Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe: lord of the rings

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,)

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, by Shaylynn

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Hobbiton and Rivendell Inspired Silk Scarf

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, by Shaylynn

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Elvish Jewelry

I wanted to share some pictures of Elvish jewelry I've made in the last year! (These aren't up on my Etsy shop; a majority of these were personal projects or for gifts).

It should by now be pretty obvious that I absolutely love The Lord of the Rings and that the aesthetics of both the books and the movies (and illustrations by geniuses such as Alan Lee) are hugely influential. Also, as a typography and sort-of literary nerd, I am in love with the beauty of the Elvish alphabet which Tolkien developed.

All that is gold does not glitter,Not all those who wander are lost;The old that is strong does not wither,Deep roots are not reached by the frost.From the ashes a fire shall be woken,A light from the shadows shall spring;Renewed shall be blade that was broken,The crownless again shall be king.

I haven't yet perfected the process of making these etched cuffs; the process is long and convoluted and so far has approximately a 50% success rate on a piece which can take up to two hours of hands-on work per bracelet, when making them in batches.

It begins with a sheet of raw copper, which I cut on the bandsaw and both drill and preliminary sand with the drill press. Then I file and sand each cuff by hand to remove any metal burrs or roughness, and attack it with steel wool while wearing plastic gloves to remove any grime or fingerprints.

I then write the Elvish and English quotes on the copper with a wet Sharpie. After the resist had dried, it's time to suspend the cuff in an etching solution of hydrochloric acid and peroxide. Over the next several hours, I occasionally stir the acid to assist the etching process.

If the etch is crisp and deep enough, I remove the copper while wearing protective gear, neutralize the acid, scrub the piece with steel wool, rinse it, and submerge it in a Liver of Sulfur solution. The LOS oxidizes the copper, turning it a rich brown or black. Once the desired color is achieved, I neutralize the LOS and allow the piece to dry for fifteen minutes.

Then for the finishing touches! I gently sand the piece with three different grits of micro-sandpaper so that the words shine brightly on the oxidized background. I form the copper strip into a bracelet shape and coat all sides with a jewelry resin. The resin ensures that the piece retains the oxidized and sanded color, and also prevents the copper from turning skin green. The resin dries overnight; when its ready, I add the beads, chainmaile, chain, and clasp!

Hopefully in what remains of this summer I will be able to perfect the process and create some Elvish cuffs to stock on my Shoppe! Do you have any favorite (public domain) quotes that you would like to see in Elvish on a cuff? Please let me know in the comments!

(The cuffs will have English quotes which are transcribed into Tengwar, the Elvish script, rather than being translated into Quenya or Sindarin, the Elvish languages).

Lately I've also been working on the process for these little metal booklet necklaces! This one has the entire Aragorn poem on it. The process is similar to the creation of the Elvish cuffs, except that the words on the brass pages are stamped letter-by-letter, and I cut the jumprings myself so that the diameter of the rings on the binding is just right.

The worst thing is when I hammer in a letter too hard or hold a stamp upside-down or backwards-- and entire page of the book has to be started again from scratch!

But I'm really enjoying the process of figuring this out and will be making more little metal booklets this summer. (Currently I have Jane Austen and a G.K. Chesterton booklet necklaces available).

Another booklet experiment! This one is made entirely from copper and features the same poem. However, the verso pages feature Elvish etchings! Each capitalized word (gold, glitter, wander, lost) is featured.

But here you can see how much difficulty I am having with consistent etches. You can barely read the Elvish!

These are some shots of other Elvish cuffs with more verses from "All that is gold..."

And the bar necklace pictured above is made in the same way, and reads "The Road Goes Ever On" in both English (backside) and Elvish.

This necklace was a custom piece-- and I neglected to photograph the backside. The copper pendant has Tolkien's initials etched on it, and the back had a quote. The necklace is made from two strands of chain interspersed with wirewrapped beads.

Another one which I didn't photograph properly-- this necklace is inspired by Arwen Undomiel, the daughter of Elrond, who gives up her Elven immortality in order to marry Aragorn, a human.

In the movies, she gives Aragorn a necklace (the lovely silver Evenstar) to symbolize her gift. He protests, and she responds, "It is mine to give to whom I will, like my heart."

The necklace is paired with a full cuff (no chain and clasp) which contained the lines "I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone."

Also, three cheers for nerds! I get to make the best jewelry sometimes. :) This custom piece has another beautiful LotR quote: "Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens."

A nice dash of gold chain, green pearls, and blue stones...

...and the back of the pendant has the recipient's name etched in Gallifreyan!

I'll leave you with one last picture of yet another Elvish cuff! Hopefully this experimentation will pay off sometime. :)

Please leave quote suggestions in the comments! Thanks!

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, by Shaylynn

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Calligraphy

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, by Shaylynn

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The Love of Starlight {Painting}

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, by Shaylynn

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Namárië

I finished this calligraphy piece several months ago but forgot to blog it-- it's J.R.R. Tolkien's beautiful poem Namárië from The Lord of the Rings. It is written in Quenya (the High Elvish language). On the left, the poem is written in our alphabet, and on the write, it is written in the Tengwar (Elvish) script.

The poem is a beautiful piece which the Lady Galadriel sings to Frodo when the Fellowship leaves Lothlorien to destroy the Ring.

I didn't have space to fit the entire poem on my little sheet of paper board, so I just used the first stanza and stuck the final two lines (about farewells and finding Valinor) on at the end.

The border was done entirely freehand using india ink and watercolors. I am pretty proud of it-- this was my first time making an Art Nouveau border, and I'm getting better at making celtic knots with decorative tips.

The heraldic device at the top is the symbol for Feanor, as designed by Tolkien himself. I thought this device would be fitting because not only is Feanor Galadriel's anscestor (if I have my genealogy straight), but it was mostly because of his family that the Elves were banished from Valinor-- and this poem is all about Galadriel's longing for Valinor when she thought she could not return, but nonetheless wished that Frodo may make it there one day. (Valinor is sort of like an Elvish heaven-- sort of, not really, but it's the best description I can come up with off the top of my head).

Here's the English version of the poem:

Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind,
long years numberless as the wings of trees!
The years have passed like swift draughts
of the sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the West,
beneath the blue vaults of Varda
wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly.

Who now shall refill the cup for me?

For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars,
from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds,
and all paths are drowned deep in shadow;
and out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us,
and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever.
Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar!
Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar.
Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!

______________
For those of you complete Tolkienites, the title of this blog post ("Farewell") is not about me saying farewell to blogging or anything. I have one more crazy busy week of school left, and after that I will be taking a couple of days to just do nothing and not feel guilty about it (in other words, I will curl up on the hammock for two days and do nothing but devour some novels and drink lots of iced tea and catch up on TV shows before bed). After that, however, I will be working on some of the hundreds of creative projects that have been clanking around in my brain. :)

It's so incredibly strange to think that I am almost done with high school. It's been a beautiful four years and I've learned and grown so much! For all of you still in school, when does your summer vacation begin?