It's Hard Work Taking a Break

 Hello readers, all 2.4 of you have probably noticed by now that the usual torrent of jewellery that comes from Caprilicious Jewellery each week has slowed right down to a trickle. Iv'e been keeping it low key for a while, getting back into the rhythm of the day job after my holiday, fussing the cats and getting the garden ready for spring. In my head however, are a huge number of designs and techniques all competing to get out and I'm sifting through them for the moment and getting them to form an orderly queue.

However, it's been a bit like sitting on an ill fitting lid on a barrel of monkeys - one gets out every so often! 

Say You Will

The blue flowers are tulips I made for the project in Bead and Jewellery Magazine in Delft colours. The colours in this necklace remind me of the large blue heart in the Old Market Square in Delft. I made the cobalt blue beads from polymer clay and I like the way the blues in the necklace seem to fit together seamlessly.

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If you're wondering about the name, it follows on from the fact that the floral beads were called Love Affair. All love affairs don't necessarily end in proposals of marriage (and neither should they in a lot of cases), but I'm clearly a romantic at heart although you wouldn't be able to tell that from a distance!

I'm not sure if my other friends who are crafting and beading have experienced this, but there seems to be a virus in the air - I keep getting Facebook feeds and emails from people who want to help me advance my business skills. There is a veritable rash of people blogging/advertising their abilities to coach me into making a load of money, for which I would need to give them an exorbitant amount of cash just to learn things that anyone with the tiniest bit of common sense would know in the first place. 
​They are like modern day monetary Jehovah's Witnesses, and play on the insecurities of people who are working away with their beads and baubles, and promise a doubling/trebling/quadrupling (depending on which one you read) of income if we would only pay them the paltry sum of a few hundred dollars/pounds a year. There's always the offer of a free lesson, which quickly segues into their marketing ploy and a slew of emails once you've been stupid enough to give them your email id.

Lately I've been craving a bit of a change. I'm looking for an expansion, a growth, a radical change for the better. It’s something all of us need from time to time if we’re to seek to reach our fullest potential.
As wonderful as my life is, one thing I'm ever mindful of is that to have modicum of success, I can’t just rest on my laurels and do the same thing year after year, hoping for better results. After four years of wire and beads, it may be time to play with additional techniques and I've been quietly laying my plans. I shan't say anything more at this stage, but all will be revealed fairly soon. Suffice to say it will involve an explosion of colour and my statements are set to become even more statementy!

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Have a lovely weekend and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx