A couple of months ago, I heard about Hobbit Day. It's the "official" Tolkien celebration day, according to the American Tolkien Society and Wikipedia. Mark your calendars-- September 22nd, the birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins!

"My dear Bagginses and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles and Proudfoots. Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday! Alas, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

Since I'm a big Tolkien fan I thought it would be a blast to do a Lord of the Rings/Tolkien-themed blog series! (oooooooooh, yeah!)


I hereby declare September 2012 to be Tolkien Month at Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe!
You know what will horrify you, though? I haven't actually read LotR in three years. Three whole, stinking years. I've read bits and pieces, of course, and recently read all of the poems aloud to my four year old brother (many, many times... many more times that I necessarily wanted to read them-- I think we've both got "Troll sat alone on his seat of throne" memorized!). I re-read the Hobbit last month and remembered why I thought it was funny but slow. 


Why am I announcing this so early? To get you psyched, of course!


That is not the only reason, though. I need help! As I'm sure you've realized by now (considering the fact that I mention this almost every single week), I am a very busy highschooler. If I actually slow down and think through my grand plans properly, I know I will be able to finish only two or three of my big, Lord of the Rings projects and just few of the posts I'm planning. I know for sure that I would not be able to write the six-million essays worth of awesomeness that Tolkien has sent bouncing through my brain. This is where you come in!


If you love Tolkien, please consider helping me make this party a blast!


I'm mostly looking for guest bloggers. Just email me at shealynnsfaerieshoppe{at}gmail.com (remove {at} and replace with @). Unless your suggested post is not family friendly or anti-Christian, I will most likely say YES. I don't bite-- so please, feel free to email me no matter what your idea is!


Here's just a couple of ideas, but be creative!

• Why you love Tolkien/Lord of the Rings
• Tolkien-themed art, crafts, sewing, or cooking. Tutorials would be super awesome.
• Posts about anything inspired by Tolkien, his books, or the movies/music based on his books. This could include anything from Celtic knotwork to learning to play an obscure instrument to an analysis of the costumes to fancy hairstyles to an analysis of the cinematography styles used in the movies to favorite Norse myths to archery in movies! Whatever floats your boat, as long as you can tie it back to Tolkien in some way. :)
• Short stories, fun essays, poetry, artwork....
• Roundups of your favorite Tolkien things on the internet

(Please note that I will be busy enough with running Tolkien month and won't be able to reciprocate guest posts.)


I'd love to host a couple of giveaways. If you run a craft business, jewelry business, calligraphy business, etc, and would like to do a giveaway, let me know. I did a bunch of giveaways a little less than a year ago and heard that it brought a good deal of traffic to small Etsy and Artfire shops. If you do a giveaway, you also get a free ad on the blog during the month of September! The giveaways don't have to be handmade-- if you have a stash of Lord of the Rings toys or books or something that you want to get rid of... you know who to email. LOL!


I will also try to set up one of those linky lists starting on the first of September, so if you want to join in the party at your own blog (or Tumblr, Flickr, etc) during this time, you'll be able to share the link to your site where everyone can see it!


You can also help by getting the word out! Mention the party on your own blog, twitter, facebook, pinterest, etc, and see if any of your friends want to join in this celebration of all things Tolkien!

Acrylic and glitter on masonite board, 1 hr.

Sometimes I feel as if I were a wave, stuck in a strange dichotomy between the world of chaotic water crashing over rocks, and the serene beauty of a sunset over the endless sea.


(That's supposed to be a clever simile inspired by my painting of my Papa's photo. I don't think it quite worked, so... *insert witty simile here*)

I had such high hopes for this summer. I'm not sure if it was a success or not-- I didn't do all the things I wanted to, but I was both enjoying myself and being productive the whole time.

For example, I've blogged irregularly over the past three weeks. I've been teaching an art/jewelry class to around five young local girls, visiting with friends (and going and visiting with family friends), touring colleges-- I'm sitting down to write this half an hour after a scholars' day event--, attending my cousin's wedding, and attempting to get the August issue of Ink and Fairydust put together. Plus, there are other things. Playing with my lil' siblings. Exercising. Eating. SLEEPING. And playing some epic board games with my family!

One of the failed hopes for this summer was spending an hour or more each day on art and getting my entire portfolio ready before the school year. Didn't happen. But I did manage to fit in several smaller art projects, in the one to three hour range-- experimental stuff.

I haven't done a proper art-project post in a long time. It's about time I did another! I am, of course, going to get you in the right mood. Ready? Set? Listen to words of great wisdom and let's GO!

"Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if one only had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."

~G.K. Chesterton

I felt as though I were drawing on the ceiling with a five-foot pencil for some of these pictures! Paints, in particular, are very unwieldy. I have so much to learn.

You can always see some more of my art here. Just click "older posts" a few times and you'll find all sorts of old, embarrassing projects. I've learned a lot but I'm sure that in just a year or two, I'm going to cringe at what I've just posted...

By the way, this week I am beginning my first week of school. It's strange to think that I am nearly done with high school! Wish me luck!

This is not the easiest ear cuff tutorial; if you are just getting started, I'd suggest making several of the Simple Ear Cuffs to warm up!

A primer for those unfamiliar with ear cuffs: You don't need peircings to wear these! They slide on to the cartilage of your ear. (Here's a description of the proper way to put on ear cuffs). It's typical to wear only one ear cuff for bold designs, but the simpler ones worn in pairs are great replacements for regular earrings. They are far more comfortable and customizable than clip-on or screw-back earrings!


This swirly design is by far my favorite and it is the best-selling ear cuff style at my Shoppe.


For this tutorial I am using 20 gauge enameled copper wire to make a right-ear ear cuff. My favorite wire to work with for this type of jewelry is silver plated copper; it is pliable enough to bend, sturdy enough to last, and of course is very good quality.





(Note: if you want to dangle a bead on these ear cuffs, make sure that the swirl you add in later does not overwhelm this bend. I'm not really sure how to describe this, but you'll notice that I keep the end of the ear cuff pointy. Usually I make it even pointier than I did for this tutorial.)


This is the perfect time to hammer the wire to harden it, if you so desire. Don't hammer the "arms" and make sure you don't harden the wire so much that it becomes brittle. I didn't hammer this example.



Fold around an appropriate marker and use pliers to finish bending the very ends so that the cuff creates a proper circle. (See the other tutorial!)












This is a double ear cuff set with many interchangable dangles made from Czech glass leaf beads.

You may use this tutorial to make your own ear cuffs, or your own modified design, for personal use or even for selling. All I ask is that you please reference me (Shaylynn Ann / Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe), and include a link back to my blog where appropriate. I do put a lot of time in coming up with tutorials and offering them for free, so thank you for this courtesy! And if you don't feel like making one of your own, they are available in my Shoppe and can be custom ordered!

Wow! This giveaway was a sucess-- so many people entered! Thank you all, and I really wish that all of you could be winners!

The winner of the Slender Elven Jewelry Set is Entry #260, Brenda W. (Contacted via email.)



Now, as to the question I quizzed you with for the mandatory entry:

For those who decided to choose their favorite item, I was surprised and pleased to see that all my various jewelry styles (fantasy, classy, guitar string, etc) were picked as favorites.

Tutorials are definately in store. I've got a more advanced ear cuff tutorial planned for later this week!!! And for those who specifically mentioned book crafts, there are three projects I'm in the middle of. They're kinda taking forever, though!

I was surprised and pleased (again) that you asked for more photoshoots and more in-progress artwork. More coming!

"More arts and crafts" was a big one. Mostly from people who had never seen my blog before, I'm sure, but that's OK! That's what I post the most about here, so you're to see more.


Thanks for the great response about the stationary. As soon as I finish this issue of Ink and Fairydust I'll buckle down and draw some designs.

Any requests for specific designs?

(Last day to enter the Elven Flower Jewelry Set Giveaway!)

I normally don't write about books that I read or movies I watch, simply because I go through a spectacular amount of material. I've never had the gumption to tread the waters of book-and-movie-review-blogging, because I know I'll drown under tsunami waves of heavy books and shiny discs.

But this is my blog, and I can write about whatever I want to. I didn't prepare a good artsy post and I feel in the mood to talk about the books and movies I enjoyed the past several days!

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Last week at the library, I was browing the kid's section (because one must always browse the kids section and balance research paper books with fun books) and saw a brick that didn't look like it belonged in the midst of grade-school Scholastic paperbacks. Now, any time a five inch thick book is in the kid's section, my interest is immediately peaked. I pulled the weighty volume off the shelf, recognized it as something a friend had recommended, and gasped as I turned the leaves.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is a real treat. I'd already seen the movie, so the plot was deprived of that new-story magic. However, it's still a sweet little story set in 1937 France, involving train stations, clocks, films, magic, and friendship. Not to mention mechanical automatons, which I had not heard of before. I am now in love with automata-- there's a few cool ones on my Gizmos Pinterest board.

Sidetrack:

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Back to Hugo-- what really caught my eye about this book was the creative fusion of the illustrations and the text. Traditional books tell their story with words only, and the illustrations simply picture-ify short scenes. Graphic novels rely on visual cues for their entire stories. Hugo is neither; the text and images are so closely intertwined that you need both in order to follow the story.

My favorite part? The illustrations read like a storyboard. They are like a flipbook for short scenes of a film. Progressive pages zoom in on important items, just as a video camera does. Brian Selznick did a spectacular job of choosing the perfect moments to illustrate. You know how a film can capture emotion in people's expressions in a way that words simply can't? All the emotional scenes are gorgeously illustrated in this movie-magic manner. (And the movie-magic experience ties right back into the storyline).

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Did I mention gorgeously illustrated? You couldn't have picked a better time period for this style of drawing. The crosshatching and stylized figures creates a dreamy atmosphere. Mechanical pieces of useful art, like clocks and wind-up toys and automata look amazing and slightly steampunk. And the vintage clothing? If I ever have to draw pictures of crowds, I am SO giving them cloches and flatcaps and overcoats and shiny shoes.


I was going to copy some of the pictures from Hugo but haven't had a chance yet. However, the clockwork drawings inspired these little mechanical dragonflies! They're from my imagination, and drawn partially at my brother's baseball game, partially at home while listening to Sherlock Holmes.

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Get them from your library, NOW.

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We went to the theaters to see Brave. It's a tradition to watch all Pixar movies when they come out. Honestly, I was a little disapointed. Brave is a fun movie... but it didn't have the depth that I've come to expect from Pixar. I never truly connected with the characters. The whole "change my mother to change my destiny" thing... Merida was leaving herself WIDE open to all sorts of magical troublemaking. Plot hole!


They really pushed the whole strong-female-lead issue. A bit too hard. It wasn't natural although it was good in theory. (And for goodness sake, that cliche corset scene? <--- link goes to funny commentary on that scene). I also heard all sorts of hype about this being Pixar's first female-lead film, and the first film directed by a woman. Kudos to them for not discriminating, but I honestly... I don't know. The fact that they have to make such a big deal about that is sad. It's also sad that the story is so much about that. It's got a girl-power flavor-- which it not a bad thing, but it overwhelms other flavors that could have made the film so much more while still being totally empowering.

Seriously. Let's just admit the fact that girls are just as good as boys, and get on with it. Write good stories. Don't get hung up on what gender the lead or director is. Just make good art.


One thing that I really liked, though, was the depiction of Merida's mother the queen. She was a very strong woman in her own way, although like all people, she had her own flaws. The scene where the queen calmed an entire banquet hall of fighting warriors, simply by walking? Not all woman have to be kick-butt tomboys to be strong and powerful in their own way!

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(And she made pretty tapestries with insane detail. I can't even imagine... and the animation! You could see every thread!)

I did enjoy Brave, despite my ranting. I've just come to expect more emotional depth from Pixar. However, in one thing there was no disapointment to be found at all. THE ARTISTRY.

Wow.

That film was eye candy. And ear candy. (OK, ignore the ear candy, that sounds disturbing. But believe me when I say the music and accents were delicious!). I am totally renting the DVD, just so that I can press the pause button all I want. So much detail. And so much of my obession with knotwork! There was something amazing in the credits...

Celtic. Knotwork. Snowflakes.


As soon as the movie was over, I went to sit down next to mom. The first words out of my mouth? Celtic knotwork snowflakes. It's a joke in my family now, because I just kept going on about it!

I can't wait until there are pictures of the credits online, or until I can get the DVD. I'd love to copy the designs I saw in the theater. As it is, I had to make them up!


I'm pretty proud of the top right one; I drew it as soon as we got back and didn't even look up designs that are typically used in circular celtic knots.