Detecting if AC appliance is powered

If you are weak on electronics, steer clear of mains it could kill you.

A capacitor on the output of those diodes will do, value 1uF but it needs a peak voltage rating in excess of 350V.

It is much better to deal with the blinking in software, that is only consider something is off when it reads off for two or three reads with a 1 millisecond delay between reads.