Hope Springs Eternal, by Caprilicious Jewellery

Good day, lovely people, thanks for coming back for a quick look at the goings on at Caprilicious. I hope you are all well and 'staying alert' if you are in the UK - although exactly what that means, nobody can tell me.
If you're lucky enough to be able to work from home and aren't a manual worker who has to go in to work while avoiding public transport to get there, you're winning already. I feel sorry for the labourers who have to hoick their Daimlers out of their garages so that they don't have to take a bus, it will be so hard to find parking spaces in places like London! Unbelievable advice from our leaders, and if we didn't laugh, we'd be in floods of tears!

As you know no doubt from last weeks blog post, I've been making a necklace for a project on Facebook - the Creative Hope Jewelry Project Challenge and Virtual Exhibit.  They are looking for jewellery that will 'express feelings, thoughts, and hopes during the Coronavirus, with unique and diverse design styles and techniques'. They will have a community vote between the 1-5th of June and a virtual exhibition from the 25th. The jewellery submitted must display a 'High degree of hope within the piece' and I thought about this for a long time. I wanted to use one of my Vintaj art nouveau components and it struck me that spring is the season of hope - after all, spirits lift as the days grow longer, warmer and the countryside gets greener and wildflowers bloom in the meadows. That then was my 'Aha!!' moment, and I set to work on my beaded magnum opus.

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So, where was I at the end of last week? I'd almost finished the piece, apart from the backing and edging after which I had to hang it, so that it sat comfortably around the neck. I'd already had someone wondering out loud how it was going to drape/sit as it appeared to be extremely heavy. I have to say that in actual fact it isn't heavy - after all it is made of a handful of glass seed beads - it is when 'stones' are involved that the weight increases exponentially. This is a true mixed media piece - it has blue resin roses, a pink polymer clay rose I had left over from another long finished project, various shapes and sizes of glass and quartz beads, a pewter Vintaj component, and eventually, will have hand carved fluorite flower beads at the back.
The wildflower meadow was inspired by the work of E Sorensen on Pinterest- she made a number of collar necklaces in this style and on delving further so have a number of other people. I came up with the rest of the concept myself but I’m sure all of them have been made by someone, somewhere and I apologise for not crediting my other influencers- it’s only because they were subliminal - after all there’s no such thing as an original thought, but it’s only polite to acknowledge a direct influence.

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​Spring provides a bridge from the barren darkness of winter to the brightness of summer. Gradually increasing light and warmth bring the promise of good times yet to come and seem to console us for the harsh winter recently endured, giving us a glimpse of what nature promises us in a short while.
The softening earth invites us to plant seeds and the fields come alive and remind us of the greener tapestry to come. Buds adorn the trees and bushes, with the promise of an even lusher backdrop. Wildflowers bloom in the meadows bringing colour to the landscape and spring flowers blossom - the air is laden with the lush, heady promise of good things, soon to be within our reach.
True hope is never passive; it is always ready for "spring-time". 
The heroine of my piece 'Hope Springs Eternal' is sitting (lolling ?) under a wisteria in a wildflower meadow, with the patchwork of green fields to one side. She waits for summer, and perhaps the return of her lover who promised to come back to her in more clement weather. Who knows what they will get up to in the beautiful wildflower meadow? 
​Here are some pictures of Hope Springs Eternal for you.

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I even wore it to a meeting on Zoom and though it's not the best picture, I felt it was worth posting it as proof positive that it works when worn live and not just on a dummy! 

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That's me for this week, folks. Take care of yourselves, stay alert and don't use public transport if you can, dust off those Daimlers and Bentleys and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx