We are still here

Amber Coils - Sold

Bonfire necklace

We've just not been paying attention, sorry. Well I am mainly posting stuff on my jewellery blog as well I am mainly making jewellery.

TS has just started his second year as a mature (v mature :) ) full time student he might pick up on his Arnold the Methodical Blog as I caught him laughing at his own posts the other day.

But the Breezy Break French web site is no more I'm afraid blame the cost of hosting it and our lack of being in France which made it feel like a bit of a lie.

We still have the house of course and the lovely next door but one Ian has been finishing it off for us but its strictly a holiday romance now. We might even get to visit next year who knows.

In the meantime in lieu of misty autumn Limousin-ness have some jewellery . . . just not the same I know

Still on the baubles

Ochre Sands Bracelet £15

Having a bit of a bracelet phase at the moment. Thoughts of summer holidays I suppose though I've no idea where the connection is. Why not rings or necklaces?

Anyway as I sit here eating my icecream cone from the van which plays the match of the day tune, (we're getting a bit too addicted to his strawberry and vanilla double cones in fact he's almost got his own parking space outside our door) icrecream and bracelets means summer holidays

Time flies

Denim necklace and bracelet set £37

Clarice necklace
Sold

Following tradition I should have been posting kittens as you got jewellery last time but, you know, jewellery sits still and lets you pose it. With the warm weather the cats have discovered the joys of hunting. No fly or moth can rest peacefully anywhere once the dynamic duo have it in their sights.  It plays havoc with the dogs nerves as they throw themselves at the walls and windows partly her own fault as she has always had a talent for being exactly in the way.

Looking at the date of my last post I can see I've been a bit idle on the jewellery front. I do have lots of projects on the go, in fact I think I'll have to get a bigger work in progress box, but mainly I've been playing (or making scrap depending on how you look at things). Also killing off my pasta machine and extruder I seem to be to tools what Uri Geller was to cutlery.

Anyway in with my playing I decided to try a bit of wirework which is where the denim set eventually came in when I finally got the knack of making even sized loops.

The Clarice necklace I was sorely tempted to keep for my hols even now I keep looking at the way the different colours swirl together I just love every little bead which is a bit immodest I know. Oh it's called Clarice because it reminds me of Clarice Cliff pottery at least the colours do.

So that's me then off to make more scrap and soothe the dog

More jewellery stuff

I had my first sale on MISI this week so I'm feeling all chirpy and appreciated. It was the daisy bracelet. In typical Breezy style I have spent the profits several times over so TS is now getting suspicious when I say this polymer clay, this honeysuckle for the garden, this book, this magazine subscription, this workshop, this copper it's from the daisy bracelet. I can't imagine why.

So I should be making something to replace it but the dog and kittens are conspiring against me today and demanding that I dole out cuddles and food and provide a comfy lap for snoozes. Even TS wants feeding at regular intervals how unreasonable is that? I can see I shall have to go into lockdown mode but the dog tippy tapping round the living room and the little meows and paws coming under the gap in the door will agravate and distract me and make me feel guilty.

Ah well I suppose I'd better mess around on the interweb then

Well I warned you

Bluebell Wood Necklace  - Sold

After a day watching the wedding though I'd no intention of doing more than checking out the highlights I'm back to inflicting my jewellery on you.

That and Dora and how beautifully she is growing up and her amazing copper coloured eyes

Dora Copper Eyes Priceless

I'd show you my new short haircut too but that would be just too much.

Shameless

Iris bracelet

 Here's me shamelessly showing off my jewellery again. Well I don't get out much. The sunshine has me desperately missing my garden sitting on the front doorstep here just doesn't cut it. So I seem to be going with a decidedly flowery theme of late for a not too flowery person.

The Iris bracelet and necklace boldly teaming purple and green which some people don't seem to think go. It's one of my favourite combinations maybe it's the eccentric old lady coming to the fore a bit prematurely if so it's been happening for ... mm yes well ah cough quite a lot of years now since I was in my teens. Anyway it reminds me of Iris'

Iris Bracelet and Necklace Set  - Sold

The Tiger Lily necklace well the colour reminds me of lillies and it got tigers eye beads. The logic is there you know I don't just pluck it out of thin air. So that's me that is I'm gonna have a cup of coffee and make more jewellery and oh yes you will have to look at that too.

Tiger Lily Necklace £20

Too much colour

This bank holiday weekend I have been experimenting some more with patination the chain is liver of sulphur, the leaves are heat patinated, the flower is ammonia and the chest is not having the sense to get out of the sun.

We spent a glorious sunny day at Bolton Abbey yesterday and had a barbeque next to the river watching big kids and little kids and dogs paddling about then spent all evening slapping on the after sun It's what bank holidays are all about

Cats and Blogs

No the title doesn't mean anything but then again does it ever? It mainly means I was thinking about blogging and to be honest I've not a lot to say except about jewellery and the cats and you've already had jewellery this week.

 I don't like to blog about work because well I'm at home now and though it's a rich untapped seam of comedy capers it's not nice to talk about people behind their backs. Especially people who might sack you. Hell now I'm tempted !

Work does come into it a bit because I decided to share some pics which TS sent to cheer my working day (which I looked at in my break of course!)

I suppose the reference to sponges and bottle tops needs explaining ? For some reason Max is under the impression that washing up sponges are his natural prey. He hunts them down wherever they hide then runs round the house with them in his mouth growling. The sort of thing that other people's cats do with mice. He likes his sponges succulent, that is fished out of the washing up bowl as wet as possible, so that he can cause maximum mayhem running round soaking everything in sight. Our bed being the favoured final resting place.

His other main obsession is beer bottle tops. The minute you open a bottle of beer he swoops in and runs off with the top. It disappears in the time it takes to reach for a glass though usually it reappears upside down when you are walking round the house in bare feet looking for the washing up sponge. I did tell you Max was TS's cat didn't I?

Dora of course is perfect

And the winner is

Blue Daisies Bracelet

In the end the daisies won. That's if they are daisies they remind me now of those lovely blue wild geraniums which I have always vowed to grow and never got round to. The patinas and the links have given me a boatload of new ideas to try out. It's no wonder it takes me so long to make stuff I'm forever skipping along thinking of the next thing I could do.

Isn't it hard to take a picture of your own arm!

You can see from the blue green patina I finally got my ammonia. By the way have any of you seen the Travel Lodge ad with the teddy bears? Is the pink one in the ice cream cone really saying f**k off ? Surely not.


Right off to wash my hair and get depressed about Monday and going to work.

ps added Monday    -    Re- reading this I realise I sound completely manic sorry no excuse

On the other arm

So mmm right back on the 20th March I happily published pics of my prototype daisy chain bracelet but do you know I just couldn't quite take to it. So since then I have been mostly turning copper into less copper to sort of misquote and plagarise (yes all at the same time) Terry Pratchett on alchemists as I tried to get what I wanted.


As you can see I  went off at a bit of a tangent

Dark sulty poppies

Not much sweetness and summer meadows going on here.

But it's a lovely sunny day so I'm torn,  do I go back and revisit the daisies or do I stay with the dark side of the force?

Bright shiny daisies

The Cube

I went looking for ammonia on Friday to get a blue/green patina on copper. Could I find any? Well obviously not or I wouldn't of mentioned it. Whilst wondering round the shops chuntering to myself about not being able to buy basic things because greedy b*****d supermarkets wanted to repackage basic stuff and make us buy 50 different cleaning products at 10 times the price and the world wouldn't be in the mess it's in if everyone didn't fall for it I spotted something called a cat cube. I had got myself into the kind of mood where I thought they'll probably get just as much pleasure from a cardboard box,  but them remembered Max's unfortunate habit of peeing in cardboard boxes.

I should have known it was going to be trouble when I undid the packaging and it sprang out like one of those self inflating lifeboats and smacked me in the face. This was at work so at least someone got a laugh out of it. It's sort of a springy wire and cloth type thing with cat sized holes on three sides and it defied all my attempts to get it back in the packaging so I finished up kind of screwing it up and securing it with elastic bands then sat on the bus waiting for it to explode out of my bag all the way home.

Dora liked the look of it and sort of went in and out of the holes and batted the bits of tape around, thought it might be a good thing to sleep in then along came Max. He promptly evicted her and claimed it for his very own boys toy. Initially it was just a case of storing his collection of beer bottle tops in there and repelling Dora as she attempted to get back in which he did at the cost of one of his bottle tops. Dora tried tempting him out by batting the top around the floor. This is where the trouble really started for whilst trying to get his top back but keep at least his bum in the cube he discovered that it was mobile. Thus began the reign of terror,  nothing quite freaks out a semi senile old dog who lives up to the name of Sissy like a bright orange cube with claws hurtling across the livings room

The cube is coming to get you

 Especially when it blocks the path to the door

Are you feeling lucky dog?

Cuisine?

Does Chilli with Yorkshire Pudding count as fusion food?

It was nice ......... honest

Some days shopping is just too much trouble

Anyone want to come for their tea?

Missing you already

The kittens are going away for the weekend to stay with Oscar. They have been for visits before but this is their first time of staying over. These are all practice runs for mutual cat sitting for holidays and such to make sure everyone can get along.

Whilst I will miss the little darlings and I have insisted that they are delivered home first thing Sunday morning (I can't be without them for the WHOLE weekend) I have to admit the thought of leaving out my jewellery making gear without danger of interferance is rather pleasant. Not to mention not having to go into total lockdown when I want to use the kiln.

Usually I set my stall out then Dora appears on the table. It all starts innocently enough with her sitting there front paws together tail curled neatly around looking politely interested but it can't last

" These little bits are good that you have put in this tray. Look I can hook them out and spread them all over the table for you"

"Look you dropped a bead I'll get it! oh,  I've accidently pushed it under the fridge"

"Those saw blades are quite fine aren't they. Are they crunchy too?"
" If I push this hammer off the table will it bounce do you think?"

"This box of scrap metal is actually comfier than it looks you know"

Eventually she gets sent to "help" TS with his studies

"Wow these are notes are they?  Don't they slide well you can get them under the sofa and everything. Were they in any particular order?"

So where was I

Oh yes medical moans. To cut a long story short turned up for work half the week, Tuesday went for my annual  poke in the eyes at the hospital (high pressure plus extreme short sightedness plus funny shaped optic nerves = glaucoma risk) Wednesday went for my bosoms squeezed (oh the joys of being 50 and being invited along for a mammogram) Thursday gave up on the dying swan act and went to the doctors and got antibiotics now feel well enough to get the kiln out. Yippee! Back to work tomorrow but another trip to the hospital for blood tests to see why my joints ache (what do you want to bet that that is also something to do with being 50) and I can't shift a cold for four weeks. The blood test thing should have been taken care of Friday at the doctors but I have veins that hide at the sight of a needle. Anyway I don't care now cos with the aid of my trusty kiln and inspired by the bit of Spring sunshine, I made this and I'm feeling just a little bit pleased with myself nay quite smug really.If I can keep my energy levels up I feel a matching necklace and earrings coming on. Oh and I digressed into kittens on the last post because they have been to the vets to be neutered and are making considerably less fuss about things than I am.

Daisy chain bracelet

Enamel and copper

I was going to moan but here's some kittens

I realise that I have not introduced two new characters in our lives this comes as I was going to tell you about my highly medical related week.

Max

Max loves Jasper

 We have Max nominally TS's Christmas present from my Mum and Brother. He is a norwegian forest cat on his mother's side and a black and white moggie on his dad's. He has inherited mum's shape but has his own unique just a bit longer than short incredible silky coat which is black and white but with grey tabby markings in the black. This was a more than generous present on my brother's behalf as he doesn't really "get" cats. In the way of cats Max "gets" this and delights in using my brother as a climbing frame he also loves to hang out with my brother's dog Jasper. Well every cool dude needs a big daft mate.

Dora

Dora my birthday and Christmas pressie from TS and my brother is a british shorthair she is supposed to be growing into an Isadora but somehow it turned into Dizzy Dora and she now prefers to be called Dizz. She's the one who gets away with murder thanks to those big kitten eyes.I've even heard my brother saying "hello little girl" when he thinks no-ones listening. We are all her willing slaves we know we are being manipulated but we can't help ourselves she's just so sweet!

So how did you get up there then?

So I now feel I've gone on a bit and I've quite lost the thread on all the medical stuff. Never mind have a quite unseasonal picture of the kittens at Christmas

No I'm not napping I'm random

Beach Necklace - Sold

I'm finally officially over my cold and this is what I've been doing with my new found lack of napping. I wasn't quite up for full on metalwork so I've been making polymer clay beads.

This particular kind I love making, it has a kind of randomness as you put your various shades of polymer clay into the extruder and create string that blends them all together then wrap your string around the beads. I find it endlessly absorbing watching the colour blends emerge.

"Maybe you should get out more" I hear you say but colours look at the pretty colours plus Breezys love random.

Random Green Ncklace - Sold

My jewellery making has kept me sane since I got back or at least I can pass in a crowd. I did get an allottment initially (no this is not random) but as well as constantly being reminded by the cold, heavy, wet clay that I wasn't in my own lovely garden with my own lovely light, warm, fertile with things living it it soil I felt overlooked. My allotment wasn't the peaceful sanctuary my garden was there were rules, gates to be locked and stuff that might get pinched and the possibility of vandals and all the lovely poppies that sprang up were weeds and a war was being fought all around me. The only butterflies had come to scoff the cabages and the birds to dig up the peas and of course not a chicken in sight.  About the only thing I got out of it were some onions. It wasn't that the other allotmenteers were horrible but I wasn't going there to socialise I was going to get away from feeling crowded and being surrounded by concrete. It was just not the escape and fulfillment I was looking for.

Now then what was I saying about naps? It is a grey Saturday afternoon after all what else are you going to do?

Colour me purple

I've been meaning to post some more this week but all my PC type stuff has been taken up with messing about with pictures and a fab email correspondance with Aims my new official jewellery buddy. Now poor old TS gets a break from being forced to hear about my jewellery problems and look at work in progress.  Somehow she is also managing to be really productive you should check out the stuff she makes on her blog I love it especially her copper bangles.

On the non jewellery front I have purple hair now. At least that's what I told TS I was going to get because it doesn't do for him to be all complacent about what vision of loveliness is going to greet him as he walks through the door. For an added frisson of excitement my niece was doing it as part of her hairdressing course. Such was his relief when he saw the final outcome that he was incredibly taken by the new hair colour which is kind of a deep wine, a cheeky little bordeaux to go with my full bodied burgandyness. Purple in all it's guises from dove greys and lavenders through to blackberry is my favourite colour. It's going to be my new black. More than likely the high street will pick an entirely different colour for their new black especially with it being spring probably their new black will be pink I shall however go my own way probably via Oxfam.

Mmm other than that not much really I am still getting over my cold so need a nap at the drop of a hat or the merest mention of housework. Anyway got to go it's Buffy time. Then maybe another nap.

Oscar and MISI

Oscar comes to us for his holidays or along for the ride when Oscar Mum and Oscar Dad come visiting. You should never judge a book by it's cover nor an Oscar Cat by his appearance. Inside there is the sweetest little fellow who does nothing more terrible than swear at birds through the window or tease the dogs with a flick of his tail across the nose.

He has that certain something and I had to have a go at making an Oscar so I drew him on a piece of copper then cut out something that barely followed my drawing,  since for some reason stuff looks different as you cut it out to when it's lines, or maybe I shouldn't of bought my glasses online from Hong Kong. Anyway enamelled him white, painted on his eyes with orange and black and was really rather pleased with him and myself. Oscar Mum liked the pressie too. So I have picked Oscar Dude as the first thing to go in my MISI shop. It's a shame really that my photos are quite dire but I am sure I will get better.

I was going to list several things but do you know it is all quite draining what with the fifty zillion pictures that are all rubbish even with the cropping and adjusting and the flash on and the flash off and the flash on auto and the light on and the light off and the lamp on and the lamp off and near the window and away from the window. Have you tried taking a picture of a brooch on a jacket you are wearing in a mirror without showing the camera and your double chins and the rather fetching cold sores that have appeared to get in on the act. Not to mention the uploading and writing descriptions and deciding how much to charge and feeling a bit cheeky really for selling stuff you've made even though your jewellery teacher says that she will pay real money for one. Do you know I started this yesterday tea time and now it's two o'clock the following afternoon? And me with the cold/flu and stuff and TS off at the University telling people that they too can be mature students and do degrees. I may have to go lie down.

Update

OK so I said I'd almost finished sulking and I had but I was busy too so I didn't actually post anything but I meant to and my gosh doesn't time fly er um.

Since we last got together I have a job (and for quite a while blumin heck) which I am not doing today, or indeed any day this week so far, due to having a very nasty cold/flu and not having the kind of dedication that it takes to work myself to death. This level of dedication to not working myself to death is probably how I got where I am today.

TS is a full time (very) mature student which he is doing today despite having a nasty cold/flu because he is dedicated plus it is something that can be done from your sickbed. Anyway he appears to be good at it and enjoying it so there you go then yes indeed. It certainly beats being a greeter at ASDA which seems to be the only other geriatric role available round here that doesn't involve being labelled some kind of benefit scrounger and root of all the country's ills.

We still have the house in France which Debs & her other half have been kindly keeping an eye on and doing stuff to and we are clinging on to it although it allmost went on the market but we discovered that there wasn't actually a market for it to go on to. It's a long long time since we went though and sometimes I think we'll not see it again and sometimes I don't care as it still all feels a bit bittersweet.

Anyway moving on. I don't actually know what I'm going to write about now but I have been going to a jewellery class so I may just make you admire my creations it would certainly give TS a break

One enamel & copper pendant for the admiring of

Back in less than a year I hope

x Breezy