Padme Gown - the making of the head jewelry

The jewelry pieces were made from polymer clay; I happened to have silver in my bucket o clay.  I was originally debating on making them from the aluminum, but that seemed like it wouldn't be substantial enough, and would leave seams if I bent the aluminum or used multiple layers.  I rolled out the clay fairly thin, cut the shape while looking at the picture of the original jewelry on my laptop, and then smoothed and shaped it as best I could.

Shaping the side base pieces

Shaping the form for decoration on the side piece

Adding the detail to the shape

The decoration on the side piece for size check. It will get glued on after baking the pieces separately.

The decorations for the forehead piece. These will get pressed into the forms before baking.

That's as good as it is going to get!

Before baking them, I inserted wire loops so that I could add chains later to the pieces. I debated baking a wire comb into the back of the forehead piece, but didn't because I was concerned about it not being right; I baked it without, and figured I'd hot glue gun a fastening solution to it later.

After baking.

I wasn't happy with the color after baking them, they looked like clay still. So, I pulled out my silver spray paint I had from the making of the steampunk goggles for last year's masquerade ball; and painted both sides of the blanks, and the fronts of the decorations. Two coats made them look like jewelry! Once the paint dried, I hot glue gunned the decorations on the side blanks.

The painted pieces.

Sadly, I did not finish stringing the chain before the party, so I didn't wear the jewelry. The weekend after, I strung it and put the headpiece together. I love how it turned out!  I used the hot glue gun to affix a wire comb to the back of the forehead piece, which turned out to be perfect.  The chain that goes over the top of the head gets pinned in place with a bobby pin, and that's it! The jewelry stayed on quite well while I took pics of the whole costume, so I think it would be just fine to wear as is.

The finished headpiece.

The making of the Padme Gown Blog Posts: 
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
The Making of the buttons
Part 4
The Making of the hair forms
Part 5
The Making of the head jewelry
The Making of the armbands
Part 6
Padme's Packing Gown