I’m a child of the 80s. I grew up watching The Neverending Story, Legend, Willow, Labyrinth, Princess Bride, The Dark Crystal, and The Last Unicorn. It was an amazing time in film-making, and each of those movies helped shape me into the magic-loving, fairytale-reading, unicorn-believing person that I am today.
My favorite of these is, of course, The Last Unicorn. It’s a movie that used to enthrall and terrify me in equal amounts from a very young age, and it’s a movie that I still love. The book is even more beautiful, and it’s actually the book that drove me to try and come up with a color palette to go with the poetry and whimsy Peter Beagle created.
The main inspiration came from the first paragraph in the book that mentions certain colors, like lilac, “the careless color of sea foam,” and the color of snow falling on a moonlight night. Here’s the palette I came up with:
So in honor of the unicorn, and the human disguise she donned later on in the book, I’ve created a pair of earrings that I’ve named The Lady Amalthea earrings.
It’s all just really simple chain and wrapped loops. I chose the “believe” and “imagine” charms (both necessary and relevant in reference to unicorns!), and altered them a little. They started out like this:
I cut the loop off, punched a hole on either side of the word on each charm with a pair of Europunch pliers. Then, I buffed the dark antique brass finish off with a polishing paper until they were a warm gold color. Wrapped loops attach all the beads and the chain, and the little loop of seed beads is done on a wire that I shaped to make it flow with the drape of the other components.
I’ve gotta say, I’m really liking these earrings! They’re done with simple techniques and very few beads and chain. They twinkle and sparkle and I daresay that Amalthea would like them. 🙂
-Michelle
