Fleur De Lys, by Caprilicious Jewellery

Hello you lovely people, hope all is well with you. We await storm Lorenzo, or the tail end of it with bated breath, but as I'm working most of the weekend, I don't suppose it matters too much to me. We've been glued to the television all week watching the BJ horror show (no, I meant Boris Johnson, not the other) in a kind of shocked and awed fascination, though not in a good way, and most of the week has been consumed in this manner. As I am now unable to sit in front of the television without a bunch of beads in my lap and an implement of some sort in my hands, thanks to BJ, I managed to make a pendant from some of the beads I brought back from Prague. I also used a string of beautiful prehnite teardrop beads I brought back from Jaipur in 2016 in a lavish fringe made for this pendant.

Fleur De Lys

In my stash, hidden away deep underneath a bunch of other stuff lay a little rectangular rose quartz cabochon, hand carved with a fleur de lys - as I rummaged around looking for inspiration, it jumped out at me begging to be used.
​ I had picked up a lot of pink beads in Prague for some reason, probably because there was a large block of various shades of pink and green beads just as I entered the door of Koralky Komponenty. Over the days it took to un prorogue parliament and the conference speeches, I sewed away like a modern day Madame de Farge. 

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So, here is the pendant as it was made - I echoed the fleur de lys on the pink rose quartz by drawing it on the four corners of the rectangle of Lacey's Stiff Stuff and beaded away - someone, I can't remember who, called this technique 'painting with beads' and this is just what I did. 
The rectangle then had to be backed with ultrasuede edged with beads and then hung on a necklace. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to hang it on, and finally decided to use a string of silvery baroque pearls with little pink seed beads in between.

A friend came to visit us over the weekend, and I got her to model the necklace among other pieces, which she did very graciously - I must say she is very pretty, and the necklace served to gild the lily beautifully. 

The end of November will be Caprilicious' eight birthday and I will have to look for a way to celebrate it with you. Look out for an announcement in a couple of weeks.
​ Caprilicious has given me immense pleasure over the years, and brought a number of interesting people into my life whom I'd never have met if it hadn't been for my hobby. It has rescued me from being depressed about the passing of my brother and taken care of me during the long dark winter evenings when a purpose in life is important to stave off  boredom, dark thoughts and mischief. There are little heaps of beads all around the house and most rooms have something jewellery related in them, my poor husband has had to get used to it, he makes the occasional grumbling comment, especially when my beads get in the way of him accessing his DVD collection - he gets a bit grumpy when he can't find the one he's looking for. 

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In the meantime, while I'm still feeling all misty eyed about Caprilicious and all you lovely Caprilicious ladies, here's a link to a couple of tutorials which will take you through the making of the Gold Rush necklace, and the Sunflower pendant bead - what's more, they are in a downloadable PDF and are totally free. There, don't say I never give you anything!! If you don't fancy making the sunflower bead, there's one already made up into a necklace on the website - It's called Kiku and is on the Mixed Media Necklaces page.

As I said earlier, a friend spent some time with us at the weekend, and modelled some necklaces and earrings for me - I'll be posting them on Instagram all through next week, so do look out for them. Here's a picture of her between shots in her sexy mismatched funny socks, although she assured me that they were actually a pair - I believe her, millions wouldn't!

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That's me for this week folks, have a lovely week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place,
Until then
xx

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