The Last Leaf, by Caprilicious Jewellery

Hello good people, wherever you are, I'm glad you turned out for Caprilicious again. Only 61 days to Christmas - wow! doesn't time fly?? Caprilicious turned eight this week and I marked the day with a discount code - in fact it is still valid till 1/11 in case you're interested. 
This week has been all about fish - I decided to make a beaded statement piece with a couple of fish swimming upstream towards the necklace from which they are suspended and I spent many happy hours researching pictures of fish, and imagining how I would achieve a particular effect. 
In the end I decided on using a lavish amount of Shibori silk in the tail and fins and making the fish in shades of white and pale pink beads. 
​The piece has just come out of the 'fugly' stage and I can show you how far I've got to with it.

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The fins are going to have a froth of beads at their tips, extending inwards towards the body. It may take a while to complete, but I intend it to be a really interesting and fun statement piece.

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The Last Leaf

As a young girl I was a voracious reader and spent every waking moment with my nose in a book, while my sister was out climbing trees and spinning tops with the lads in the neighbourhood. Mom had to make sure I was reading stuff that was appropriate for my age and sometimes had to resort to books that had been the 'in thing' when she herself was a child. Thus, I was introduced to the short stories of O. Henry. This one was published in the early 1900's ​and is about Johnsy, a poor young girl who is seriously ill with pneumonia. She believes that when the ivy vine on the wall outside her window loses all its leaves, she will also die. Her neighbour Behrman, an artist, tricks her by painting a leaf on the wall. Johnsy recovers, but (in a twist typical of O. Henry) Behrman, who caught pneumonia while painting the leaf, dies.

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The copper leaf in this piece was made in my kiln and I teamed it with coin pearls dyed in oil slick rainbow colours. I love the shape of the Monstera leaf, and sought to recreate it in copper - there were lots of problems along the way, but I persevered and got a nice piece of jewellery for my efforts.

Zodiac

The pendant is a double sided brass tag used by Tibetan men to secure their waist belts or sash. It is embossed with the signs of the Chinese Zodiac, known as Sheng Xiao, which is based on a twelve-year cycle, each year in that cycle related to an animal sign. These signs in order are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. There is thought to be a relationship between human and the 12 zodiacal animals, and it is believed that the years represented by the animals affect the characters of people in the same way like the western astrology signs. I've hung it on Black dyed howlite teardrops and basalt beads, separated by lost wax cast African brass beads. Black and antique gold is a very fetching combination and this necklace can be worn day and night.

It's been a busy old week with Brexit (or non - Brexit) and we've been glued to the TV watching the crazy and the churlish battle it out, while nothing actually happened. No wonder my fishy piece came on in leaps and bounds.
That's me for this week folks. Have a fabulous week and I shall get back to you next Friday, same time, same place.
​Until then,
xx