Blue Ice, by Caprilicious Jewellery

Hello folks, how're you? It is wonderfully sunny out here, and our lockdown in the UK is reversing, albeit slowly and gingerly, which is probably the best way. I've even booked a table at our favourite pub for lunch on Saturday afternoon and am so looking forward to it. Sitting out in the sunshine and having a meal is a simple pleasure that has been denied us for so long, it feels decidedly decadent to finally be able to do it. Apparently it's going to get even warmer next week -oooh! bring on summer. If it gets any warmer I shall sit on a bench in the sun and eat grapes, which hubby will have to peel and pop into my mouth one by one. Yes, I know it's meant to be the other way around, but that's not how it works in our house, I'm afraid.
That's enough of my orgiastic daydreams, let me show you some jewellery!

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Blue Ice

I made this one early on in the week, while the weather was decidedly cooler. Biwa and baroque pearls with accents of titanium vapour coated quartz shards and a silver pendant are the elements in this piece. The blue of the quartz jives with the blue chalcedony that dominates the art nouveau silver pendant. 
Blue ice occurs when snow on a glacier becomes compressed by further snowfall. It eventually becomes part of the glacier, but during the process of compression, air bubbles are squeezed out, and consequently large ice crystals enlarge. 

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​Ice in small amounts appears white because of air bubbles inside it. Small quantities of ice/water appear to be colourless. In glaciers, the pressure of fresh snowfall causes the air bubbles to be squeezed out, increasing the density of the created ice. A large piece of compressed ice, or a glacier, appears blue, just as large expanses of water are blue - this is because the red (long wavelength) part of white light is absorbed by ice/water and the blue (short wavelength) light is transmitted and scattered. The longer the path light travels in ice or water, the more blue it appears.
There are large quantities of blue ice in Alaska, which, being so well compressed, can take the weight of a plane and are therefore used as runways.

Let me show you the beautiful necklace before I blind you with facts. I don't mean to bore anyone, but I do like to say a few words about the inspiration for a piece and its name.

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Although the main stone is a deep blue, it is offset by an amethyst and a garnet as well as another blue chalcedony teardrop.
I wore the necklace to work this morning - and so many people stopped to say how nice it was and how much they loved it, that was really nice. My friend quickly took a couple of pictures before I changed into my scrubs, and here they are. The pearls reflect a glow onto the face.

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Hubby had his second dose of the vaccine today and I was really anxious as he has a nasty propensity to develop allergic reactions to various things - and that would put a kybosh on my weekend plans (only joking - I was on tenterhooks until I drove him home and he scoffed a couple of sausages and kept them down). He seems not to have suffered any ill effects, so the weekend's back on, hooray!!
Both of us got haircuts as well as soon as it was legal - I cut Mikes hair during lockdown and he was quite pleased with it which led me to think I might develop another sideline as a hairstylist - until I was tutted at disapprovingly and the woman told me off- she said that I was a 'hairdressers nightmare'. I think she was just safeguarding her job, he didn't look that bad to me. She's now almost shorn him, her excuse was that she was repairing my errors. Poor Mike!
That's me for now, folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx