The Dragon's Treasure Chest

A red flower necklace-- perhaps brought to life by an Autumn Fairy? Handmade, of course, by moi. :)

Fair maidens dwell in fairytales. So do chivalrous knights, courageous children, evil monsters, magical creatures, and treasure chests. It's a world full of marvels, and once we've come out and returned to the real world, the stories remind us that every real thing is in itself a wonder and a marvel.

This post isn't supposed to be a rambling on the land of Faerie, however. I just wanted to let you know that I have made many new pieces of jewelry!

My last "big batch of jewelry" post was inspired by everything Elvish. This batch comes to you straight out of the dragon's treasure trove. Most were inspired by fairytales!

These jewels all have that touch of whimsy that will bring the sparkle and marvel of the Land of Faerie into the Land of Earth.

Click for bigger images!

Blog readers may be familiar with this design-- it was my first attempt at some extremely complicated wirewrapping techniques. Named the Flower Garden, it was inspired by the sorts of gardens that are so beautiful you expect a fairy or a magical portal to appear!

edit: pink ones sold! I'll be making more!

Pixie Dust earrings! You can't go wrong with swirls of color and sparkling beads. :)

Another wirewrapped necklace. I could just see a mermaid or naiad wearing this... :)

And earrings to match. :) Oh, btw, what do you think about the earrings stand I made?

A royal necklace. Man, am I proud of this. :) Made with copper wire from A Beaded Affair. LOVE the wire. And having too much fun learning how to make filigree style necklaces!

Just another shot of the same necklace. :)

A snowflake set. I was actually inspired to make this after re-watching Tilda Swinton play the White Witch in Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But don't worry. This jewelry set will not turn you into stone!

Another new technique! This filigree beaded necklace is made with copper wire that I carefully twisted and twisted around on a jig. It's surprising how much wire and time it took-- but I think I need to do more like this. It was so much fun to make.

Another Fairy Garden necklace-- only this one is made entirely out of copper and green glass beads.

Some leafy earrings that remind me of Mirkwood from LotR.

A seashell swirl pendant! I think it must have washed up on a beach... perhaps a little peasant boy found it and it started a whole new adventure. (Can you tell that I like making up stories as I work on designing jewelry?)

So this one isn't exactly fairytale-ish. But it's chainmaille and its black and its cool. :)

You can't get more fairytale-ish than a royal circlet... but this headpiece can also be worn as a sparkling headband and would totally not look out of place with a modern outfit.

These silver-plated chainmaille earrings would go equally well with jeans and a t-shirt or a noble gown.

More long and slender Elvish earrings! I've made several of these in all sorts of colors. :) This one is hand-formed silver-plate wire and two deep purple leaf beads. The swirls could pass as music notes, too!

My workbench is full of many more things that still need the final tweaks before I get them uploaded. There should be a new batch coming soon!

In the meantime, check out all the Elven jewelry I made earlier.

Rivendell's Twilight

All of this jewelry is available in my Shoppe as well as being fairytale eye-candy for you today. I hope these designs made you smile!

(And perfect timing, too. Right now it's Christmas in July! The entire store is on a 10% off sale until the last day of July 2011!)

The Evenstar Set.

Ren Fest

Hey, everyone. Sorry about the slow posts the last two weeks. I'm still working on schoolwork (today is my last day of school!!!) and I'm preparing for a craft fair!!!

I won't have much time until after the weekend-- so here's a quickie post with pictures. :)

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Renaissance Festival in our new town. It was alot of fun (although some of the costumes and some of the shows weren't exactly the best). My friends and I had lots of fun exploring!

Our throw-together costumes... peasants/gypsies! (It's amazing what ordinary clothing and the right accessories can do!)

We found a most beautiful little deck to rest on...

I got to meet the amazing folks behind Thyme2Dream!

Here is their booth, where Mr. Hall entertained us with his splendid accent.

We walked in the parade for them. I got to carry a head!

(I went around saying, "I've got a head! I'm holding a head!" the same way that Jack Sparrow says, "I've got a jar of dirt." Yes. I am weird. Oh, and we named the head Cleo.)

There was a musician there playing the dulcimer. He was amazing! One of my friends is big into music, and he was talking about some specifics of his instrument (way over my head)-- all the while playing a lovely jig.

We all enjoyed the jousting!

Well, peeps, that's all for now! I'm off to study and clean my room and make a craft fair/art show display!

Elven Inspirations

*fangurl squeal*

Have you seen the new behind-the-scenes video for The Hobbit? You can watch it right here if you haven't:

Here is the Hobbit Movie News website. It sounds like they are changing things up from the books a bit... adding in more of the stories happening at Middle Earth during the time of the Hobbit (not just telling the Hobbit story). They started filming a couple months ago. I can't wait can't wait can't wait for this movie!

This brings back so many memories... makes me want to re-watch The Lord of the Rings ...makes me marvel at how much detail is in the set and how little you actually get to see in the movies (just look at that Rivendell!) ...and got me into a full-blown inspirational swing.

I'm now re-addicted to Elvish designs.

Last month was good for sales, so I had a bit of extra money to spend on the Shoppe. I splurged on new (albeit a wee bit more expensive) colors and styles of my favorite Czech glass leaf beads.

I'll take you through a picture tour of some of my new designs! (I say some because these are just the items that I have actually taken the time to photograph and upload to the Shoppe... and I still have plenty of beads left!)

Please have a peek at these new designs! Click each image to see more and larger pictures of the jewelry!

My Evenstar design has always been very popular. I rarely make the same exact Evenstar more than once (unless it is a custom order)... This one is reversible. One side is a shiny gold-green, and the other a pale sage. It features little swirls, genuine Swavroski pearls, and a 3-strand-half-braided ribbons in matching colors.

I've figured out a much prettier and sturdier way to make my second most popular design-- Enchanted Forest Earrings. 

So... I made Evenstar/Forest Earring sets! This one is reversible-- one side iridescent blues, and the other deep midnight tones. Also, check out the star beads on the Evenstar... aren't they exquisite? I was so happy to find them on sale!

Another Evenstar/Forest Earrings set... in Pixie Pink. With pink wire, oh yeah!

And now for some Evenstar variations! Arwen's Evenstar has more of a "droplet" look than my twist on the Evenstar. The above is my attempt to replicate the shape in the original Evenstar.

btw, just for fun, here is a picture of the Evenstar necklace from the movies:

I took the techniques that I use to make Evenstars and combined them with some brand-new and pretty difficult wirewrapping techniques that I just figured out. 

Click for bigger pictures-- I learned how to weave wire, attach beads ontop of leaf beads, and create a "zig zag" wire filler.

When I got the new leaf beads and had so many pretty colors and new techniques to work with, I just had to experiment! The above is a pretty, freeform pink and purple necklace.

Another freeform Elven/fairy necklace... It's all swirly. :)

FYI, several of these new experimental designs are OOAK (one of a kind, meaning I will never make them again)-- especially these freeform necklace. They were fairly difficult to make, using special beads, and there is no way I can replicate them exactly.

So, if you do get one of these, you'll be assured that you'll be the only one with that style necklace! And if one of these designs sells but you want a copy... I can't do it. I can do something inspired by the original design, perhaps similar, but won't be able to replicate it.

Hair combs! I looooove hair combs and was so glad to be able to make them!

Another new technique-- I've figured out how to form the Czech leaf beads into a flower!!! This necklace features details all the way up the string, and it is reversible. That means that it was alot harder to make... but I'm so happy to have figured it out! ...it "only" required breaking two of my beads...

This sweet little pendant combines my new wire weaving techniques and the leaf-beads-into-pretty-flowers-thing.

Ohmygoodness. I was so tempted to keep these earrings for myself (I wound up making myself some in a different color).

I figured out a very pretty way to wirewrap leaf beads (leftover ones that I don't have enough of that color of to make other Elven designs).

The ear wires are Elf-style earwires handmade by me. (Yes, I figured out how to make ear wires, harden them, and file the ends!!!).

The earrings look long, but that is just because they are so slender and elegant. They are actually shorter than my Enchanted Forest Earrings-- they are under 2 inches long total.

 I only had a little bit of pink wire left and decided to see if I could make even spirals, coils, and bead cages. Result-- pretty whimsical little things.

 I LOVE THE PARASOL! Is it bad to be so excited about something I made? 

I used all of my new techniques and it's so pretty. Pinks and golds... It looks like a parasol or seashell. And it's on one of of my 4-strand ribbons and hangs fairly long and I was so tempted to keep it for myself...

 A fairy bracelet cuff...

 Wirewrapped bracelet... My little sister called it a Princess Bracelet.

This bracelet features handmade wire beads! It's inspired by Steampunk, but I think it's also very fantasy looking, what'dya thunk?

Flower Fairies

Or, What I was Doing When My Camera Broke

A flower Elf. Arwen, maybe?

Revel in the beauty of that picture. T'was the last my nice camera ever took.

Some of you may remember the post where I explained that my camera had broken. It was a fluke, really; I was holding the wonderful camera, taking pictures out in the yard of my flower fairies, when the camera slid from my hand and hit the dirt. (What gets me is the fact that it managed to fall despite the fact that I had wrapped the strap around my wrist!)

Dad says that I managed to jiggle it's insides just enough and in the only way that it can't be fixed. It was a very, very nice camera. T'was an old Canon of my grandparent's. RIP awesome camera.

Anyways, that was a long time ago. I'm back to using the 10 year old Olympus (again from my grandparents!) It's a nice camera, but it's starting to get old age lines. For example, the memory cards? Soooo outdated. Startup time? Sooooo long. Macros? Sooooo difficult to take. Thankfully I've learned it inside and out, so I can make it do what I want. And if it can't do it, well, I've got Photoshop now!

Now that we've got the camera story out of the way, want to hear about the Flower Fairies?

My aunt (or grandparents, I forget) gave me a book/kit from somewhere (Klutz, maybe? I forget) for Christmas (I was nine or so.... I forget). I spent hours making these little fairies and teaching my friends to make them. (Thankfully I have not forgotten how to make them...  heehee)

I made these three, the Water Lily fairy, the Lord of the Rings Elf fairy, and the Bride fairy, (along with a bajillion others) in 4th grade when I was home from school for a month due to two surgeries.

I made alot-- these are just the ones that I didn't give away. ^_^

Not content with fairies, I made a mermaid.

Click to enlarge

I've thought about making Wedding flower fairy sets for my Shoppe. I would make it all custom order, with the hair the color of the real people, the wedding dress in similar style to the real one, and using the colors in the actual bridesmaid dresses. Wouldn't that be sweet?
What do you think?