Dear readers, Happy New Year to you all. 2016 is going to be a fabulous year, I can feel it in my waters! Statement necklaces are going to become bigger, more tribal and multi layered and more 'Capriliciousy', and you and I are going to have a great time together. Apparently, tattoos are competing with jewellery to make a statement, but I would only have a tattoo if I could change my skin to suit my mood - imagine what fun that would be! One could always come out in zebra stripes if not entirely sure of themselves, zebras are cute too. In the absence of that possibility, I'm afraid I shall stick with jewellery. Besides, tattoos involve a bit (a lot) of pain and I couldn't be doing with that. Earrings are set to be larger, longer shoulder dusters, and asymmetrical earrings are very, very in, with long, single earrings even more fashionable, perhaps with a little stud in the other ear. Tassels, fringes, and geometric shapes are all in this year- Oh, there's more than enough to keep me busy and happy. The choker necklace is still in - what a non surprise! I've loved torque choker necklaces and have been winding and weaving wire into these shapes all of this year, so we are well before the rest of the crowd at Caprilicious. Jewellery with writing on it - names, slogans, and poetry is set to become popular - probably for the same people who have 'mum' written into heart shaped tattoos, or LOVE and HATE on their knuckles in ink. Slogan jewellery will also appeal to those who constantly post other people's wisdom and memes on their Facebook pages, possibly because they firmly believe that if there's no such thing as an original thought, why bother to use their brain cell? Buddha/Einstein/Groucho Marx - they've said it already, so why not just repeat it? Oh and look, they've even put a pretty drawing with it! How clever! And tons of people press the 'like' button, fingers rushing to follow each other with an unerring herd instinct. For Hands That do Dishes
However, there is still a need to wash the occasional dish (damn and blast!) and for those moments, I made these little ring trays so that delicate rings can be taken off while you do them and then cream your hands - yes, creaming your hands is important, readers - even though they have been trying to hoax women into believing it since the 60's, no amount of Fairy liquid will keep your hands soft. For those of you who are lucky enough to have a human dishwasher - perhaps a well trained child or husband, the ring trays will come in handy while you cream your hands. Just be nice, and supply your human dishwasher with some cream too. It was great fun making them - I set myself a challenge to finish as many as possible of the old polymer clay canes in my stash, so that I could eventually make new ones to replace them, I'm sick of the same ones popping up all the time. I took pictures of the process, more to remind me of how to do it should I wish to repeat the exercise some day. When I finished for the day, my table resembled the site of a minor explosion. It was so hard to resist the temptation to clean up, but resist I did - the task I set myself was to devise a way not to waste a single scrap - after all, those canes were a result of a lot of hard work. Unfortunately two of the trays I made fell apart and I threw them away after a long repair job that just wouldn't go right ( oh well, some waste is inevitable). I ended up with seven trays, as well as buying a new tutorial from Melanie West for ring bowls which I will use on another occasion. I put another thicker layer of clay over the previously made backs and embellished them with slices of cane to my heart's content. One more session in the oven and I added bun feet, using a spirit level to make sure the trays stood completely flat and put them back in for a third session in the oven. Left over scraps of cane were collected up to make swirly feet for some of the trays. I think they came out real pretty, don't you? My sweet friend Bernadette collects bits and pieces for me to use with polymer clay on her travels. The last time she came up she brought me a bag of box clasps set with misshapen Mabe pearls, which I extracted and then inlaid with polymer clay canes. This time it was a set of six wooden napkin rings and I decided that the remnants of a loaf of rainbow cane would be just right to prettify them. I used a guillotine called the Lucy Slicer to cut the slices of veneer really thin so that it would go further. In the end, I had used every scrap of cane and even had to put in a flower from another cane to make up the shortfall - you can see that in the picture on the left, above. As described by Ginger Davis Allman of the Blue Bottle Tree, I used three acrylic blocks behind the slab of cane so that every scrap could be cut really thin. Of course, if only I had read her article properly (or used my common sense), I'd have been saved the grazing of the knuckles and the slicing of the finger which ensured that my ring bowls were liberally anointed with blood - it does wash out, though. What's a bit of blood spilled in the pursuit of one's art form, eh? ExoticaThis necklace was made on Christmas day, once the meal had been eaten and we had taken a walk in the park to help the meal go down a bit. Charlie and Wilfred loved the beef I had roasted, under instruction from Delia Smith and they collapsed in a heap. I pulled out a spool of wire and wove me a torque necklace. Embellished with Swarovski squares and daisy beads, curls, swirls and weaves it is a very exotic piece of jewellery. Wouldn't it look fabulous with a low cut floaty outfit? It remains for me to wish all of you a very very happy New Year. I hope 2016 will bring us all peace, prosperity and happiness. Catch you next week, same time, same place. Until then, enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink!!
xx
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Hello readers, thanks for joining me this Boxing Day - I hope you have all had a great Christmas and are getting ready to usher in the New Year. We had a quiet Christmas with a few old friends, punctuated by us moving our jaws at regular intervals - a lot of food was consumed over the day - we broke our diets with gay abandon and ate everything in sight like hungry caterpillars. Santa brought me a Dremel press - the crafter's equivalent of buying your wife a toaster for Christmas, but so much more appreciated. Now that I've got used to the drill, I have found so many uses for it and am truly grateful that Santa took the time to listen to my request ( I can't see how he wouldn't as I mentioned it almost two or three times a week until I was satisfied that it was in the mental bag). I was looking at all the canes I had made over the last year and decided to use at least part of the hoard in a large kaleidoscope cane - it's only when they get used up that I will have the urge to make more. I ended up with this huge block of clay and wondered - now what?? Here's what........ They are little ring trays - for when you are looking for somewhere to slip your jewellery onto when doing the washing up, or creaming your hands, or to place your earrings when you go to bed or into the shower. I added little bun feet in contrasting colours - they are so cute! The raw trays were applied firmly to a fishbowl that Mike bought me for this purpose (no, cats and fish don't go together), and when they came out of the oven, they were all shiny inside, as if I had spent hours polishing them. AshantiAshanti is a necklace made of horn beads, given to me by my friend BN - the way to find out if your beads are horn or amber rather than plastic is to stick a pin heated in a flame into one of them - you will soon smell the difference if it turns out it is plastic you are burning. The bronze beads in the necklace are made by the lost wax casting method - beeswax is extruded in a string which is wrapped around a core of charcoal and cow dung. This is buried in a mould made of a slurry of charcoal and clay held together with palm fibre, and then put in a kiln - the wax melts and is poured out - and replaced with molten brass. A mould has to be made for each item, as it has to be broken to release the bead when cool. The rough parts are filed off, and it is hand-polished using lemon juice and fine sand. This is a very labour intensive process, and is reflected in the price of the beads - but they are beautiful - and I had to have them. I managed to find a European vendor who was importing them in from Africa, and jumped at the chance to acquire them without all the palaver of exorbitant postage charges, Customs duty, etc. Someone gave us a bottle of expensive brandy in a presentation case for Christmas - Mike had the brandy, and as I am teetotal, I had the satin lining of the case, which is my latest prop to photograph my jewellery on ( share and share alike, eh??) - it is edged with stiff cardboard and falls into gentle folds that the jewellery seems to nestle into - you like?? I love! Crushed LilacI reworked this necklace four times before I was satisfied with it. The lilac coloured agate beads are a tad too pale for me - I just had to brighten the piece up - pearls, pale green crystals, a couple of dyed jade beads and a polymer clay bead inspired by Loretta Lam in a deep shade of purple, finally did the trick and brought it to life. Yet another 'Wings of Love' necklace followed. With the last one that I sent out - the lady who bought it hadn't realised that they were real beetles wings! Perhaps she hadn't paid too much attention to the blurb - she wrote to me saying that she wasn't happy that the backs of the wings were black, and could she have some paint to turn them the same colour as the front. When I explained that that's how nature made them, and there was no paint involved, she was surprised - and then decided she loved it. I did offer to have the piece back, should she really dislike it. I hope she wore it at Christmas and got loads of compliments - I like my customers to be happy. Wings of LoveRings of SaturnI made these beads and the clasp a while ago - I sometimes make stuff just to try out a new technique that catches my fancy - and then don't know what to do with the results for a while. The idea to combine the two elements came to me at 3am - and I had to make the necklace first thing in the morning, before the inspiration evaporated from my mind. Fortunately I didn't have to go in to work till 1pm, by which time I had made the necklace, photographed it and even begun to edit the pictures! Stringing beads is easy enough - people often ask me how long it takes to make a necklace - not long at all, provided the concept has been sorted out, the bead combinations all picked out and assembled on my tray - and then bish, bash, bosh, voila - a necklace! It is the concept that takes the time, but with this one, my brain did the work as I fell asleep the night before - I just wish it would work like that with other stuff as well. The beads are large, but hollow, so the necklace is not heavy at all and the pale green chip beads and the rectangular Natasha bead provide asymmetrical interest. Here's a quick look at my new Dremel press - and thank you, Santa. I've come a long way from the wee, timorous beastie I was, terrified to turn on the Dremel - I'm not sure what I thought would happen - perhaps it's just a girl thing, although I'm not especially girly - well, whatever it is, I'm over it, I'm glad to say. I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful, joyful, love-filled holiday season, however you celebrate it. And I especially hope that 2015 brings you all wonderful things. Catch you next week, next year, same time, same place, xx |
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