Jurry!*

*How "jewelry" is often pronounced in Texas Ansteorra.  


I made a pretty!  

After looking at this gorgeous necklace on Pinterest for like a year, and wanting one like crazy, I finally made something kinda similar:

I DO have an iron key around here somewhere, and when I find it, I WILL put it on this necklace. Thing is, I mislaid it several months ago and am still waiting for it to turn up.

For now, I've used a medallion that I had made at the renaissance festival by the folks with the big coin-stamp machine, with a knotwork star on one side...

And a Scorpio symbol on the other. There's also a medallion jewelry plaque, just to make things jingly.

The smaller medallion is the closure, in the back, with a lobster-claw clasp that hooks to it.






The beads are a mix of green glass beads, most of them Czech glass beads in a translucent mint (from here, where I get most of my nicer jewelry supplies). They were actually FAR too bright a color for me, so I put some gloves on, covered my hands with gold nail polish, and rubbed the beads around between my hands until they were nice and randomly spotted by the gold.  I also mixed in a few scrap brass pieces and other random green glass beads.

I may wear this; but honestly, the texture of the whole necklace feels so nice in my hands, I may end up just carrying it around events to give myself something to fidget with that looks period, rather than using the pink pearl almost-paternoster that I made a few weeks ago.

*

Anyhow, fall Coronation is in two days!  I have a new dress!  I have a new hat!  I can't wait to show you!  But I have a VERY busy coupla days coming up, so it'll all have to wait til next week (when hopefully I'll have some decent shots of me in my new outfit).


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My Fandom Is Made of Hot Glue and Paper

Apologies for the lack of posts recently;  I've been having issues with Blogger and Dropbox not speaking to each other.  I think I have it fixed, though...



So, you know all those pins on Pinterest you think you're going to make and then you really do?  And those ones you see and HAVE to jump up and do right away, and then you do, and it's awesome?

Yeah, me neither.

Except for this time.  I was bopping around on Pinterest (coincidentally, waiting for the glue to dry on another project, and wondering what to do in the meantime), when I came across the tutorial for the Harry Potter wands made from chopsticks and hot glue for the hundredth time.   And for the hundredth time, it was adorable, and I really wanted to make it, but I'm not into Harry Potter enough to make one for myself, and I don't have kids.

But then I remembered this:

16thC Venetian fans; one parchment and one plant fiber

And my brain did about fourteen double-takes.   I searched high and low for a chopstick, a hair stick, pencils (too short), anything - then I remembered that I had about a frillion wooden dowels in the garage, in different sizes.

I grabbed one, and chopped it to length with a bolt cutter (it was out on the work bench), and sanded the end smooth.

And then I hot-glued the crap out of it:

Later, I spray painted it black, and then wood-grained it with various brown and yellow paints.  Lastly, I had to try to figure out how to make the fan part.  In the end, I went with a thick watercolor art paper just inked and hand-colored (mostly with Sharpie marker, actually):

(apologies for the photo quality;  I'm using my phone again until I get whatever #%^!# is wrong with my
camera now fixed)  

Yup, that's my device.  The shield, not the border stuff.
I laced the paper onto the stick of the fan with fake sinew; then applied a line of
glue over the lacing for extra insurance against ripping and slipping.  

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