Movie prop: The cryptex from The Da Vinci Code

I am an avid collector of movie memorabilia.  The strangest the gadget, the more I covet it, and if the movie happens to be one of my favorites, it is even better.  

I have talked here of Beetlejuice's Handbook for the Recently Deceased, the Jurassic Park cryocan, Lucian's necklace from the Underworld movies, the H2O Just add water locket, The Illusionist locket, Lana Lang's kryptonite necklace... Most of the time there is no official product, and I have to find an artist to make it, or buy it knowing it is a knock-off made by someone else.  I really don't care, as long as I have it in my hands.

This time the coveting came after we came back from Paris.  After visiting the Louvre, the church of the Saint-Sulpice and seeing the Arago medallion markers, I rewatched The Da Vinci Code.  And I found myself wanting to own my own cryptex.

Naturally, I knew the official replica made by the Noble Collection was out of question.  I cannot justify spending that much in a movie prop. It is true that it is absolutely gorgeous.  But no.  There is a smaller version that is more affordable, and may be something you may like to consider.  I myself was interested in this one, until I saw some reviews that said it was not very sturdy, and the rings and the opening mechanism did not work very well.

Instead, I went looking for a non-official version.  And I found it!  And for the price that I paid, I think it is a very worthy investment.  I chose the white ring version, as it is the one most similar to the movie prop.

 

This is a knock-off, but it is very well made, EXCEPT for the fact that it has 6 rings of letters, instead of 5 like the original cryptex.  Can you believe I had not realized this until I tried to change the password combination?  But, you can bypass this problem if you use A-P-P-L-E-S, with an extra S that the movie riddle does not have.  

My cryptex is absolutely made of metal except for the letter rings, that are some kind of plastic, although you would not guess it by looking at them.  It is heavy, and big!  It measures about 14 cm long, and it opens!

It comes in a gift box, with a card (in case it is for a gift), with a screwdriver, 2 screws, 2 black cord necklaces and a pair of The One ring from The Lord of the Rings, one smaller in silver and one larger in yellow gold.  Naturally, they are not real pieces of jewelry.  And instructions for how to change the opening combination.

 

See how bit it is!

You can open it, of course

 

 

I will not use the rings (neither will my husband).  The important thing was that I wanted to have inside the cryptex the final clue, but obviously it did not come with it.  A pity, truly, that even the official one lacks that detail. But!  I can make my own.

 

I searched the web for pictures of the clue prop, and I found several that were good.  Here is a still of the movie in which you can see it:

 

I took the biggest one, cleaned it and enhanced the lettering in Photoshop.  Then I removed the background color and printed it on parchment paper.   Then I added a red edge made with printable cotton paper, and glued it with double-sided tape to the clue.  Here is the result:

 

LOL, you can see my mermaid leggings!

I curved it with the help of a brush

I love how well it looks!  I am so happy with my cryptex, it will go to the shelf with the rest of the movie props I have.

 

 

If you would like to have your own cryptex clue, HERE is a free printable for you to make it.  As always, please feel free to print as many times as you like, and pass the file along to anyone (links back are nice too!).  Just please do not sell the file or your creations.  Thank you and enjoy! ♥  

Arwen Evenstar necklace display

When we were in Paris, my husband wanted to visit some comic book stores - he always likes to visit those.  We found the Arwen Evenstar necklace in one of them - the one from Noble Collection - and he gifted it to me.

They told us to use it only over clothes, or we would risk it losing its shine. Since I already had a real jewel necklace, I decided to simply put this one on display.  So I perused Amazon, in search of the display glass dome, also by Noble Collection.

Unfortunately, the only one I found in Europe was selling for more than $200, which was a price I was not willing to pay.  Then I looked for it in the Noble Collection website, but even though the actual display cost about $35 there was a charge of almost $50 for shipping to my country.

So I decided to make my own.

I started by searching for an adecuate display dome, and found this one:

 

It measures 9 x 13 cm, so it was perfect!

 

I did not want it to be very big, so when I saw the size I snatched it immediately.  Then I purchased a template for a necklace display, like the ones you can see in jewelry shops, from Etsy.

I reduced it in size, printed it, traced it over 2 mm cardboard, cut it and covered it with black suede paper.  The result was fantastic:

It looks beautiful!  All in all, I did not spend more than 15 euros for everything.  Now the necklace rests next to our The Lord of the Rings books:

A long forgotten project: the Handbook for the Recently Deceased. And free printable!

I watched Beetlejuice when it first came out on cinemas in 1988.  I was a teenager at the time, and I remember vividly how much I felt in sync with Lidia, and how I would have loved to live in the Maitlands' home.  My dad bought me the VHS when it came out; I watched it so many times I could have recited the dialogue by heart.  Later I bought myself the DVD, and kept watching until Beetlejuice Beetlejuice came out last year.  

I was delighted when I saw all the merchandise pop up for the new movie - we did not have such things in the eighties!  I had wanted the Handbook for the Recently Deceased from the first moment.  But it was impossible to find it then.  And later, some replicas appeared, but they were valued in hundreds of dollars that I did not want to spend.  Most of them were blank journals with the original front and back cover, but they cost so much I was put off by the prices.

But I was so lucky that my husband got one for me for Christmas!  It was official merch, and it cost about $20 dollars.  The beloved book from my childhood was finally in my hands!

And that reminded me, that a long time ago, I had bought a printable to make my own Handbook for the Recently Deceased book box.  To do that, I purchased a book shadow box from Tim Holz - I think now it has been discontinued (this was in 2019!).  It looked like this:

 

A regular book box to embelish made of paper mâché

 

The inside little boxes are removable, which was great, because I wanted it to store inside my DVD copy of Beetlejuice.  A kind of personal limited edition, if you may.  But for some reason, even though I started the project anxiously, it got relegated to the back burner.  Well, now it was the time to retake it!

The image I bought to act as the cover was bigger, so it had to be manually adjusted in an image program.  I measured carefully and adjusted it to the precise size needed to cover the box.  I printed it professionally in A3 size.  It only took two tries to make it fit pefectly.  Since the box had been in storage for long, the part that holded the inside boxes came unglued, which was perfect.  It was super easy to just cover the outside with the printing, and it looked great!

So wondefully spooky!

I removed the inside boxes, and I was ready to store all my treasures:

 

If you would like to get the paper props, you can find them on Etsy.  I got mine from Paul Elder Designs, but he no longer offers them.  Instead, you can go to Legendary Tales Edit to get a whole bunch of Beetlejuice curiosities.  And from my part, I am happy to offer you the Take-Your-Turn numbers HERE. *Update*  I also made business cards with the Maitland Hardware shop info.  I hope you like them!

I hope you enjoy having your own Beetlejuice numbers!  Feel free to print as many as you like, and pass the file along to anyone; links back are nice too.  Just please do not sell the file.  Thank you very much, and enjoy! ♥ 

Update in the Cryocan

 Still waiting for a proper moment to start crafting the Cryocan.

However, today I remembered to bring home a micropipette so I could fill the vials!  That was a very easy thing.  I simply took some bottled water, applied a drop of yellow food dye, stirred and ready!  The vials are ready to be filled.

The "embryo" mix, and the micropipette ready to work

Set to 1 ml or 1000 microliters

I do this at my job all the time :)

Gloriously filled! ♥

It was super fun to do!  Once all the vials were filled, I sticked the labels one by one.

Luckily, the upper ring could be removed, so it was easy to stick the labels without the lower ring interfering.  I tried using a Brady label to see if I could take out the vials from the can.  But even though they are quite thin, the vial did not come out.  So I decided to stick with the font and general appearance of the prop in the movie.

Next step, painting the outside and applying the Barbasol label!  But that will have to wait until the weekend...

A new book title available in my shop!

Do you remember the movie "Beetlejuice"?  Are you a fan of him, or Lydia? Then surely you will like a miniature Handbook of the Recently Deceased to put in your dollhouse - a clever and subtle way to haunt any dollhouse without the creepiness!  Just put it over a table, on the top of a shelf or forgotten in the attic... and who knows who can have left it there? 

With the book also come 2 fliers to summon Beetlejuice and 3 of his business cards.

Now available in my shop!

New prop replica necklace

My husband and I watched on All Hallows Eve the movie "The hunger", which none of us had heard about until I saw a mention of it on Jillian Venters' tumblr.  It is a movie about vampires, but it certainly is different than anything I have seen before...

Well, anyway, this post is not about that.  During the movie, Miriam and John wear some necklaces with an ankh, which they use to attack their victims:

Shot from the movie showing the necklaces

I fell in love with them the moment I saw them.  I have been using ankhs since I was 16 (that's more than 20 years, folks!), and have never seen a so clever contraption as these.  

Right after finishing the movie I ran to the Internetz to search for a replica.  I did not find one just like those in the movie, unfortunately.  But I found a very similar one from Alchemy Gothic:

Picture from the Sun Spot Designs website

I ordered it and it arrived today!  I love it!  I have changed the chain, since it was only 20 inches and it was way too short for a pendant of this size (the ankh measures 3 inches).  Now it hangs just between my breasts.  The fact that I ordered it on October 31 makes it even more special.

There are plenty of places where you can buy your own ankh.  It is officially called Ankh of the Dead; I got mine from Dreams of Caedryn on Etsy.

And if you still have not watched the movie, go and watch it!  Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie are both gorgeous on it!