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Arwen's Butterfly Crown

Rev 2.1 - May 2004

Arwen wears a wonderfully elaborate crown of silver wire with all kinds of drippy chains with green crystals, semi-precious stones inserted in the chain. There are white/silver rochaille beads with green stone beads spaced around on them.

The crown is actually two parts. Parts of the silver are painted.

Description from "Art of ROTK", Ngila Dickson

"The crown's design began with a drawing of mine that followed the theme of a butterfly wing. I had a strong vision for this crown: it needed to have the vein like quality, with the sense of a stained glass window to the colour, and the beading was to drape in three layers around her elven ears - to emphasize those delicate Elven features. Jasmine Watson, the jewelry designer, and I worked closely for three weeks on this crown. My original design winged out, but we found that the crown had a more interesting quality when it sat closer to the head. Jasmine's work on this crown took it to an extraordinary level, allowing a dream to be realized, that an Elven queen's crown would be like no other."

Notes from Jasmin:

Arwen's coronation crown is indeed in two pieces. The back piece is only connected to the front piece by the strings of hanging beads. The back is attached to the wig via little loops of elastic. She had to make it in two pieces because of time constraints - Liv arrived only 2 days before shooting and they couldn't afford the time to change the crown if it didn't fit (Liv apparently has a very oval head, and that plus the wig made her head shape unusual. Jasmine wanted a very specific placement of the crown along her hairline).

Arwen's coronation outfit is green to represent spring after a long winter. Jasmine tied this spring green color into the crown. The dangling beads had green in them, and there was green on the actual silver butterfly parts of the crown that looked like some kind of enamel. What this really was, however, was nail polish!! It was "expensive Dior polish", but still nail polish, whatever the price!


(or high rez here)	(or high rez here)











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Side detail. Notice only one color of green... the Dior nail polish. The rest is silver or gold tone metal

Back of the butterfly crown	Darker version for different detail



Front Side beads

Detail of front beads	Front side beads

The Pattern Design & How-Tos

Head to our Making It Pattern page


Front and side of Arwen's Crown. Numbers designate where chains join to each other. Front is to the left	Back of the crown. Artwork by Elizabeth le Fae

Barbie doll pictures are all together at the bottom...

The Standee Pics




CU of the jeweled droplets off the edge of her crown. Silver chain with green crystal inserted in the chain and ending in crystal teardrops.

Barbie Doll Arwen Crown Pics

Interestingly Mattel has Photoshoped out Arwen's pointy ear on all packaging. This may effect how the edge of the crown is seen in these pics. Also, the dolls hair is styled to hide the ear. (Wonder what scary thing is suppose to be hidden there?)

Snapshoot from back of the Barbie box, pointy ears Photoshoped out.
- http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook/view/10292
  - Medium, large, mixed rez because of background
  - Warning: don't rely on this photo for any of the details If they Photoshoped the hair to hide the ears, then nothing is safe. Seemliness, chains, small details will all have been "cleaned up" based on the artist's desire.


The crown is shaped metal instead of wire and uses little seed beads to represent links of chain and green crystals. Of course, it is much simplified.	Back view Yes, Barbie does have Pointy Ears, even though Mattel does try to hide them

Close up of the front	back detailing

Review detail of the front

More Barbie pics over on the main page for the Coronation Gown

How to make Arwen's Crown

Check out our circlets section for tips on metal work and faking metal work. We have two different techniques listed.

Exhibit pictures throughout this section thanks to Secrete Elf, Garfeimao, Jedi Kai, Kelldar, Michelle P., and Silvara

Up | Decorative Details | Arwen's Butterfly Crown | Crown Pattern | Barbie Arwen

This page was last updated 04/22/08