Save the Bees Earrings, by Caprilicious Jewellery

Hello folks, how are you this week? Corona virus anxiety has spread around the world and has hit the UK as well. Our local supermarket is almost emptied of canned food, dried pasta and frozen food, and yet we know that 80% of sufferers have a mild flu type illness and the death rate is only about 1%, mainly in those who already have other comorbidities . Ah well, the media has much to answer for. 
Hospitals have been inundated by the worried well - everyone has a mobile phone and access to Google and it would seem that everyone's an armchair diagnostician today.

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With all this going on around me, I haven't gone back to my tools - an extended break! I took pictures of earrings I created just before I went on holiday. I keep forgetting to show people my earrings and a whole load of my necklaces were picked up by ladies who come to take a look at Caprilicious while I'm in India - earrings however remain in the box and come back home with me. Both my clients and I run out of time and steam by the time they have tried on all my necklaces and we never seem to have the energy to take the earrings out of their box, let alone try them on, or indeed buy them.

Beez

Bees are wasps that went vegetarian. This was a brilliant evolutionary move: they now outnumber wasps by around three to one. Instead of hunting creatures that would rather not be eaten, they turned to living things that offered themselves on a plate. Bees and flowers evolved together in a gorgeous spiral of mutual dependence.  Humans depend on bees to fertilize the plants and make them a food source. There are several fruits and vegetables which depend on the process of pollination to be fertilized, including apples, watermelons, pears, strawberries, corn, cucumbers, almonds and tomatoes. Bees are also responsible for providing us with beeswax which is  obtained from the glandular secretions of honeybees and used in cosmetics, polishes, candles, and pharmaceuticals.
Scientists know that bees are dying from a variety of factors — pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, global warming and so forth.  We know that humanity is the perpetrator, and that the two most prominent causes appear to be pesticides and habitat loss.

Mike and I do our bit to save the bees, short of building our own hive - we grow loads of wildflowers, allow the dandelions to flourish in our lawn (or at least that's our excuse) and I made these two pairs of earrings, 50% of the proceeds of which I will donate to the Give Bees a Chance Charity.

The earrings will go on sale on the website shortly and I hope someone will help to support this worthy cause.

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I also made a few more earrings - some of them to go with necklaces already on the website, although they can be bought separately if wished, and others just because ...

I thought I'd show you the pieces of jewellery I picked up in India - I've always loved  torque necklaces and I bought a couple of variations, the first one is a modern piece with repousse flowers and leaves and the second, an antique torque made for a woman of the Banjara or gypsy community. The Banjara women wear the family wealth around their neck and wrists and when the men need the money, they have to apply to the bank of the missus. I can only imagine that this was how the piece I now own found its way into this tiny shop in a side street behind the palace in Udaipur. My sister in law and I were wandering around this tiny street, mainly window shopping and I saw all these antique pieces of jewellery in this little shop that would fit only two customers in it at a time, and the jeweller behind a glass case filled with antique silver. I fell in love but couldn't make up my mind. I eventually requested my sister in law to go back with me to the shop as she's better at the bargaining game than I am and eventually bought it. It weighs 280 grammes and is therefore quite heavy, but I love it.

That's me for this week, folks. have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx