I really love rich purples and this bracelet reminds me of the crinkly foil of Quality Street chocolates and the rich purple foil of Dairy Milk (before it became wrapped in plastic). It's so beautifully rich and metallic. It glitters and sparkles from all those lovely silver lined beads. It has enough Pizzazz to attract any Magpie to steal it away!
So it seemed fitting that it would attract a Magpie to come say "Hi!" This little Magpie came all the way from Scotland where it was made by Samieston Ceramics. I adore Magpies. It's easy to think they are black and white but look closely and they have spectacular multi-coloured plumage. They seem to have a sense of humour the way they look at the world, and just a little bit of sass.
The Magpie wanted to show off some treasure and some of it's glittery stash sits on the left. Pearls from GJ Beads. The Swarovski crystal come from all over as there isn't really a specialist in the UK, different shops have different bits. For the really unusual things though, I tend to go to Dreamtime Creations. The postage is prohibitive though from the US so I tend to wait and buy things in one go. Swarovski changes it's range frequently, so if you see something unusual, buy it will you can...
The short strings of purple bicones are part of Swarovski's Spark range and they are really sparkly. While some are still available, it's stock suppliers have remaining rather than the original full range now. I have also included some bicones in Indigo, Rose and other colours. There are a few rivoli's which are so sparkly because they have foil backs. The largest stone is a Solaris with eight sides and bands of frosting.
On the right are the sorts of sumptuous fabrics that a human Magpie would appreciate. On the bottom is a tunic, not quite a dress, by Joe Browns in a beautiful dark blue almost purple velvet. Above it is a purple velvet tunic which was a bargain from Crazy Clearance I think. The pink scarf was a Tesco buy and is white with bright pink butterflies. The scarf on top, at the back, has more of a story.
We had been to Canada, flying back in to Bristol Airport. We have a lovely little Airbnb we like to stay at to get over jet lag, or break our journey when we leave Cornwall. It was a hot day as we left there and we were still a little lagged and low on supplies. We were on the M5 when we realised we were going to have to stop and we were not near a service station so we pulled off at Wellington and headed for the centre. We stopped at some traffic lights and there was this amazing shop, so after we parked, I of course had to go and have a look...
The shop was Chandni Chowk and was full of beautiful things. They are a fair trade and ethical company with a range of textiles produced in India. The scarf I brought was hand printed using traditional block printing methods. The designs are so lovely. Their website has details on the techniques used as well as the range of designs for sale. They also have a whole bunch of other things too and as a bonus it was lovely and cool in there...
At the back is a nice pink glass from Tesco with Vimto in it. Vimto is one of my favourite drinks but I don't let myself buy a bottle too often!
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