Que será, será, by Caprilicious

Hello people, I hope all goes well with you. We are ticking over here in the UK - the latest TV report, if you believe them, says that protection from Covid drops off exponentially six months after being vaccinated - so I guess that's the next fabulous event to look forward to (not). Que será, será, ideed!  I was meant to be in Crete this week, but TUI in their wisdom have cancelled my holiday. I must say it irked me that Dominic Raab was cavorting in Crete while Kabul burned, but we can't go - thems the breaks. A bit of Vitamin D wouldn't go amiss, and I guess it will happen one of the days, just not yet - perhaps once the zombie apocalypse is over and done with.

This week I haven't got anything finished to show you. But just to prove I haven't been a lazy lard-ass, I will show you photographs of what I'm working on - I take pics at the end of each day  so I can record how I've made a piece of jewellery - just in case I go senile and need an aide-mémoire, and so that I can show you progress pictures on the blog.
I'm totally  addicted to writing this blog each week - it must be so, I've been writing it regularly for over ten years now. Maybe I worry subconsciously that no one will come back to the blog if I don't have something to say each week.
Or perhaps I'm just addicted to being truthful - when I say 'see you next week, same time, same place' - I have to follow through. ​As a child I was scarred by the movie where  two lovers make a pact to meet at the top of the Empire State Building on a particular day in 'x' number of years, and he dies on the way up the stairs. Poor guy should've used the lift like everyone else - perhaps no one told him of their existence!

Whatever the impetus is, I enjoy it, and thank you all for coming back to read what I have to say. Thursday nights wouldn't be the same without you. Thank you also, to those who spend a few minutes popping a message or comment on the post - you really make my day, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

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So, now to the business end.
It takes me about a day to decide what I'm going to make and get an idea about how I'm going to make my next piece of jewellery - what beads I should use, the shape of the necklace, and then to sift through my stash and find beads I didn't know I owned that would be absolutely perfect - this of course entails changing all the plans I made in the first instance - but, hey, ​que será, será! 
I then make a cardboard template on Day 2, and cut out a piece of Lucy's Stiff Stuff to match the template. Sometimes, I'm not happy with the final cut out and attach a piece of felt board to where I think would be best, and trim it to fit absolutely perfectly. 
​So, the fun stuff with beads only begins after Day 2.

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

As you can see, I have added a piece of felt board to the bottom end of the necklace- this is a commissioned piece, and the lady wanted it to be narrow, but I felt that what I had cut originally would be too tiny to show the beads off. The poppy beads came all the way from Russia and cost a bomb - they might as well be placed in a piece worthy of them. The lady who commissioned the necklace trusts my judgement, and I'm sure she will love it in the end, which makes it all worthwhile.

The pandemic has obviously hit jewellery sales everywhere - apparently lipstick sales were the only things that went through the roof, and I blame Zoom for that. The kind of jewellery made by Caprilicious was of course hit badly - who wants statement jewellery when there's nowhere to go to make said statement? So I didn't take it personally and plodded on, making stuff that took me longer and longer to put together, and got more and more complicated with each piece I made. I was seriously chuffed when 'On Dragonfly WIngs' sold within half an hour of posting it last week, but I'm not going to set my sights on beating that record anytime soon. 

I have always loved to play with make up - mom bought me a book when I was about thirteen and I was hooked. My friend Rehmat and I used to buythe American magazine, 'Seventeen' - and I was a marketer's dream - I wanted all the things they advertised in the magazine. If only I could have that eye makeup, lipstick, shampoo, conditioner, cowboy boots etc. etc. I was sure I could look like Brooke Shields or Mariel Hemingway, who were the beauties of the day. I guess my mirror wasn't much good, or I was just too stupid at that stage in my life to realise that I could never look like Brooke Shields - as I said, a marketer's dream!
Mom wouldn't let me wear makeup till I was about sixteen, and since than I've experimented constantly. My photoshoot with Danielle was my first attempt to be a makeup artist on someone who had a completely different complexion and colouring to mine. Here she is sans makeup in the first photograph, and in the second picture, I've gone to town on her face. Quite the supermodel bombshell, what?

That's me for today, people. Have a wonderful week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
Until then
​xx