Ruby Princesses

While reviewing the craft photos I have saved for future blog posts, I realized that I had skipped a project from last fall. As I've mentioned before, I designed a number of fantasy tiaras for my friend Heather to use in her fairytale photography work, which you can see on her site Fairyography. As her collection of princess dresses grows, she occasionally asks me to create new pieces to complement them.

In this instance, her client expressed that the princesses-to-be would also love it if they could deck themselves out in jewelry, as well as tiaras, to get the full princess experience. I had a pretty short time frame to create these pieces, and they needed to be small child friendly, so I decided to go with something simple.

As all my tiaras are, I made these using color-coated copper craft wire and a variety of glass beads, pearls, and Swarovski crystals.

Heather likes a magical organic look for her photo accessories, so I developed this wire branch tiara design with her input for her very first crowns, and we've used it repeatedly since.

For the coordinating necklaces, I decided to go with large, faceted glass beads and a simple bead cap. I like how these ended up looking like crown jewel-sized ruby necklaces on the little ladies who wore them.

Finally, I made bracelets using smaller faceted glass beads knotted on stretchy gold cord. I wasn't sure these were up to my (and Heather's) standards, but in the final photos they look great, and the stretchy cord is very child friendly.

You can view some examples of the photos taken using these accessories in the Fairyography blog post featuring this photo shoot.