All That Glitters Challenge – May the 4th Be With You!

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th Be With You!

Well, I’ve just finished Week 3 of my self-imposed “All That Glitters” challenges, and what a week it was! I don’t think I’ve felt this stressed or frustrated in a very long time! But now that it’s all done, I feel a strange sense of satisfaction! Given that today is May the 4th, AKA Star Wars Day, for die hard fans, I thought it only apt to make a piece of jewellery in celebration! Also, we’re big Star Wars fans in this household (if you couldn’t tell from my post last week!)

All That Glitters – Week 3

Week 3 of “All that Glitters” was all about alternative materials! Think: wood, shells, fabric, paper… anything that isn’t a precious metal. Base metals were permitted, but not classed as an alternative material. For someone who is completely new to making jewellery, alternative materials seems pretty daunting – I have no idea how some of these materials will work together, how they sit together, even their textures!

By now, I’m pretty familiar with the programme format! For the “Bestseller” challenge, the remaining six jewellers were asked to make a statement cocktail ring incorporating one alternative material. And wow, did they make some stunners! I mean, with a cocktail ring, your imagination is the limit and I guess, the bigger and bolder, the better! As I was watching the programme, I had an idea for a fun, Maths-based ring – so I guess, the creative juices were flowing!

For the “Bespoke” challenge, the jewellers were required to make a bib necklace for a drag queen, using two alternative materials, in under 5 hours! Yikes!

This Week’s All That Glitters Challenge

This one was a lot trickier for me – I struggled to come up with any ideas at all. My husband, on the other hand, had an idea with minutes, being the big Star Wars fan, that he is! So in honour of May the 4th, I recreated Queen Amidala’s iconic bib necklace from the lake scene in Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones:

A simple visit to the lake doesn’t mean you have to dress down. Padmé never misses a chance to be a connoisseur of Naboo high fashion. pic.twitter.com/qUzFzsw6I5

— Star Wars (@starwars) November 20, 2020

I think it’s safe to say that it’s a pretty stunning necklace, and beautifully crafted! I’ve discovered that trying to recreate something and be true to the original is actually pretty difficult. I ended up watching the same clip of the movie over and over again, trying to figure out how the necklace holds together, when it moves, when it doesn’t, where it ends on the dress. After 6 whole days of trying to make this necklace, I finally succeeded and really proud of the results! Check it out for yourself!

Cosplay

I actually already owned a version of the lake dress that Padme Amidala wore during Episode II. I bought it a couple of years back from Her Universe, who make some really stunning and wearable pop culture clothing and accessories. It’s so wearable, in fact, that I wore this dress to my sister’s wedding! It doesn’t, however, come with the bib necklace!

So, I turned to other cosplayers for inspiration. A lot of people have made their own version of this necklace – it’s extremely popular! For me, the biggest challenge was in how this necklace would hang together and still be wearable (as you can see, it’s pretty big!). I spent an entire day just designing the necklace! I started with some paper prototypes, which I fitted to Bob, our Taekwondo sparring dummy. Bob is a pretty good substitute for a dress mannequin, since I don’t actually own one… perhaps one for future investment. My only complaint is that his neck it a little bit wider than mine! Sorry, Bob!

Here is modelling the prototype and looking extremely fetching in sunglasses and my niece’s Easter bonnet!

Adapting

I won’t go into the ins and outs of how I made this necklace – hopefully, you’ll get the gist from my video. Many of the techniques are the same as techniques I’ve used and described in previous posts; all the usual suspects in silversmithing, as well as a bit of wire work thrown in.

What this project taught me was the need to be flexible when making jewellery. My design evolved quite a lot once I started the making process.

I had decided that I didn’t want to make the piece out of one copper frame (check out my bangle post for some of my insights as to why). The main reason is that the individual necklace pieces are overlapped in the movie, and they need some movement so as not to choke the wearer (i.e. me!). After some thought, I decided to make a chain and keep it simple using figure of 8 wire wrapped links – no soldering to further stress me out!

Once I’d made this decision, I knew that I needed something on the back of each individual necklace piece to hook into the chain links. Originally, I’d planned to make a jump ring to attach to the chain. But by the end of the first day of designing, my husband talked me out of it. For lots of reasons, really… my soldering isn’t great under pressure, and the jump rings would be uncomfortable for the wearer.

In the end, I decided to cut tabs on the edges of each of my necklace pieces, and planned to fold them over. It worked pretty well, but if I were to make it again, I’d solder on some hooks. Bending the tabs warped the frames a bit, which hopefully, isn’t too noticeable!

Patience

On the evening of Day 5, I started fitting my frames together… and then disaster struck! It turned out that I had put the tabs in the wrong place on the very top piece! If you take a look at the photo above, you can see I put the tabs on the bottom of the top piece. The aim was to bend those under, and use them to hang the chains down the neck. Sounds sensible, right?

Well, it turned out that the tabs were too low. I probably should have put them at the top of the frame, so that I had a chance of hiding the chain at the back. The issue here is that you can see the chains and obviously, you can’t in the original. And being a stickler for detail, my husband helped me adapt the design (which added more stress!).

So, on Day 6 (yes, Day 6! Cutting it close!), I ended up sawing off the tabs from the top piece, then soldering the second piece to it. And soldering under pressure is most definitely not my strong point! It took me a total of 3 hours to finally get the solder to flow and solder the plates together, then add jump rings. But, in my favour, I didn’t melt any of the jump rings!

Speaking of Patience and Adaptability…

I was determined to use some sort of alternative material in my project. And in the end, I chose a sheet of Mother of Pearl veneer. Ok, so I’ve never used Mother of Pearl veneer and I had no idea whether it would bend, or cut, or how to use it. So it’s a pretty risky choice, but I needed it for the desired effect.

When it came time to cut it to shape, I figured I could just cut it with a pair of scissors. How wrong was I?! Cutting the veneer with scissors caused it to flake and crack. So… more patience needed. Out came the craft knife (and thankfully, it was fine to cut the veneer with!). I confess, by this point, I was exhausted and got my husband to glue all the pieces together. I have to say, he did a great job! And yes, he does have infinitely more patience than me!

My Final Word

These projects are getting longer! But weirdly, I feel like I’m learning so much from making these challenge projects. It’s interesting as there isn’t a right or wrong way to make a lot of things that you design yourself (which can also be frustrating!). So after six days, 16 saw blades, one or two minor cuts, I made my first bib necklace! I now can’t wait until the next Star Wars Celebrations, so that I can break this baby out! I hope Padme Amidala is proud of me!

So, Happy Star Wars Day! Let me know in the comments how you’re celebrating!