More Costuming Fun

Sorry for not being better about posting! I had a great Christmas break, but didn't get to see any of my immediate family so no fun pics of the kiddos, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!

Last weekend I attended an 18th Century "Twelfth Night Ball" in Sudbury, MA in a 300 year old inn with my costuming group! We had a blast drinking punch, watching the contra-dancing (doing a bit myself) and feeling like we were living back in revolutionary times!

Pictures, of course, with more here!

With Sarah and Jenni, enjoying the punch:

My first contra-dance:

Gloria and Mike:

I did both our hair before the ball:

It never takes long for Sarah and Jenni to start some kind of fight! (Just for fun, of course)

More of the dancing:

It was a really fun event, I got to know everyone better, we met some new friends, I ran into a co-worker who I didn't know did re-enactments, and we made more costuming plans so that's always a good thing!

I promise to have a non-costuming post up soon, but lately that's all I've been up to really!

Happy New Year, by the way!

Halloween Masquerade Ball!

Finally!

What I'm sure you've all been waiting for...
Better pictures of my costume!
And of the Masquerade!

It was a great night, at an amazing location
with 600 people!
So much fun!

My feet hurt by the end of the night,
I'd lost a feather from my hair (wah waaahhh)
and I got some frosting on my dress somehow
{even though I avoided the treats table, except for a cookie}
and driving in a corset is hard
{thanks to my roommie for driving home}
but all in all it was good times!

On to the pictures!

With Nicole and Janey


Inside the Ballroom, which you can't see too well here, but had amazing wood paneling and incredible chandeliers!

A group performed Michael Jackson's "Thriller" which was awesome, I just wish I had a better view! I could only see their heads really... People were going crazy!

With Natalie, the 1992 Moonlight Masquerade Barbie
{she painted her mask on! how cool is that?!}

With Aimee, showing off our lovely fans.

A view of my shoes

And from the back
{man I have bad posture, even in a corset!}

I pretty much just said "Thank you!" the entire night,
most people thought I'd bought it at first,
but it soon spread that I'd made it myself,
so people were asking for pictures with me!
It was pretty crazy.

I'm glad I did it, but next time I might try to give myself more time to get everything done.
There are still a few little things that I haven't finished on the corset and with trimming the dress, but I was glad I was able to wear it two weekends in a row.
Who knows when the next time will be!

Playing Dress Up

I just love Halloween!
Dressing up is one of my favorite things
so when I get a chance it's hard for me not to go all out.

Last weekend I was invited to a Halloween Dinner Party.
I was the only one who was remotely dressed up,
and this was toning it down for me!
Hello people, it's a HALLOWEEN dinner party!
You would think costumes or at the least all black is appropriate!

Here's what I wore:
A little witchy-fun!
I didn't get a picture of my nails but they were halloween inspired too,
with little spiders on an orange french manicure.
{Please ignore my messy room in the background... I've been sewing so much I haven't had time to tidy up!}


And since we're on the subject of costumes
here's a look at the undies I finished for under my
Marie Antoinette costume!


I have on the chemise, stays (aka corset), pocket hoops and petticoat I made over the 3 day holiday weekend. That was only 50% of the entire costume!
I'm almost done with the costume, and I'll be sure to post
TONS
of pictures of it and of the party.
I'm excited with how it's turning out!

The one thing I haven't tackled yet is the wig...
I think it should really *make* the costume.


Oh and here's a little piece of costuming cuteness I just can't resist sharing:
My niece in her cupcake costume!
She really is cute as a cupcake!
Can you believe how talented my sister is?
She made that without a pattern, using a lampshade as the bottom!


I love Halloween!!
What are the rest of you going to be...
if you're dressing up?

Celebrating the End of my Roaring Twenties!

So last night was my birthday party! It was a totally success and such fun! I had fun decorating the house, planning the music and getting myself all ready.

We served Chinese food (egg rolls, dumplings and edamame) with Shirley Temples garnished with cotton candy (thanks to Spark for the idea) and Maraschino Cherries. Unfortunately I didn't get a good shot of the table before everyone arrived. The color theme was Black, Silver and Pink and I made the tissue pom-poms from Martha Stewart to hang in the entryway and above the table, along with some pink battery operated Chinese lanterns I found at the Dollar Store.

Upstairs we had a photo booth with hats and beads for those who weren't appropriately dressed, and a Movie Theater showing "It" with Clara Bow, a silent movie that was pretty hilarious.

The Photo Booth turned out to be the smash of the evening I think, people had fun hamming it up, and I set the camera to Black and White and then printed copies for people to take home with them. I hung them up on the stairs to the door so people could just grab them on their way out. I hung two sheets from the ceiling (staple guns are so handy) to rope off the "Photo Booth" area, and set up the bookshelf normally in the hall with a mirror and the hats and beads so people could set the camera to a timer and take a self portrait. It worked great!

In the living room we set up a "Movie Theater" with a curtained entrance and popcorn!

Basically it was the best birthday party I've ever had! (That might be because I haven't had any major parties for a long, long time.)

And now some fun pictures from the night!

Lisa, the Flapper!

Ben and Jared sporting their Zoot Suits!

Holly and Denise show their "Jazz Hands"

Alison, Kristina and me

The Click Five Flappers!

Lora, Nicole, Lisa, Abby, Barbara and me

The Roomies

Trisha, Bree and Molly, sporting some beads

Putting on our best "Pioneer Face"

"Surprise!"

Me and Cyrus

John and Raphael raising their hats

Sorry for the picture overload!! There were many many more, which you can see on Facebook if you're on there!

Handmade Recycled Christmas!

Since Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year and I usually go all out, I kinda run out of steam by the time it gets to Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but I'm not usually at my house for the holiday and so I don't decorate very much for it. I love the buying presents part, but I kinda of slack on the rest of it (compared with the Halloween celebrations, anyway).

But not this year! There have been so many good ideas for cute holiday decorations that this year, I'm going all out on a Handmade Recycled Christmas! I've been even more inspired to use things I have around the house, rather than going and out and buying new ornaments. We're having a special Holiday Party that I'll be posting about soon, so I'm trying to get the house festive in time. Here's a few of the things I've started making and plan to finish asap:

Paper Bag Ornaments:

So easy and fun to make! I'm going to hang them over the table in our bay window. I made a few different sizes and may also make smaller ones to hang from the wreath on our front door to tie everything together. I used Trader Joe's paper bags like she used as well and I love the way they look, although I might make some smaller ones out of festive scrapbooking paper I have lying around.

Circular Ornaments:

I plan on making these a little more simple by just using my craft punch and then instead of alternating gluing sides, I'm just going to use a scrapbooking adhesive square to attach each one. Kind of like the ones here, only with more circles!

More fun handmade ornament ideas to try:
String Snowballs
Lots of ornaments to make


Shimmering Stacked Trees:

These are made from newspaper, but I'm also recycling my old magazines that I'm going to throw away.

Paper Evergreens:

I'm also making paper trees like these out of the same Trader Joe paper bags to match the ornaments!

Plastic Bag Pom-Poms:

I think these would be fun attached together to make a garland, I guess I'd just need a *lot* of plastic bags... Target here I come!

Cardboard wreath:

Now I wish I hadn't thrown out my Piperlime box! And here's another fun idea if I only had some fun bottle caps in festive colors.

Other great ideas:
Card Display
Advent Calendar
Fabric Garland


So, I'll be sure to post pics after our party and when everything's all done! Happy Holidays!

Halloween Picture Overload Time!

Well, the best holiday of the year has come and gone! It was crazy madness getting ready for it this year, but I have to say, I think it was the best party I've had! Definitely the most put together.

Let's start with the decorations shall we?

Upstairs in the hall we used this great stuff called "Scene Setters" to give the effect of peeling wallpaper and exposed and cracking walls. We had some great "spooky" art work laying around (my roommates sister had done two pieces as part of her thesis project for art school that worked perfectly!) and I "boarded up" my room with strips of cardboard.

(BTW, these photos were taken by Edwin, my iPhone, so sorry that they're not the best quality, my camera has died permanently. I used my old camera for the pics from Friday night (but unfortunately forgot to bring it out with us to the parties...).

The decorations in the kitchen. Pretty simple, just orange lights with the paper-and-clothespin bats I made last year.

The second floor was by far my favorite of the house! Here's a shot of how the stairs looked! We covered them with the plastic "scene setters" that look like rock so it gave the banisters that castle feel. This was taken the morning after so some of the decorations from the wall are missing... they didn't hold up too well with people bumping into them.

The front porch, complete with chains for a drawbridge and a giant spider web with fuzzy arachnid (not pictured from this angle). Also, that's a pumpkin my roommate carved with the Disney Castle on it. Fun!

The piece-de-resistance, the food table in the bay window. This picture is from right after the party, so it's a little destroyed, but you get the idea. I made the chandelier out of cardboard (inspired by Martha Stewarts) and the Enchanted Rose was our centerpiece. We served breadstick bones, poisoned apples and a sheet cake with princess toppers that said "Happily Never After" on it. We also had scary music from the Disney movies playing in the area to really set the mood.
Here's a better picture of it all set up:

One of my favorite purchases this year, my new Halloween wreath from Target! I tried to make something similar to this a couple years ago in SLC, but black roses are impossible to find and don't look so hot when you spray paint them... So I saw this and had to have it! (BTW, do you see the letter on the door knocker? Yep, it's a W. This house was made just for me!)

The view of the front of the house the next morning. This looked so cool at night, the bags were lit with candles and we had a fog machine, so the fog would rise out of the bushes! You can see Cinderella's ride out in front as well.

And now pics from the party!

Here are the princesses before the "Happily NEVER After", Pocahontas (Nicole), Jasmine (Barbara), Cinderella (me), Belle (Abby), Snow White (Lora), and Ariel (Lisa)!!

Yep, we dressed up as Dead Disney Princesses! So much fun and such a good idea... I think that's what made this party the best ever, a great theme that got everyone involved. We all had back stories too, which I thought were pretty hilarious and were fun to come up with!

Ariel was strangled by seaweed, Pocahontas was shot in the head with an arrow, Jasmine was mauled by her tiger, Belle was the victim of domestic violence (kinda sad, but what do you expect from a Beast?), Snow White (and her prince, pictured below, were killed with tiny pick axes by seven angry dwarfs) and Cinderella was bludgeoned in the head with her glass slipper by her jealous ugly step sister...

Poor Cindy! (that pic on the wall was another one done by Abby's sister, pretty perfect!)

Here we are fighting over the Prince in Shining Armor (Snow White's boyfriend).

Seriously so much fun... Lots of people came to the party, there were tons of great costumes and we had another fun impromptu dance party! In fact, Thursday night was even more fun that Friday night! So onto pictures of the Fun:

Two trees who wandered in...

Batman and Napoleon, an unlikely friendship.

Part of the crowd.

Amicus the Pirate!

Guess what these girls are? The Sun, Moon, Starts and Outer Darkness... So original!

More of the crowd.

Best couple costume: Scanner and Barcode! And they really worked! Very clever.

The cutest costumes there: our Bishop's twin grandchildren, Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane! When Abby first saw us, she was so excited that we were all princesses but as soon as she realized we were dead, she got this look on her face like, "What?!". She got over it soon though and was asking if she could be dead too! It was so funny!

Our Bishop and his wife dressed in their biker clothes (he's got a couple Harleys - our Bishop's cool like that).

Well, that's all for now! I hope everyone had a great Halloween! I'm kinda sad that I might not be able to do something like this next year... The Brits don't really celebrate Halloween in England! Maybe that will change once I'm living in the country!