Jewellery for the Poppy Season by Caprilicious

Hello everyone, how have you been this week? I was meant to have a lovely, de stressing week off from the daily grind and as I was getting ready to enjoy it, the weather got cold, rainy and awful; and bang! the boiler died. We have a couple of oil filled radiators stashed away in an outbuilding, so we dragged them into the house, but OmiGawd! do I hate being cold. I had to keep reminding the other half that doors need to be shut in order to keep the heat in - it's funny how men don't understand simple rules of physics and there almost wasn't going to be a blogpost this weekend as I barely escaped committing murder just to end up in warm custody - I'm sure it would have been warmer in jail than it was at our place.
It took 5 days to get an engineer out from Vaillant by which time I had just about managed to teach Mike the general principles of thermodynamics by alternately threatening and cajoling him into keeping the doors and windows shut. The cat, who usually has the run of the house however, was having a breakdown and sicking up onto the carpet with nervous anxiety from being unable to roam free!

I'd been planning a necklace with the beautiful poppy beads I got all the way from Taganrog, in Russia. Obviously the going has been slow, as I have had to defrost my fingers every evening so that I could hold the needle comfortably. The plus side to this (if there is one) is that even if I pierced myself with the needle I wouldn't have known it. Here are some progress photographs for you.

The very last flowers in my garden are out - I planted some Nerine bulbs three years ago, and it hasn't been a resounding success, I'm afraid. I put in a whole pack of a dozen bulbs and I've had three flowers this year, the rest of the bulbs are either dead or have been eaten by squirrels. I took pictures of one of the flowers every time I came into the house and captured it from the bulb stage to the full blown five trumpeted flower. They are meant to spread into the soil and give more flowers with each passing year - I'm still waiting for that miracle to occur.

These earrings were made just before the boiler died and they will go into the Earrings Show - do come and join me, I'll be there from 2030 on Saturday night (10th) until the same time on Sunday the 11th of October.
I love making this extremely light but showy design and I think it is very effective.

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That's me for this week, folks. I saw this photograph of a wall mural on Facebook - there were no artist credits, nor was there a mention of where this house is. If any of you reading this know where it is, do write in. I think the artistry is simply superb. The best trompe l'oeil I've seen prior to this was in the comic district in Brussels, but this wall beats them hands down.

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

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