Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe: March 2018

Giveaway Winner!

, by Shaylynn

Lord of the Rings Elvish Bracelet Giveaway

UPDATE: The entries closed on Friday, and today I get the honor of announcing the winner: Gabrielle Holland. I've sent you an email-- congratulations!

During the last two years of college, I would occasionally pull out my jewelry-making supplies and just tinker for a while-- a habit resulting in a bunch of lovely jewelry that never really saw the light of day. Making jewelry, you see, is calming and stress-relieving, but styling and photographing and uploading to my shop is this thing called work. Sixteen hour days full of classes and homework and freelancing and all the rest really just doesn't endear one to taking on extra work.

I've spent the last week doing inventory management-- you'll see dozens of new pieces up on my Etsy shop -- and I also found my old box of personal jewelry.

These are some specific fandom pieces that I made for myself, and which I don't wear as often any more. I put a lot of love and care into making them and hate to see them languishing in boxes!

So I've decided to do some giveaways :) This first one is for a Lord of the Rings etched copper cuff, featuring the first two lines of "The Song of Aragorn."

"All that is gold does not glitter"

The front of the bracelet says, in Elvish writing, "All that is gold does not glitter."

(For Tolkien nerds like me out there, technically this is phonetic Tengwar script in the English mode).

"Not all those who wander are lost"

The back is the second verse, in English: "Not all those who wander are lost."

Completely handcrafted

The piece is made from a sheet of copper, which I sawed down to size. Then I drew the Elvish script and English verse on with a resist marker and etched the copper in a chemical bath (a mid of muriatic acid and peroxide) for several hours. Once the etch was deep enough, I neutralized and cleaned the copper, gave it a patina (the dark brown), polished the writing to a bright copper shine, and sealed the entire piece in jeweler's resin.

Since it is coated in resin, the copper will not turn your skin green!

The chain is adjustable, so it should be able to fit any size wrist. If you are the giveaway winner, let me know if your bracelet size is generally a small, average, or large, and I can add or remove links accordingly.

The bronze chain is attached with maroon jumprings (which I coil and cut myself)

Giveaway Details:

Use the Rafflecopter form below to enter.

The basic way of entering is to simply leave a comment on this post-- I don't want to force people to follow me all over social media just in order to enter the giveaway. Please leave a comment on this post telling me a story about how Lord of the Rings has affected your life (or just who your favorite character is!). Or, leave a comment letting me know what your favorite item from my shop is, or your favorite one of my fairytale illustrations. Just leaving a comment gives you 1 entry!

Then if you want more chances of winning the giveaway, go crazy with following my work all over social media. Instagram (my main platform), YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Etsy, etc. If you are the winner I will do a quick double check that all your entries are valid.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For this giveaway, I am willing to ship internationally.

And since this is a thing I see quite often on giveaways, even though this specific bracelet isn't an item I sell, I'd say that this sort of bracelet is around a $50 value.

Please note that this bracelet has been worn before (by me) but that I have thoroughly cleaned it.

Here you can see the bracelet I'm giving away, next to my handpainted LOTR silk scarf and Sting, the Hobbit sword-- and if you like LOTR prop replicas check out this old post!

I'm excited to see this bracelet off to a new home! :) But I'm also excited to see some of your stories about Lord of the Rings below.

I'm finally re-reading the books myself (I'm on the Two Towers now) and the story has changed so much for me since freshman year of high school when I last read through all of them. I think I first read LotR when I was ten, because if I wanted to watch a PG-13 movie before turning 13, my parents had a rule that I had to read the books first. Back then, I only followed the basic plotline but fell head-over-heels in love with the movies. I wanted to be Arwen for Halloween when I was 13, and my mom taught me to sew so that I could have a dress. I didn't have any money to spend on Elvish headpieces and jewelry, though, but my parents bought me pliers, floral wire, and plastic pearls at Walmart. And that is the story of how I started making jewelry-- a journey which eventually turned into my little shop which helped me pay for school! I then poured over the books (and the Silmarillion, Lost Tales, etc) again and again.

Now that I'm reading the books as an adult (ohmygosh I'm a grownup now) I'm taking away something completely different. I'm becoming especially appreciative of the poetry (even if it's not all that greatly acclaimed as poetry on its own-- I love the un-self-conscious joy of simple poetry) and savoring the loving descriptions of nature and mythology.

Check back in two weeks to see who's won-- and to tune in for a second giveaway!

(Adding this to a few giveaway lists such as Blog Giveaway Directory, Living Monterossi, Julie's Freebies,)