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The Caprilicious Jewellery Blog

Beautiful Handmade Statement Necklaces and other Fabulousness from Neena Shilvock - Inspirations and Designs From the Week Gone by

Perseverance Pays

5/12/2014

2 Comments

 
Hello readers, and lovers of unusual handmade statement jewellery, it is nice to see you again here at the Caprilicious blog this week. The week at the day job has been a bit quieter than the last and I had some spare time to play with beads and wire.

Success at Last - Coralie

A couple of weeks ago I cut up two wirework surrounds to a fossil coral cabochon - I decided a long time ago that if I wasn't happy with a design, into the dustbin it would go. I was so fed up with the whole thing after two evenings of failure, I put it away for a while - this week I tried a third design and Eureka! success at last.
A coral fossil is formed when the organic matter in a coral dissolves, gets washed away and is slowly replaced by calcium carbonate. Some of the patterns formed when the fossil is sliced open and polished are extremely beautiful. This cabochon is a pale salmon pink, and I visualised it with grey spectrolite - a form of labradorite which has the same glints of labradorescence deep within - pink and grey are a very sophisticated colour combination and go well together. 
I added a couple of quirky lampwork glass beads and Shiva eye shell beads to add more colour and interest, and was eventually satisfied with the necklace.
Coral fossil and Spectrolite necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery
Coral fossil and Spectrolite necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery
Coralie(a French name meaning coral), took a lot of energy and angst out of me and I thought I'd make some simpler necklaces, just to ease the pain!
Alicorn - from the horn of a unicorn - was named thus because the beads are made of horn - as I didn't know what creature sacrificed it's horns to this necklace, I picked the unicorn - and why not??

Alicorn

Horn, coral, lucite and turquoise necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery
Horn, coral, lucite and turquoise necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery
The twisted blue beads are lucite, and turquoise and coral beads add to the asymmetrical beauty of this interesting mixed media piece.

Columbine

 Here's another simple yet sweet necklace called Columbine - I didn't think anyone would mind if I reused the name - I made a similar necklace with purple agate beads exactly two years ago - and I had these waiting in my stash for just such a moment.
Violet agate and amethyst necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery
Violet agate and amethyst necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery

Enchanted

http://www.mauiarts.com/index.html
The colours in this necklace come from a painting by David Miller, a well known marine artist. I love the blues and greens in this painting, and when I looked deep into the solar quartz cabochon, I could see the enchanted pool . 
The green fire agate beads are vibrant and set off beautifully by the twisted rectangular lapis lazuli beads.

Solar Quartz, green fire agate and lapis lazuli necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery
Solar Quartz, green fire agate and lapis lazuli necklace by Caprilicious Jewellery
Rummaging in my stash idly one evening, I found some prehnite beads - prehnite is a waxy, almost translucent vaseline green stone, with black smudges on it as if touched by an untidy child - I am so reminded of my very first pen which regurgitated ink all over my pristine pages and school uniform, earning me a good telling off - it wasn't my fault, obviously that I came home covered in ink blots, but my mom didn't wait to find out. A Moroccan bead from my stash went into 'Tangier'.

Tangier

Tangier - Prehnite and a Moroccan bead by Caprilicious Jewellery
Tangier - Prehnite and a Moroccan bead by Caprilicious Jewellery

Pisces

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Just as I began to feel ready for a challenge, a piece of carved black jade appeared in the morning's post - I have so many cabochons and beads in my stash that haven't seen the light of day, but yet, I have this urge to acquire more - an affliction I call magpieism. I spent two evenings making the frame and embellishing it with a fish to go with the carving - a simple leather thong seemed to be just the thing to add that extra bit of je ne sais quoi - I didn't want to over-egg the pudding.

Black jade in wirework pendant by Caprilicious Jewellery
Black jade in wirework pendant by Caprilicious Jewellery
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Inch by tiny inch, I have very slowly taken over the conservatory - I now have a kiln, enamelling paraphernalia, a light box and tripod, as well as other photography props stashed in it. Mike's electric pianola, which used to take pride of place is now squeezed into a corner and looks extremely uneasy, completely sidelined by all my stuff. My most recent acquisition is a photography background and collapsible rail to give my photographs a more professional look.

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I had an afternoon to play with polymer clay and I had a bit of fun constructing a flower cane. I cut the end bits off to take a look at it, and it was quite pretty - I will definitely find a use for it one of these days.  

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My friend BN gave me some clasps - they originally had some extremely ugly blister pearls set into them - I dug these out and refilled the clasps with polymer clay - most certainly an improvement, don't you think??

Woven copper bracelet by Caprilicious Jewellery
And somewhere, in between all these other pieces,  I found a spare evening to make a copper bracelet out of a design from Lisa Barth's book.

That's me for this week - you can see that I've had plenty of fun! Well a girl has to enjoy herself whenever she can - who knows, if next week is busy, I might not have time to make anything at all. Have a great week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
xx
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2 Comments
Sherril Olive
6/12/2014 08:23:50 am

wow Neena, a very productive week, I love all of the above pieces, but the grey and pink is my favourite, and also the prehnite and the copper bracelet.

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Neena link
6/12/2014 12:36:58 pm

Thank you Sherril - I had a load of fun making them - the grey and pink took some doing and I almost gave up on it.

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     I'm Neena Shilvock,  and I'm crazily addicted to jewellery.

    I've been designing and making quirky and interesting statement necklaces for over ten years and my passion hasn't cooled off one little bit - in fact it has got worse, such that I  even dream jewellery.

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