It’s been a long summer battling depression and anxiety, but I have my mojo back! This week, I’ve gone crazy working to revitalize my garb for St. Eligius. It all started when I had to borrow the earring loops from my pearls for a vintage outfit. Then I had to look at paintings to decide on a new earring loop to mount the pearls on. This got me thinking about all sorts of accessories until my brain was ready to burst. I made a few trips to the crafts stores to find all the parts for my vision, but found all the things I wanted…but in silver, not gold. Cue the spray paint!

I removed the center of the medallion and pearls before spray painting, then used a wooden circle thingie to fill in the hole. I secured the wooden circle with glue and white fabric puff paint, then gilded the medallion again.

I glued pearls back in the orignal spots, then added a ring of pearls over the puff paint. More puff paint was used to paint the center of the medallion.

I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I added more pearls around the outer perimeter.

After the paint dried, I added another coat for more puff, and filled in the background. Two or three more coats later, it’s finished.

The hair ornament was made at the same time and features pearlescent nail polish over white puff paint for the giant pearl look. These will be worn along with my usual necklace and earrings. I replaced the medallion on the necklace with an oblong pearl, and added decorative eyepins and bead caps to my pearls before threading them onto these earring loops. The earring loops were inspired by the painting below.

After I finished all the jewelry modifications, I decided to dye a length of white silk habotai for a gold veil. The first attempt was too yellow. I added some orange and then it was too orange. I used color remover and the new veil was again too yellow. I threw a lighter gold silk chiffon veil into the dye bath and that one came out perfect!

The chiffon veil was washed and hung to dry, while I gave the habotai veil another dye bath. This time, it came out close to perfect. Again, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I decided to add lace to the edges before sewing a comb onto the back to attach to my hair.

In addition to all this, I also sewed some new lacing rings onto my gown to tie the sleeves to, and repaired my petticoat hem. Hopefully the final look is as impactful as I envision it.