Aurora's Circlet from 'Once Upon a Time'

This post was originally published over at Confessions of a Seamstress, my friend Elena's blog. If you like the costumes in Once Upon a Time-- or any lovely clothing-- you should go visit her website! Elena makes beautiful outfits and costume replications and I highly recommend her!

This post is a lot longer and more image-heavy than the original guest post because I've had the chance to work on a couple more of these circlets!

Image from ABC's Once Upon a Time

With the latest season of Once Upon a Time, we were introduced to an awesome new character: Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty.

I'm watching this show as much for the costumes, props, and sets as for the actual story... it's not unusual for my eye to wander everywhere except the actor's face! Right from the start, Aurora's headpiece caught my eye. ~*~*~ THE SPARKLES ~*~*~

A couple of days later, Elena recommended me to a bride who wanted a replica of Aurora's circlet to match her wedding gown! Eeep! This was my first time ever creating a replica piece, my first time ever working with rhinestones, and the first time making a bridal piece this large. I was a little nervous, but so excited.

Everything went well, though, and I can't wait to hear what the bride thinks when it arrives on her doorstep!

I started by re-watching the first episode and snagging screencaps to analyze. I analyzed it to death. :)

Her circlet is made from rhinestones and ribbon which are plaited together into a band that rests on her hairline. At least two small braids are woven around this band, creating a lovely mix of ribbon, hair, and sparkles.

Additional rhinestones are woven around her hairstyle in a very asymmetric zig-zag. This top part fits much more like a cap than a tiara, as it folds snugly over the crown of her head.

I noticed pretty quickly that Aurora seems to have found plenty of time to do her hair between scenes...  :)

The rhinestone placement is not consistent, especially at the edges, and she wears at least three hairstyles in the first episode.

At first, her braids are woven around the top, zig-zag-y part, so that the rhinestones are barely visible. Later, the braids move down and are intertwined with the bottom band. In the last scene, the circlet rests on top of the braids, above her forehead.

I wanted to make the circlet versatile enough that all these hairstyles (and more) can be worn. The bride didn't want dangling rhinestones, so I simplified the design at the edges where it wasn't consistent.

Aurora always wears the back of her headpiece tucked underneath her hair. I think the actress had her hair teased and curled and then extensions added.

(This is a beautiful crown... I'd love to be a props/costume designer, I really would. It must have been so much fun for the designers to come up with a sparkly, girly headpiece that wasn't your typical tiara. Aurora's whole costume is lovely. I hope she doesn't get put in pants like the rest of the royalty. I feel that we need at least one kick-butt princess who can wield a sword while wearing a frilly skirt!!!)

After I figured how how the circlet was made (and planned a few changes of my own to make it sturdier), it was time to get started!

First, I wove a base from silver-plated copper wire.

The next part-- making the band of braided rhinestones and ribbon-- proved very tricky. If I simply braided the strands, they would move around too much.

I used two different sizes of silver-plated rhinestones and twisted them around each other, using temporary jewelry glue to hold it in place.

After this was done, I wove the ribbon in and laced everything together with wire before removing the glue and polishing everything.

The ribbon in the show looks like a champagne or a pink (depending on the lighting and editing) but this one was requested in bright white.

The asymmetric zig-zag design was made from more rhinestone chain twisted onto freeform silver wire.

The circlet can be attached with bobby pins, or tied with ribbon. It's just heavy enough that it won't stay on without being secured in some way.

And then... it was done!

After I took these pictures, I tweaked things a bit more... I "de-fluffed" the ribbon and adjusted one point of the zig-zag so it isn't so tall and pointy. (The zig zags are slightly adjustable so it will fit any head size or hairstyle like a glove!)

The bride was kind enough to me model the circlet before shipping it!

I usually have friends model for me, but I'm the only one with long and dark enough hair to attempt Aurora's hairstyle. So one cold autumn morning, I put my hair up in braids and taught my lovely mom how to use my camera.

________

After I completed this circlet, I received two more orders for replicas of the Sleeping Beauty's crown! This one was practically identical to the first:

This next one, however, has several requested modifications that were a joy to work on!

I specially ordered 100% silk satin ribbon in a creamy champagne color. It's a vintage French ribbon line, and there is something about those words that makes me so happy to finger the shiny ribbon.

They wanted a very sturdy circlet that would not require ribbon to remain securely on the head, so I used my vise to twist silver plated wire into a strand which I attached to the plaiting. 

It holds its shape very well. I think that I will always use this technique on future circlets (or at least the higher-end ones, because it requires a lot of wire!).

(excuse my workdesk mess). Two full feet of wire and ribbon and beading to wrangle into a circlet! 

I replaced every other large rhinestone with an amethyst crystal. I really like this look, as it adds a touch of color and interest. 

Replacing all those stones in their settings was a great learning experience. Those are fiddly little sparkles, there, guys!

If you would like to request a custom item like this, don't hesitate to email me at shealynnsfaerieshoppe@gmail.com I can usually accommodate many kinds of budgets on more intensive pieces like these, depending on how much customization you want.

I'm also in the process of using the leftover odds and ends of the rhinestones to create some Aurora-inspired cuff bracelets. There are a couple on my workbench right now which are going to get colorful ribbons!

QUESTION TIME!

(Just a super quickie post to let you know that if you place an order in my shop this weekend, you can take 15% off with this coupon: VALENTINES201315     (custom orders excluded, except the Evenstar set)


The code is good until Valentine's itself, but due to the time it takes the mail to arrive, only US packages ordered this weekend will be able to arrive in time for Valentines!)

I've discovered a major oversight! I've had this blog for over three years, but have never made a FAQ page! Honestly, I always felt that these pages are for big bloggers who, you know, have thousands of fans and receive dozens of comments and emails daily. I might be busy, but I can still read through my emails in a timely manner. But I thought it was high time to put together a page with some of the more commonly asked questions-- like the ones about custom orders or why my name is spelt funny or whether I will make a specific tutorial.

However, there aren't that many questions that I receive on a regular basis. I need your helping making up some FAQ for me to answer!

If there is anything you'd like to ask me-- whether it's a straightforward question ("When did you learn to unicycle?"), a random question ("What is your favorite tea?"), or a geeky question ("Gondor or Rohan?")-- please ask!

I'm just going to make a thing of it, so if you feel like tagging me in one of those blog questionnaires, go for it!

You can leave a comment on this blog post, write on my facebook page, tweet @shealynnsfaerie, or email shealynnsfaerieshoppe{at}gmail.com!


Also, a blog post isn't a post without a random picture. Tada!

We haven't had much of a winter. The pond has frozen over maybe three times the entire season.

What's On My Workdesk? + Wordless Wednesday

I recently heard about a blog linky called WOYWW (What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday) hosted by Stamping Ground where many artists and crafters write a short blog post about their workspaces covered with all their works in progress. Since I've been much too busy to prepare a blog post for this week, I thought I'd go ahead and join in and let you all peek at my workdesk!

Well, okay, you get to see about a square foot of my workspace. The rest is... um... I'm a teenager-- we're supposed to keep things messy, right? Right?

Above you can see projects from this week that are still living in my crafting space. The circlets are custom orders that I am very excited about!
And the painting is clearly just an acrylics exercise that isn't going so well.

I snagged this shot two weeks ago so I'm going to sneak it in here just because I forgot to take other pictures of the torc necklaces. So. I made two cool torc necklaces lately. :) And used up all my thick wire. :(

I also killed half and hour working on some Elf-ear costume jewelry things. I made a few of these a couple of years ago, but it would be nice if I can figure out how to make them fit multiple ear shapes without falling off. Clearly I'm still working on it.

Some sketches for a booklet I'm working on.

This is a sneak-peek picture of one of those circlets that is still sitting on my workdesk.

So, those are the artsy things currently cluttering my crafting space! The desk in my bedroom is covered with school papers, so I imagine you don't want to see what's on that workdesk. And most of my time this week is being spent on the Ink and Fairydust magazine. But that's kind of hard to photograph because it's just my laptop and tablet!

I'd love to see what's on your workdesk, so if you join the blog linky leave a comment so that I can be sure to check your post out (I wish I could browse every link on the regular linky but I can't!).

Wordless Wednesday by Aquariann is another cool Wednesday linky so I thought I'd share a photo I recently took:

Complete tangent: I know that many of you have realized that I am very excited, nervous, and slightly overwhelmed with my upcoming decisions on college. This weekend I made a two-day trip to do a scholarship interview and I will be doing another shortly which also involves timed essays. I think that the moment these interviews are over, all the nervousness will be gone and it will be pure excitement! I'm more and more impressed with the programs of the two colleges I'm deciding between. So thank you all for your prayers and support!

Glass Dip Pens Video

A few days ago I wrote about the lovely Venetian glass pens that I've been having so much fun with. I made a short video about them-- basically it's just me having fun and doodling!

Venetian Glass Pens

I love words. I love lines. I love the stories you can weave into books and drawings with a thousand swishes of a pen. I love typography and calligraphy and making sure that words and pictures get mixed together into a beautiful mess of this thing called Art.

I'm the sort of person who collects pens and art supplies and actually uses them all.

I'm also the sort of person who is inordinately fascinated by ultra cool trinkets, gadgets, and gizmos-- especially historical ones.

Last summer, I was being my usual procratinator self and browsing Etsy even though I had no money to spend. I found something that made me stare at the screen in astonished delight at the pure existence of the thing:

image via

Guys. GUYS. It's a glass pen-- literally, a pen made out of glass. Including the nib. This beautiful piece of craftsmanship is made by hand by the Thailand artisan J. Nagadhana, and this is her shop.

image via J. Nagadhana's blog

These pens originated in Venice in the 17th century. They were favored not only for their beauty but for their superiority over other dip pens (this was, of course, in the age of quills-- there was no such thing as a ballpoint pen or even a reloadable fountain pen). The nibs are made from twisted ribbed glass rods, and these grooves mean that the pen is capillary fed.

This means that the ink can be loaded up to the handle and the writer only has to dip the pen into the inkwell once every few lines or even pages!

image via

I'm including a gratuitous picture of Venice. Ahhh, the strange city built on stilts, where the people travel to the grocery store in boats, and see historical beauty in every direction. A city of extravagance and craftsmanship.

I really want to go to Venice someday.

I loved these pens so much and googled (to no avail) for tutorials. I quickly realized that this is not a DIY because I have no access to or knowledge of glassmaking tools. It didn't take me long to decide that this was what I would spend my birthday money on!

My first glass pen purchase was a Pulcinella Teal Glass Calligraphy Set (originally sold by Barnes and Noble) that I bought on eBay. It was a really great price, but arrived with a chipped tip. It barely wrote at all and I had to refill the pen every one or two words; a far cry from the two or three lines that the pen is supposed to last without being dipped into the inkwell.

However, it was such a great price that it totally wasn't worth the postage to return it and get a refund. The penstand, box, inkwell, and powdered ink were so pretty that I almost didn't want to return it anyways.

I'm usually a good hand a fixing things, so I thought "Oh yeah, it's no biggie! I'll just use my magic DIY skillz and make this pen wonderful!"

I rubbed the tip with the smallest sandpaper Dad has, 300 grit (I've since heard that 400 grit is the best for this sort of work). The tip was so chipped that I had to sand quite a lot in order to even everything out. Unfortunately, this also evened out the ribbing.

The pen could now write, but the ink welled up in strange ways (no matter if I filled the pen to the top of the ribbing or only dipped a little bit). The lines, when I could get the ink to flow, varied between ultra thick and wet to barely visible.

This page was the sad result of many attempts to write with the pen. The Jane Austen quote from earlier was also a ridiculously tedious process.

I'm much to stubborn to let a little thing like this let me down, however. After an hour of fiddling with the pen and being very let down that this cool trinket wasn't as cool as it promised to be, I had another brilliant idea.

POWER TOOLS FOR THE WIN.

Glass pens are made from glass rods which are heated and twisted, right? What if I just re-melted the tippy tip and make it pointy again?  I may never have worked with glass before in my life, but I figured that I was totally up to heating a stick with a propane torch, right?

Right?

I didn't realize that glass needs to be heated very, very slowly in order to melt and re-form without cracking.

That's an experiment gone wrong. So heads up for anyone who wants to try repairing a glass pen on their own: Don't, unless someone can teach you proper glassmithing techniques.

is it really bad that I used my Chinese tea cup for washing off ink??? I scrubbed it really, really well afterwards...

I ruined the cheap pen back in August, but the glass pens still haunted my thoughts. I searched until I found the site JetPens.com and purchased the small J. Herbin glass nib pen here. Unfortunately these pens appear to be no longer manufactured (or at least in stock), because when I wrote to the company asking if they had the colorful blue pen in the listing, they said that the only ones they have are the 9 plain ones left. I went for the classy maroon one.

The pen arrived incredibly quickly and I immediately fell in love! I also splurged on a bottle of Terre De Feu ink-- my excuse was that it would get me free shipping but really I wanted to have my first ever bottle of new ink. Everything I've used for calligraphy before is secondhand and a bit stiff. The ink is PWETTY.

The pen is small and writes with a medium-width line. I was afraid at first because the pen made grating noises on the paper, even though I was only brushing the glass across it gently, but after one or two lines it started to flow perfectly.

Glass pens aren't really calligraphy pens, because they only write in one width. However, I absolutely love the feeling of writing a letter with a glass pen, dipping it into a glass inkwell, and trying desperately to write in legible cursive.

(This is the curse of a 21st century artistic teen. I can do fancy calligraphy and can type really fast, but my everyday writing is sloppy manuscript. I even struggle to sign my own name in cursive. Seriously, have you ever tried quickly writing two cursive "n's" in a row? I thought not. I sign my name as Shaylym or Shaylynnn and half the time those "y's" just turn into up-and-down zig-zags instead of letters.)

If you overload the pen and write at an extreme angle, you can get half-controlled smudges. This worked really well in this Hobbiton drawing I recently completed. I've been trying to free up my linework for ink sketching, and not rely on pencil underdrawings. Kinda proud of this sketch. :)

I also drew another Hobbit hole in nearly the same style... only as fast as I could because speed-sketching is another thing I want to work on. And I drew a bird. So I may as well overload this post with yet ANOTHER picture. :)

Next on my list of cool old-fashioned things... pretty stationary paper and a sealing wax set.

And who knows, maybe I'll be able to justify buying another glass pen someday. I keep going back to the Etsy shop I first ran across, thinking how pretty one of those decorative flower pens would be.


(Just so you know, I was not compensated in any way or asked to do a review for these products. I just wanted to share these really cool novelty items that I purchased and my experiences with them!)

Update: I made a video of me playing with the glass pens if you'd like to check it out!