weekend, I had a client from London come up to spend a couple of days with us. Caprilicious has brought many interesting and fun people into my orbit, and this girl is certainly in that category. We've met up a few times in London, and she came up to me, bringing beads to be strung and many changes of clothes so that we could do a little photoshoot. She looks so fabulous in so many of these pictures, I am sure to be using them for a while yet. It surprises me that she has never done any modelling before as she took to it like a duck to water, posing away for the camera willingly, changing clothes and lipstick colour ever so often, uncomplainingly and to great effect. I've been making beads using an ultralight form of polymer clay and salting away simple necklaces made with these beads - the necklaces are bright, pretty and light, and have the usual asymmetrical Caprilicious vibe. There will be a couple more of them made by the end of the week so that there is a fair sized stash of simple, inexpensive pieces on show, as well as the more complex ones. The Oil Slick NecklaceThis necklace has caught the imagination of a number of my customers and a lady who lives in Texas commissioned one for herself. She wanted the beads to be larger, the necklace to be longer and for the spacers to be of a particular type and I was happy to oblige. As the necklace was already designed, it was an easy matter to string the beads to her specification. I also made a couple more necklaces for her at her request. She likes her necklaces long, with a medallion like pendant and she had three necklaces made and shipped out to Texas, along with a few others that I have been reserving for her over the last couple of months. MaryamNamed for the Hamsa or Hand of Fatima/Maryam pendant hung on a necklace of citrine nuggets. Queen of the NightThe large amulet came from Afghanistan via Lahore and is strung with coral chunks and golden obsidian beads. The obsidian is really beautiful - at first sight it looks like just another black bead, but when one gets closer, it appears as if a golden liquid is suspended within. That's as much as I had time for this week, folks. I am working all weekend and hopefully it is a quiet time at the coalface. Have a lovely week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place,
Until then xx Hiya readers, thanks for coming back to the Caprilicious blog today. Easter came and went and everyone scoffed their chocolate eggs and hot cross buns - squillions of calories all in one large collective gulp. I was curious about the Easter egg and tried to find out it's significance. Apparently, the custom of giving eggs at Easter celebrates new life. For Christians the egg is a symbol of Jesus' resurrection, and when they are cracked open they symbolise the empty tomb. Eggs are rolled by children as a symbolic re-enactment of the rolling away of the stone from Christ's tomb and they are painted (originally red, but now in every colour imaginable) to commemorate the blood of Christ. The Easter bunny is a throwback from pagan times when the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring, Eostre, had a hare as her companion. The hare symbolises fertility and rebirth, and so does the egg. Later Christians changed the symbol to the Easter bunny which is fluffier and cuter than a hare. While everyone else was eating their eggs, I was being industrious and making up a few pieces of jewellery for the Handmade Fair. Everyone who reads this blog know that Caprilicious is going to the fair, but if you've just joined us, welcome, I have put this poster on these pages just for you, in case you should wish to come to it. This week I was attracted to shiny - all the beads that came out of my stash were shiny, quartz chunks and needles electroplated in a precious metal or titanium vapour. I felt like the proverbial magpie that is supposedly attracted to shiny objects. It started with a remake of my fantasy flower out of bronze clay. I went very slowly and carefully and was rewarded with a large flower that fit in the palm of my hand, about 5" across when I finally opened my kiln up. Here it is, strung on a necklace of Titanium coated quartz needles. By this time, 'shiny' had engraved itself deep into my psyche and everything I was compelled to make was that way inclined. Without ever making a conscious decision, I was soon well on the way towards making part of an evening wear collection of necklaces. Both the Hamsa pendant and the beautiful tassel came from Turkey and I made all the clasps myself, to add further interest to the jewellery. The brown rough cut nuggets in the tasselled necklace are gold vapour coated quartz and they have a lovely dull sheen that a still photograph cannot really do justice to. While my bronze clay flower was going through it's cycles of creation and drying before going into the kiln I sat with Mike and watched a couple of old musicals while I stitched beads around an ammonite fossil, to end up with this cuff bracelet. The bracelet has an aluminium form inside it to keep it flexible, light and adjustable. I also put together another version of Berber Sunrise, with faux amber beads, some of which I made earlier right here at Caprilicious and others that I bought in India. The pretty little green patinated beadcaps came from the USA and the enamelled bead came from Morocco. And that's a wrap for this week, folks. I aim to finalise the way my stall looks this week - it has to be stylish but simple to set up and I have a friend who is going to show me how to do this as she is a 'visual merchandiser' and knows all about these things. Have a lovely weekend, I'm on call at the day job and hope it won't be too busy. Take care of yourselves and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place,
Until then xx I have never been to sub Saharan Africa, but have increasingly been seduced by the beautiful imagery from that continent. This recently came to a head when I bought a copy of the eye wateringly expensive book 'Africa Adorned' by Angela Fisher - with page after page of colour and vivacity leaping out of it. It brings to mind the jewellery and colours in the desert lands of Northern India - the women wear large jewellery and head dresses, and bright colours, almost as if to combat the drab brown of the sand and scrub land surrounding them. Tribal sophistication is bold and dramatic, calling forth of the fierce nature of our human spirit to overcome all obstacles. That's what jewellery was originally worn for in ancient cultures ....to remind the wearer of her strength and purpose. Jewellery never was just about baubles and beads. It had purpose. And power. And beauty. Clothes and accessories should be as bright as you are comfortable with - if you want to be noticed - the key however, is to be comfortable. Sweet little gemstones on tiny chains are lovely, in their own way - but the statement they make is completely different from what the Caprilicious Tribal woman is all about. I have some of these 'little sweeties' in my own little collection, mainly bought for me by my mother, who is into pastel colours and whites - get the picture? - but as I grew older, I realised I had to find my own style, and dress to project the image I have of myself in my minds eye - and that image is bright colours and stand out jewellery (sorry, mum). I am a strong believer in that old adage (or have I just made it up?) - you are what you wear - ergo, if you dress well and feel confident, you walk tall and are undaunted by the curve balls that are thrown at you during the course of the day. I set up a new section on my website and Facebook page - Out of Africa - the intention is to make urban - contemporary pieces influenced by tribal jewellery to sit on those pages - and hopefully on you. This section is all about big, bold and eclectic mixing to complement the romantic patchwork of chunky knits, flowing attire and a bohemian Lagenlook. I am keen to make these at affordable prices so that all my readers are inspired to try them out - I am sure they will go down well. Tribal style is more about attitude than a place. So whenever you want to show off your fun and free-spirited side, tribal jewellery is the way to do it. This collection will be full of vibrant pieces to add a whimsical and artistic touch to anyone's wardrobe I have been gearing up to this for a while now - I made some chevron beads, faux bone and this week, faux amber which will fit in with this, my new venture. The necklaces are meant to be bright, bold and in your face, some more so than the others - to the ladies who model themselves along the lines of heroines from the novels of Jane Austen, I say - perhaps you might want to look at my other pages. As you can see, the beads gleam in the light - no varnish was involved - each bead was buffed with my trusty bench buffer, 'Buffy' - I would never have imagined that I could love a rotary, fast moving tool so, I am usually girlishly afraid of them - but, I couldn't do without my darling Buffy now. Mike's task this week is to find me a little table and a box to house Buffy so that the dust is contained, a la Melanie Muir, not to mention catching the beads that sometimes ping around the room like bullets - Oh, that Buffy - he likes to keep me fit, diving after those beads! Flower PowerI made a Hamsa pendant out of wire and hung it on a necklace made using a few Chevron beads, a couple of faux amber beads, with glass millefiori beads and real carved bone beads, reminiscent of Berber jewellery from Morocco. The Hamsa is a stylised hand - if you want to read about it, here's a link to a post I wrote earlier - http://www.capriliciousjewellery.com/3/post/2012/11/where-i-keep-calm-and-play-with-wire.html It is called Flower Power because of the Millefiori beads - which is Italian for a thousand flowers - and also because Marrakesh was on the hippie trail in the seventy's and eighties. It is bright and colourful and is bound to brighten up your day - who says the desert in the only place where one needs cheering up - look outside - the rain and slush and snow is just as dreary. Is that a Gauntlet (or are you just happy to see me)??I have been issued with a challenge by one of my customers - if you can help, do feel free to drop me a line. I am required to take the beads from the first picture below and turn them into a piece that will evoke the feeling of being in the second picture - which is a frozen river in Ladakh. Her last challenge was to request a necklace evoking a stark cold mountain scape, snow capped, with sunlight hitting the mountain tops. I created Meluhan Dreams for her with wire, crystals and druzy - she sent me this picture, and is clearly delighted with it. She even phoned me all the way from Delhi to say how happy she was and to have a chat with me about Caprilicious - I was so thrilled. I have to make sure I rise to this challenge as well. I have a couple of months to decide how I am going to work this miracle! From The VineyardI found this string of almost perfect amethyst nugget beads while sorting out my bead box - each one looked like a grape - the gems in this string are almost edible. Teamed with some peridot beads and the tiniest freshwater seed pearls, they went into this necklace with a gold plated birch leaf. I hung a bunch of crystals, pearls and amethyst on the front of the bail to resemble grapes. I know it should have been a vine leaf, but this is England and vineyards are not so plentiful out here - so please indulge my poor muse here. Aloha A lentil bead, made with polymer clay I love the idea of making my own beads and components, and fashioning my pieces from all the images floating around in my head - mixing polymer clay with gemstones and crystals - Mixed media jewellery is the way forward, I am convinced of this. I made Aloha with this bead, and a string of sea sediment Jasper. It was named by Mike, who said it has a Polynesian feel to it - who am I to argue?? Mantra Om is a mystical Sanskrit sound of Hindu origin, sacred and important in various religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It occurs at the beginning of every prayer or invocation and can be used repetitiously in a mantra for meditation. I acquired this conch shell pendant, inlaid with a turquoise Om - It sat in my collection for a while, until, the beads that go into this necklace fell out of a box into my hands - if I believed in mystical stuff, I would say that was really weird!
That's a wrap for this weeks jewellery folks, have a fab week and I will catch up with you, same time, same place, next week,
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