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! 

Jewel's Photoshoot {Part Two}

Part 1 HERE

She must be one of the Wood Elves of Mirkwood. Singing to trees?
(Yes, she was singing while I was taking the pictures. I thought it would make her relax and feel more natural in front of a camera, but I have a feeling she just thought I was out of my mind. But then again, aren't I always?)

I love this picture-- Jewel is joyful and this really captures her smile. :) Plus, I just re-read The Hobbit, in which the Elves are far less solemn and sad than in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien describes them as joyful and fond of laughter and songs. It all fits. Jewel laughs a lot, has a stunning singing voice, and looks great in fantasy clothing. I think she's a real Elf in disguise.

(Jewels, I can just imagine your reaction to this. Muahahaha!)

This picture (click to enlarge) unfortunately turned out very blurry. I still think it looks cool and I had fun editing it; which version do you think is best?

This picture is from the first post on Jewel's photoshoot. My online friend Victoria edited it-- she did a great job!

Part 1 HERE

Jewel

Meet Jewel the Elf

Aiya! 

("Hello" in Quenya. In Sindarin, it is "Suilad." Non-geeks: this is Tolkien's Elvish.)

I love photography. :) It's an art that I'm just barely touching the surface of, and it is so much fun! Recently I was asked by a friend, "Jewel," to do her senior photoshoot. (!!!)

I was going to use my dad's work camera, a Nikon, for the real photoshoot. He was out late on a case, though, and while we waited for him, Jewel agreed to be my guniea pig (willingly and happily, too!). I've always wanted to do a Elven photoshoot, and Jewel just happened to fit in my dress! We dressed her up and hiked out to my favorite haunts with my point-and-shoot.

We were gung-ho about it, too. We ran with bare feet and sandals through the marsh by the pond, skirted the baby poison ivy in the field, and the marched through brambles in the woods. It was glorious.

Jewel has kindly given me permission to share her photos! We took a lot-- look for my favorites in about two days. Although, how could I pick favorites when Jewel is naturally so photogenic?

Longtime blog readers will remember this dress and the oh-so-very-very-big blog post about said "Masquerade Dress". (My irl friends will also recognize the dress, because it is all that I ever wear to costume dances, random dress up parties, and on Halloween). The dress has gone through some changes... It was my second real sewing project, done in 2009 (here's proof-- oh my goodness, it has been three years! I haven't done serious sewing since...)

Here are some pictures of moi, and my dress, and then little moi and little my dress.

top: me, on my way to an English Country Dance

bottom: the "Eowyn" vest that I made last year (it does not fit well), and randomly a picture of me in third (fourth?) grade wearing my very first Elf dress. I was Arwen. :) It's the same pattern as my second, current Elven dress, just lots smaller-- and Mom sewed it, not me.

Now the dress has been updated with more fitted upper sleeves, losing the itchy though beautiful embroidered white material, and lower sleeves of a beautiful, sturdy two-sided material. I also created drawstrings for the sleeves. Now, on to Jewel's photoshoot...

Here you can see the updated sleeves. We also used scrap fabric from the sleeves to make a sort of sash for Jewel to wear, since the dress was loose around her waist.

The sky was stunning that day, and the wind was blowing calmly. 

Perfect weather for an Elf to wander out in...

The leaves were long, the grass was green,

The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,

And in the glade a light was seen

Of stars in shadow shimmering...

(Song of Beren and Lúthien, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

In every picture from the back, I kept thinking, wow, she looks so much like me! Must be the dress. :) She borrowed some of my scarves and hats for the regular photoshoot, and I kept thinking the same thing about those pictures.

The light and colors in the picture turned out weird, but I rather like it in black and white. (Good trick to remember for poor pictures in the future).

It was bright out, but this picture turned out gloriously moody.

This is my brother's Aragorn cape. :)

 Hantalë (hannad/thanks), Jewels, for being such a lovely model and going along with my crazy ideas. Hantalë for being crazy yourself. :)

Tenn' enquetielva!

(Until we meet again! Don't forget, I'll share more pictures in the next post!)

Update: The best pics are in Part 2, HERE!

Masquerade Graphics

I made these graphics for my Masquerade party! I used the amazing Adobe Illustrator CS5 software.
It all began as a pen and ink sketch of two mask. I then scanned in the page from my sketchbook.
After a few hours of tinkering around and learning the software, I finished it. Fully vectorized, colorized graphics!

*Please note that I am keeping the graphics at a low resolution for safety reason. I'll be doing this to many of my graphics from now on. It's not too small-- I wanted you to be able to see it, but clicking to enlarge will not enlarge by very much.

See also:
My Other Masquerade Posts (scroll down)

My Masquerade Costume

This post is for the Masquerade event over at AmandaBeth Online. You can read about it in this post.

Tinuviel Luthien

For my Sweet 16/Moving Away party, I had a masquerade party at home. My friends love costuming and acting, so everyone dressed up and adopted a character to act as when masks are on. You can see all of the masks on my Masquerade Masks post.

I wore my second sewing project and only costume-- my Elvish dress! Normally I go as Arwen, but changed my mind and adopted the character of Tinuviel Luthien. She is a Lord of the Rings character, although her only mention in the trilogy is in a ballad. She shows up in the Silmarillion quite a bit. (Gosh, now I'm sounding geeky. LOL-- that is because I am!)

First off is my mini-photoshoot (click to enlarge):

Searching for a berry.

With the cape!

Hi!

Running.

Temporarily out of character and being Arwen.

Me, caught unawares by the camera.

Wearing the mask and a fun length of blue fabric.

There you go! Now, here are my accessories. I really went all out. ^_^ But, hey, its Lord of the Rings.
Almost all of these have a separate post. Please click those links to see a full post and often instructions.

My mask! I cut, painted, and glitterified it, then sewed the white feathers on. Then I glued and sewed on the flowers, feathers, and ribbons on the side. Next, I attached ribbon to tie it to my head. My friend "L", whose family used to live in Africa, gave me a porcupine quill from Africa for my mask. Hopefully you can see it peeking out the top. :)

See my post on the masks my friends and I made: ( HERE )
And how to make the masks: (coming soon)

As Luthien I wanted  to have a little something different than I have as Arwen. Plus I wanted to be able to take my crown on and off without tangles.

So I wore my Celtic Circlet.

Normally with this costume I would wear my first-ever crown: and Arwen's Banner.

And here is the cuff I made to match the Celtic Circlet! ( HERE )

Earrings. ( HERE )

 

Elvish hair clips. ( HERE )

 I wore my Clay brooch/buckle (a replica of Arwen's, from her Chase costume in FotR) and a criss-cross ribbon on the front of the dress until the safety pins drove me nuts. ( HERE )


Of course, my little wire ring. ( HERE )

[PICTURE]

I wore my very first Evenstar that I made (which I had made to match this costume). Never mind that the Evenstar as a necklace only existed in the movies, and that Arwen, not Tinuviel, wore it; its Elvish, anyhow.
I finally got around to finding a pretty chain for it!

Instructions on making the Evenstar HERE.

The cape! My mom made it for me back in 4th or 5th grade for a Halloween costume. It just fits. I attached a pretty clasp to it before the party, something I wish I'd done earlier. Someday I would like to make a nicer cape. This one is really flimsy material!

The bag, earrings, and my Evenstar again. So purty. ^_^

The belt and a quill.

As birthday presents I received some beautiful homemade (and not homemade) jewelries from friends that went well (or perhaps not quite so well) with my costume. I wore them the whole rest of the day, and the next, and the next...
 A ribbon-flower barrette, a pretty flower/cross beaded bracelet, a rosary bracelet, and beautiful earrings. Also, a handmade bag in beautiful fabric. And a belt with 16 crocheted flowers (I think its and African style-- leastways it looks like it and is beautiful!) and bunches of African porcupine quills in multiples of 16. You can make beads with them. ^_^

So not all of it "goes" with the costume, but I wanted to post about it anywhos, 'cause I wore it all with my costume.

So. Much. Fun.
We walked around the neighborhood and ran through a bit of wood-- all in costume--, danced to Celtic Thunder, rock, and random music, made pizza, sundaes, and pancakes, talked, sang, played games... Boy, was it fun.

No-smiles old-fashioned picture. Just had to include it. :D

About my character:

This song by the Tolkien Ensemble says it all. :D It is the poem "Luthien Tinuviel" by Tolkien. (The short version in LotR, not the one in "Lays of Beleriand" in  Histories.)

SEE ALSO:


Masquerade Masks!

How to make Masquerade Masks! (coming soon)

Masquerade Graphics (coming soon!)

My Elvish Costume