Yuna’s Earring

There’s just one more thing Yuna needed to really be Yuna – her signature earring! She wears a long, beaded, multicolored earring in almost all of her appearances. I made a human-sized version years ago when my mom and I first made her costume, but it’s been a long time, so it took a little trial and error to make the doll-sized version.

Third Time’s the Charm!

My original plan was to find beads that had the same colors as Yuna’s earring and make something with the same feel. Two stores later, I wasn’t finding anything I really liked, so, I decided to try making her earring the same way I’d made mine.

First, I drafted the design for the main piece of the earring in Photoshop. Yuna’s earring thankfully doesn’t have any elaborate elements – when you look closely, every piece is either a rectangle or a triangle. When I was happy with the look, I did a test print to see if the size was a good fit. My first attempt was way too big.

I tweaked the design a little, then printed out what I thought was going to be my final version on photo paper. After cutting out the design, I started rolling it around a piece of paper straw that had been cut to the same height. The photo paper was thicker than I wanted, so I peeled off the paper backing, then rolled the design around the straw and taped it.

I was a little worried the ink might come off, so I tried covering the earring with scotch tape (I was hoping it would give the earring a sort of “eggshell” finish). When I finished putting the whole thing together, I decided the earring was still a little too big and I didn’t really like the look of the scotch tape after all.

So, next I tried a smaller size, substituted clear packing tape for the scotch tape, and added a blue bead after the wooden bead. I’m happy with this version, except for the dangle piece. I used a spare hoop dangle and then bent the remaining portion forward. I might go back and add smaller beads around it to mimic the additional earrings she has, or I might swap it out for a different dangle.

Close Up of the Earring

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It’s not an exact replica, but I think the simplified version looks more to scale.

I should look for my old earring and compare the two. 😉

#YunaUematsu