Been a week now

Would that be a good title for a country music song? Been busy playing with CorelDraw and fancying up my MISI shop. Adding the stuff I had made and working on my mad scientist project of home electroforming which has had me ordering chemicals over the interweb.

TS is expecting a visit from MI5 anytime now to find out just what I am up to.

The electroforming is still at the waiting for stuff to be delivered stage but you will be able to keep up with it on the jewellery blog.

I really need to get out of jewellery land and sort things out for our trip to France. The lovely Debra has offered food for our first night there so I'm fairly laid back about the whole thing that side of the channel. We may have to rethink the cat holiday plans though as Uncle Oscar has now been joined by Zena a fiesty princess who is not altogether sure she will tolerate Oscar and hasn't had the pleasure of meeting our pair yet .

I'd tell you more but The Project beckons waha waha wahaha (that was my creepy mad scientist laugh by the way)

Of Divas and Divs

I'm ready for my close-up

I suppose this belongs on the other blog but sometimes life can't be neatly divided (most times?).

I decided not to do the craft show next week but to list my stuff on my sadly neglected MISI shop. The main reason being I didn't feel like I had enough jewellery ready and the second reason being I felt pushed to make something rather than making what I like and feel proud of. Same as the first reason I guess.

This meant a day spent in my photographic studio (bedroom and/or front doorstep if the sun is shining). Its a blummin good job the sun did come out too as Dora, on discovering her services as a model were not required, flounced off in full supermodel mode "accidently" batting one of the lamps to the floor and breaking it to cries of "for F****s sake Dora!" she really took the hump then and went downstairs to sulk with her trusty sidekick Max.

He doesn't have delusions of divaness but is a bit of a div he has extended his love of soggy sponges to anything that might be found in the bathroom. So razors, tubes of toothpaste and the pumice stone are the latest things that have to be hidden if you don't want to find them in your shoes of a morning and the toilet rolls continue to be sacrificed to the gods of the u-bend. We really must get a lock on that bathroom door.

Well I was going to stop but then Aims . . . .

I have been too busy to blog, honest.
There was the craft fair at Christmas and I've got another one 1st March so all in all I don't seem to be finding time. Then Aims put some of her posts together as a short story and I thought about when I first found her blog and how much reading about the exploits of my imaginary friends cheered me up. Then I thought about how bloody miserable reading the Guardian makes me (but that's another blog post entitled I voted Lib Dem what the fuck was I thinking) . So I thought (yes lots of thinking but bear with me I'm out of practice) I could mostly give that up especially when TS could give me the edited highlights which he does anyway even when I'm reading the same article at the same time.
I could also stop watching re-runs of The Big Bang Theory and Dr Who or even blog while watching them being that I know them off by heart. Well not quite, the old grey cells ain't what they used to be but they are still up for a bit of multi-tasking. So come here and give us a hug

 

No it;'s OK you don't really have to. It's an excuse for this picture of walking on the beach in Winter and gives me the chance to mention that we went to Robin Hoods Bay just before Christmas and in other news I got my fringe died turquoise. Now you're intrigued go on admit it

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

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

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

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