Autumn Wedding Jewelry Ensemble

This past autumn, I had the honor of designing a jewelry set for five bridesmaids!

The color theme was reds and golds, with hints of pearl and green. Each of the girls would be wearing a different dress in the same color, and each girl had different jewelry requirements (pierced/non-pierced ears, short/long necklace, etc). 

The necklace shape is also adjustable-- since I created a braided base, it could be gently pinched into a pointed shape, or a flat, or rounded style. If you look closely at the pictures of the bridesmaids, you'll see that each necklace is worn differently!

The bride wore a thick lace veil with a bright, bold wreath of red and gold flowers and leaves on top, and the jewelry was designed to coordinate with her style.

It goes without saying that these five sets were a fair bit of work! Each necklace had a braided base that looks very similar to my braided circlets. Beads and glass leaves of all kinds were woven on in matching patterns, and beads adorned the adjustable golden chain.

These are the earrings and ear cuffs designed for the bridesmaids!

The ear cuffs were beautifully decorative; the bride loves fairytale styles so I had fun going overboard with the sparkly bling!

One of the girls had double piercings and wore two sets of dangles! I'd never really heard of that kind of pairing before, but wouldn't you agree that it is a lovely combination?



The other girls all wore variations of my Enchanted Forest Earrings in gold and red.

I also created a pair of barefoot sandals for the bride! The picture below is with shoes from our outdoor photoshoot, but these "fairy sandals" work well barefoot, too!

This is the entire set of jewelry, representing a couple weeks of work!

I didn't photograph the rings very well, but in this picture you can see the leaf flower ring and the gold-and-red wirewrapped rosette ring on the maid of honor!

This was one of the most unique weddings I've attended, style-wise, and I had a blast designing jewelry for such lovely girls!

I've created many pieces of jewelry for various brides, and I've even designed an entire set of jewelry for a bride, bridal party, and mother-of-the-bride, but this was the first time creating wedding pieces for someone I knew! I am also friends with all of the bridal party, so I had the opportunity to take their personal styles into consideration.

In addition, I also helped out last minute by being the second shooter at the wedding! I wound up taking over three hundred pictures of the ceremony, photoshoot, and reception.

It's not a fairytale wedding with friends until you do a hilarious gag photo, is it?

The park we took photos had at these awesomely weird concrete frogs...

So... I did mention that this was a group of my friends from high school and that everyone involved are fantastic geeks, yes? While the main photographer was off taking sweet pictures of the bride and groom, the bridesmaids and groomsmen posed with my Lord of the Rings weaponry.

Aren't they just too cute?

Best wishes and lots of prayers for the new Mr. and Mrs.! 

Entwife Circlet, Revisited

Over the past two years, I've had the honor of making jewelry for several weddings. This autumn, a bride asked me to create an Entwife circlet for her. My side of the dorm room started to look like a fairy trove as it became laden with strands of wire, boxes of beads, and pinecones for two weeks. The end result? A woodland fairytale wedding headpiece.

The base of the circlet is braided raw copper, which should develop a beautiful patina over time. I twisted many of my favorite Czech glass leaf beads in various shades of copper onto the copper, accentuating it with some glass pearls.

But that is not all, my friends.

PARTY IN THE BACK!

The back of the Entwife circlet is made from real pinecones, more leaves, and strands of sparkling and rustic chains.

________

Two years ago (has it been that long?) a friend of mine asked me to create an entire jewelry ensemble for her to wear to a Lord of the Rings themed ball. She created an intricate Entwife costume, taught me how to make pinecone flowers, and left me to have fun.

You can see all of the tree-folk jewelry here, and a photoshoot with her costume here.

From this entire Entwife collection, the piece that I was the most proud of was the circlet. My fingers were so tired that I didn't want to do any crafting for days afterwards (gasp! --and, also, it's amazing how I've built up some serious finger muscles since), but it was worth it for this large Entish headpiece. 

The original version of the Entwife circlet. The copper is already patina-ed.

You can imagine how excited I was to get a change to re-create it-- with some changes to reflect my growing attention to construction details, quality supplies, and better techniques. Two years can impart a lot of experience!

I would like to officially thank my roommate for being a princess for an afternoon by modeling for me.

This entire crown took over 100 feet of copper wire to create! I spent several hours watching Netflix (Dollhouse, anyone?) and drinking tea while I busily slaved away at braiding and twisting wire. Unfortunately I had underestimated just how long it would take to make this piece, but thankfully even with all of my schoolwork I was able to ship it on time.

Pinecones do not like me.

First, I had to gather them. That is not hard on a college campus; there are several evergreens by the math building, and it was the right time of year for them to be blanketing the ground. The problem? I picked them up between classes, was on the receiving end of several odd stares, and only realized how sticky pinecones can be when I found that my notebook and sketchbook were glued together in my bag.

Then, I had to clean the pinecones. I wouldn't let that sticky mess anywhere near someone's hair. Plus, germs. Pinecones have to be baked to let the sap melt off-- that was an ordeal in a dorm.

Finally, I had to glue it all together and seal it. That part wasn't too bad at all, but it is when I am doing projects like this that I am eternally grateful for my roommates who deal with my weird projects.

When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!

-an Ent, in the song of the Ents and Entwives in The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

 

In the Lord of the Rings universe, the Ents are the tree people who the Hobbits run into in Fangorn Forest. The Ents are tree-shepherds, and the fate of the garden-loving Entwives is one of the mysteries of Middle Earth.

 

When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!

-an Entwife, in the song of the Ents and Entwives in The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

I hope that you've enjoyed these pictures! Making the circlet, taking the pictures-- it's all so much fun. :)

Wire Masquerade Mask

This week is finals week, and to start things off right my campus ministry held a Masquerade formal on Dead Day Eve. I could have easily worn the mask that I made for my 16th birthday that I was so excited about, but would that do? No, of course not. This is me we are talking about. I had to make something new!

Almost a year ago, I scribbled a little note in my sketchbook about "wire masks with swirlies." I can't remember which sketchbook and I very well might just be making that up, but I think it was written somewhere, and I certainly played with the idea in my head for a bit.

My problem was that I am very ridiculously busy and I kept prioritizing other jewelry projects, particularly the tried-and-true variants that I know I can sell, because, you know, it's quite nice to have money. Although I had the opportunity to do some experimenting last summer, there still wasn't time for everything!

The night before the dance, I sat down at my desk with sterling silver plated wire, rhinestones, three boxes of beads, pliers, a mirror, and some good music. After an hour I joined some of my friends in my dorm, and we all worked on masks (they made some gorgeous painted ones) until after midnight!

The finished mask is very sturdy-- I am pleasantly surprised at how it turned out! The nose piece-- inspired of course by the traditional nosepiece on Venetian masks-- does an excellent job of keeping the mask in place on the face.

The swirls give an almost fairytale appeal to this mask, and of course the pearls and rhinestones make it glimmer and sparkle!

One of the best surprises about this mask is that even after several hours of wearing it, I did not have any dents from metal on my skin, and the swirls NEVER tangled up in my hair!

(My necklace, on the other hand...)

(Fun fact: I made my necklace in a metalworks class, the first ever jewelry class I've taken, last semester-- I'll blog about that class soon. The chain is made from solid sterling silver wire and solid fine silver wire and took at least five hours to make. I love it.)

I found that it was quite difficult to mold the mask to fit my face. It must have been quite a picture-- every couple of minutes, after hammering wire in my little dorm room, I held crazy strands of wire up to my face and shaped it just so.

I also had to show off my hair... I did it myself and it worked out the first time I tried!

For those of you girly girls wondering what a girl who doesn't own a prom dress wears to a college formal... I wore an a-line knee-length little black dress with a slender red belt, a red bracelet and silver ring, black leggings, and black boots (let's face it-- who can actually dance in heels? It is totally not worth it). To top it off I wore a sparkly red scarf as a shawl to drape across my elbows, but that (of course) lasted about five minutes. Since it was cold out I wore my jacket-- a red faux leather that looks very much like Emma Swan's from Once Upon a Time.

Of course I couldn't resist putting at least a couple of my favorite Czech glass leaf beads on the mask!



The circlet seems to fit everyone who asked to try it on-- including my lovely suitemate, pictured here.

Sparkly beads! 

See our cute little Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the back? It's actually the topper from my family's old tree, which we stuck in a jar and taped to the table. :)

Thanks to my amazing suitemate for helping to model!

I only took one in-progress shot. Here it is! At this point I was not very hopeful because the wire kept going everywhere and I may or may not have poked myself in the eye once. I will not be doing that again! I've learned my lesson!

The mask has now been cleaned and is available for sale on Etsy at Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe in case anyone is interested. I'd love an opportunity to make other kinds of masks, too!

The mask was a big hit, but the best thing was getting to spend hours dancing with my friends! I'm off to the world of studying for finals, so I must bid you adieu, but I hope that you've enjoyed these pictures!