Costuming Madness in Newport

It's been forever I know! I've been a bit busy, and also probably avoiding an announcement of the end of my last relationship a couple months ago. See how I'm just skimming over that? But I'm back to post about my fun weekend! It's official. I'm obsessed with costuming. But you probably already figured that out, didn't you? So that's what I've mostly been doing in my free time from work, church and my social life. And here are the most recent results!

I also posted these photos on my costume blog so sorry if you read both!

So my costuming group, The New England Costumers, went to Newport Rhode Island this weekend to tour the mansions in Bustle Era dresses/fashion! It was a lot of fun and the weather could not have been better for us. We got lucky as it had been threatening to rain the day before, but the morning of, it was clear skies and not too warm! Well, 75, but it could have been worse! We had a very leisurely, unhurried day, and I think we all enjoyed ourselves immensely! We toured the Breakers and Marble House and we're already making plans to go back so we can see a Fashion exhibit at Rosecliff, which was closed this weekend because of a flower show.

These "cottages" were amazing! And we spent the day dreaming up our own versions of our ideal mansions. We also were stopped repeatedly with requests for pictures or to just know why we were dressed up! It was a fun day!




Overlooking the sea.


Jenni, Gloria, Zarabeth and me (and Mike behind the camera...)






In front of the Chinese Tea House


Diet Coke toast with Jenni!


And the ubiquitous shoe shot. :)

More of my pictures can be found here.

If you want to read more about my outfit and how I made it, check out my costume blog!

The summer is just getting started, so hopefully I'll have more to post soon! But yes, a lot of it is going to be costume related! :)

Getting in the Halloween Spirit

My parents came for their visit!
We had a great time except that Dad got sick,
then I got sick.
Mom has an iron constitution and has thus far avoided it.

We went to NYC which was awesome!

Check out just one wall of ribbons at the amazing trim store
M&J Trimming.
Mom and I went a little crazy in here...

We had fun in Boston too.
on Thursday, their last day in town,
we went up to Salem and had fun exploring
Witch City.

One of the shops all decked out for the season.

Man Salem is crazy around Halloween.
I mean, it's crazy any time of the year but I had never been in October before.
They go all out here!

It really got me in the Halloween spirit,
so I was able to devote this entire 3 day weekend after M&D left
to working on my Halloween costume!
Here's a little peek at what I did this weekend.

For the rest you'll have to wait!

Thanks Mom and Dad for coming to visit,
I had such a fun time!
If anyone else wants to come, please do.
There's so much to see and do here, we only scratched the surface!

In the effort to be a better blogger...

Here's a random mind dump of things I've been up to lately:

1. Taking a whole Saturday to play at Six Flags New England
2. Feeling like I've taken a beating the day after said adventure
3. Signing a new lease for a new place with my roommates - we'll be moving at the end of August
4. Buying tickets to visit Utah at the end of August, which will make moving 5 days after getting back from said trip super fun
5. Enjoying Edwina, my new iPhone 3GS, whose name had to be changed since she was just too pretty to be a boy
6. Lamenting the fact that pretty much everyone (and everything) in my life is now female - where have all the men gone?
7. Volunteering as a costume assistant for Shakespeare on the Common and then feeling like a crazy person for continuing to email them since I haven't heard anything from them (but keeping my fingers crossed)
8. Watching Harry Potter 6 last Wed! And loving it!
9. Continuing to love my new car, Gemma, and the freedom it brings to go anywhere I want whenever I want
10. Getting some fabulous knock-off Coach bags at a great "purse market" in New Hampshire for super cheap (ie around 10 dollars a pop - oh yes I bought more than one)
11. Watching "So You Think You Can Dance" every Wed. and Thurs. and consequently wanting to start dancing again (thinking about taking a class)
12. Thinking about maybe teaching a bookbinding class at the "Cambridge Center for Adult Education" since I heard their teacher left
13. Reading lots of good books, especially the "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series, you should check it out
14. Getting no where on the quilting projects that I made goals to finish before the end of the summer and feeling guilty
15. Finally starting on the tan I vowed to get this summer - I no longer look like a vampire
16. Video chatting with the nieces and nephews - this is probably the best invention ever

That's it for now... And just because it's not a post without a picture:



Part of the group I went to the beach with 2 weekends ago which was the beginning of said tan!

Ready to "Flea"!

Sorry sorry for not posting sooner when I said I would!! For some reason I've been really busy, but hopefully my life will be settling down now. I had my last Jane Austen class last night. I'll have to do a little recap of it sometime. Overall it was fun, but not quite what I thought it was going to be. Anyway, another time. Also, letterpress is over for the summer, also a bummer, but that means more time for sewing and blogging, right? I just wanted to post and let you know that I'm still planning something fun so come back soon (hopefully by this weekend), plus I'm so excited because tomorrow I'm going to...

The Brimfield Antique Show!

Brimfield photo from rizzolo's flickr photostream

It's the largest Flea Market in the world! I'm seriously so excited. It's my first Flea Market trip ever, so it might be a little daunting to start with the biggest one ever, but I think it will be seriously fun!

Things I'll be keeping my eye out for:
*big type drawer
*wood type
*cake stand
*old dress form
*an old globe (like the ones above)
*bedside table
*an old quilt (if I can find a sweet deal)
*old glass jars and tea cups
*paintings and frames

The weather is supposed to be perfect (*keeping my fingers crossed*) so it should be a lovely time! My friend Barbara is going with me. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post all my exciting finds when I get back! I have a feeling I'm going to be tired tomorrow night!

Stay tuned!

Fun in the Big Apple

So I've been heading to NYC quite a bit in the last little while. Two weeks ago I met up with my Mom and her sisters for a couple days and two weeks before that my roommate and I spent a fun weekend there as well where in a chance of fate I got to see my Grandma, Aunt and cousin as well! So not only fun times in NYC, but fun FAMILY times!


Anyway, I haven't had any specific plans about what to do when there so it was fun to just play it by ear, which translated, usually means a lot of walking.


When I went with my roommate, our one main goal was to see a Show. I'd done my research before hand and our top choices were Wicked (which is sold out for the next trillion years), Mary Poppins, and Legally Blonde. Although Wicked is totally sold out, they do this cool lottery where 2 and a half hours before a show they have a drawing for 26 front row seats for only $26 a piece. If your name is drawn you can buy two tickets at that price. So of course we had to try both nights, but unfortunately we didn't get in... too bad, but luckily I saw Wicked on my first "real" trip to NYC (which should have been with my mom...). So, I'd found out about a discount code for Mary Poppins so we decided to try that out instead. We raced over to the theater and got great seats for only $45!! It was such a great show and so much fun! I highly recommend it to everyone. So that was the highlight of that trip, as well as having brunch with family of course. We ate again at V*ynl, the diner from the same "Wicked" trip. How fun to eat with family on the East Coast? I hadn't even known they were in NYC at the same time until the day we met up! It was so great to see them. Haven't uploaded those pictures yet, so I'll have to do that soon.


So two weeks later it was back to NY on the bus again, this time to see my Mom! Finally, Mom made it to NYC! I was so happy to be able to meet up with her and crash her sister-trip. My Mom and her sisters are such a hoot together, we had a ton of fun just laughing and seeing the city. The highlight for me of this trip was another chance to eat at Dinosaur BBQ, the delicious restaurant I visited on my first ever trip to the city. I'm glad that everyone else loved it as much as I did! So on to a few pictures!

With Mom and Aunt Paula around the NYU campus (my cousin Kelly went here).

Mom, Aunt Debbie and Aunt Paula on their way to see Wicked, while I headed back to Boston.

Me and Mom at lunch.

It was so much fun to be able to see family out here. I've been super homesick lately. Who'd have guessed I'd ever miss Utah and the West so much? So it was a much needed dose of family.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled Halloween coverage. Coming soon, more updates on decorations and costumes!

England Trip Part 3 - West Dean

Ok, so here's the last bit! West Dean College!

Wow, is all I can say. This place is Beautiful! I mean check out the front door!

So I got here on Monday night and didn't see anyone really at that point, but the next morning when I went in to breakfast I met Lili, who is my email friend at the school. It's kind of funny actually, her brother is in my ward in Boston and we've been emailing each other for the last year and half because she was applying for a job at Harvard, plus she went to BYU, knows everyone I know, and so it's just funny that this was the first time we'd actually met in person! She is really lovely, I wish I'd gotten a picture with her, oh well!

After breakfast (which was delicious by the way, all the food there was, they have meals "cafeteria style") I met up with the instructor of the book course for my Practical Test and Interview. He gave me a tour of the facility and set me to work on making some things. It went well, in fact I wasn't nervous at all, until they started asking me questions in the interview and portfolio part... But overall I think it went well.

This took pretty much all day, but I was done at 4 and after having a tour of the accommodations and talk about financing options, I went to bother Lili a bit in her room. She was trying to finish a huge research paper, so I tried not to distract her for too long. Luckily though, she had an adaptor that I could use to recharge my camera battery, so yay! Pictures! After dinner she took me on a lovely walk through the Arboretum where most of the pictures were taken...

A view of the school from the top of a nearby hill.

The beautiful green fields next to the school (these don't really do it justice... it was raining most of Monday and Tuesday)

Lambies!! All the lambs here have twins because they are artificially inseminated. Baby lambs are the cutest!

These are fields of white daisies. Pretty!

Coming back to the school (we did a big loop), isn't it just so picturesque?

This is the hallway on the way to my room in the main house! Crazy! There are like hundred-year-old tapestries hanging on the walls, antique marble pillars, urns, armor and dead animal heads all over the school!

The view from my window in my room, showing the back-side garden. You can see a quaint little cottage behind the shrub wall there...

A better view of the cottage.

Another view of the front of the school.

So anyway! That is pretty much the end of my trip! I went to bed on Tuesday, got up early Wednesday morning for breakfast and then drove back up to the airport. My plane left in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time to return the car and do a bit of airport shopping before it was back to Boston, this time through Toronto!

All in all, it was an amazing trip! I'm so glad I was able to go! I'm still not sure what to do about school, in fact I'm almost more confused than I was before, but I'm glad I got a feel for both of them, and that I was able to meet up with some friends! It was so great to be back in England after 7 years. It's still the same as I remembered, which I'm glad of, and I really hope that I'll be back again very soon!

Next up are some pictures of what I've been up to since getting back. Yes, my life never stops.... Seriously though, it's usually really boring, but maybe since it's summer it's getting a little more exciting. Anyway, I'll be sure to be better about posting what I'm up to this summer, so keep checking back!

England Trip Part 2 - Hampshire and Jane Austen's House

So, to continue the journey, I got up bright and early on Monday morning to pick up my rental car at the airport. That's right! I drove in England! On the right hand side of the car! On the left side of the road! And I lived to tell the tale! It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I got used to it pretty quickly.

Anyway, after a short hiccup at the rental desk I was off in a cute little sliver VW hatchback. It was an automatic, so luckily I didn't have to worry about anything other than getting used to driving "backwards". I actually didn't have a map (maybe a bad idea and I found out later that the rental company had one I could have borrowed, why they didn't tell me that at the time...) but I had printed directions from Google which worked just fine. I headed first to... Jane Austen's House!

Oh man, I wish I had someone there to share the excitement with, but at the same time it was great to be able to go through at my own pace. I was really lucky because I love fashion and costuming from this time and they were having an exhibit throughout the museum of dresses from the new adaptation of Sense & Sensibility that just aired on Masterpiece (which you should all watch, because although it's not as great as the Emma Thompson version, is still a nice long adaptation).

So onto the pictures!

This dress was in the entrance to the museum. Elinor Dashwood wears it throughout the movie. So fun to see it up close!

This is Jane Austen's writing desk. It's in the same place it was in her lifetime. In the breakfast room under the window. It's actually really small and I can't imagine her sitting and writing six novels here!

This was in the same room as the desk and was worn by Fanny Dashwood, the evil step-sister-in-law, in the movie. It's accordingly a "finer" dress.

One of my favorite dresses, worn by Marianne Dashwood, this was upstairs in Jane and Cassandra's room, which was actually quite small!

I'm pretty sure this was another one of Elinor's dresses.

I believe this was an original copy (couldn't be sure as it was in the back of case) of one of JA's first "novels", "Love and Friendship". The illustrations were done by her sister. I actually ended up talking the with curator of the museum for some time about who they have doing conservation work on their objects because there were many, like this one, that I wanted to cradle like a little baby and fix myself! I got a contact and might be able to do some work for them when I get over there...

This is an actual quilt made by Jane, her mother and sister. It's actually so amazing and this picture doesn't do it justice! Can you imagine piecing all these together by hand?!

This was worn by Edward Ferras in the movie... swoon... man, I love Regency Men!

This is JA's donkey cart. At the end of her life she was very sick and it was hard for her to move around, so she would get out in this little cart which was pulled by a donkey.

A view of the pump and behind it the bake house where the bread was made.

A view of the entrance gate on the side of the house.

Jane Austen's House!

After getting my fill of her gardens and house I went on to Winchester where she died and was buried. There's a memorial to her in Winchester Cathedral. This is the only place I actually got lost. The directions I had were hard to follow as they don't like to post the name of roads in England (so it seems), have a million one way streets and the directions only told me to stay on roads for about 200 yards before I was supposed to make another turn! I was just going to park and find my way on foot, but I was out of cash and so I got in a catch-22, I couldn't park without cash, but I couldn't stop to get cash without parking! So eventually I stopped at a petrol station and a really nice bloke (see I'm picking up the lingo already!) helped me find an ATM and gave me directions to the cathedral, so eventually I made it! I wish I had more time to explore this quaint little city. It had some fun shops on the High Street too. I ate lunch then made my way to the Cathedral for pictures.

The entrance to Winchester Cathedral. There has actually been a church on this site since like the late 1100's, can you believe it?

This is the stone in the floor that marks Jane Austen's death. It was placed here by her family. It actually doesn't mention anything about her being a writer.

This plaque was placed here later above the stone on the floor and refers to her writing. There was also a stained glass window above it which also commemorate her as a writer.

Unfortunately after this the battery on my camera died so I didn't get any pictures of the rest of my adventures on Monday. But after walking around the church a bit more I decided I wanted to try to get to Brighton before going to the school. I figured I had the car, why not take advantage of it! Brighton was about a two hour drive from Winchester so I didn't spend any more time in the town and just took off on the motorway. I kept thinking the whole drive down there "But I want to go to Brighton!", like how Lydia Bennet says it in the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice! Fun times.

Again, I didn't have a map, and although I knew where it was, I hadn't printed any directions from Winchester to Brighton, so I just decided to wing it by following signs on the motorways! It turned out fine and I made it there in no time at all!

When I got to Brighton I found a parking garage and followed signs to the Royal Pavilion. Since it was a bank holiday Brighton seemed pretty busy! There were tons of people out walking around, and while this was fun, I felt a little conspicuous walking around by myself. So I did the tour of the Royal Pavilion and then walked down along the Victorian Boardwalk, which has an amusement park on it. Again, I didn't linger long at many things, but bought some cotton candy (or floss as they call it) and played one of the booth games they had where you compete against a lot of other people. It was pretty fun!

The Royal Pavilion (this picture was not taken by me, my camera had broken but I wanted you to see what it looked like). This is one amazing place!

Again, not my picture (obviously) but this is a shot of Brighton Pier from the air. It's a pretty big place!

From the Beach. The white building had a huge arcade inside.

I decided I'd get some dinner before driving to the school, so I walked around The Lanes, which are little alleyways that have been turned into a shopping district, and found a little Italian restaurant that didn't look too uncomfortable for sitting by myself.

After dinner I drove back along the coastal road to West Dean and was astonished when passing this castle, which I found out later was Arundel Castle! Wish I'd had time to stop!!

So amazing! I could see this off in the distance sitting above a little village and I can't wait to go back and explore more!

Well, that brings me to the end of that leg of the journey. Next up, West Dean! I made it in at about 8:30 that night and went right to sleep in my beautiful old room!

Birthday's are the best...

And so are families! I came home today to a birthday package from my sister. Check out how cute!


What a great idea! It's a cupcake in a jar! My sister is a mini-Martha. She even designed and printed the labels - so amazing! I really have the best family.

By the way, the name I've chosen for my new BF is Edwin. Edwin Apple. Isn't that a great name? I thought so. It was between that or Eliott, which is a name I've always loved, but Edwin won out in the end, since I think there's not much chance of someone thinking I'm talking about a real person when I refer to Edwin. And why did I choose a boy name for my iPhone? Well, firstly I think it was instinctive, but also because he's super high-tech and I think the color black is more frequently associated with boys than girls. Don't get me wrong, I love the color of Edwin, but most of the Mac gear I like is white... just saying. So, if in the future I refer to Edwin, you'll now know who I mean.

Also, here's a look at what I was up to this last weekend for President's Day! We went and visited our friend Gina in the Cape again, but this time we got to see a little more. We went to Provincetown and had fun checking out a dead tourist town. It was freezing cold, as you'll see from the pics, but we saw the beach, had some yummy fish sandwiches for lunch and then headed to a really great candy store on our way home!! Just my kind of day. Well, except for the cold.

Brittney, Gina and me

My tasty lunch

These boys are funny... Ben & Bryce showing off their "assets" in front of the Lobster Trap Tree

Then they wanted one of the girls

Last night was the second meeting of BOB, the book club created with my co-workers. BOB stand for Books On Books Book Club. We only read books about books or involving books in some way, and since we all work at a Library it's pretty perfect. Last month we read "The Book Theif" and then last night's meeting was about "Inkheart" which is a series about a bookbinder (appropriate, right?) and his daughter, and their adventures when characters get "read" to life out of books. Coming up we're reading "The Historian" and then "The Eyre Affair" which I'm really excited about. Our only rules are that 1. the books have to be fiction, 2. they have to be available in paperback and 3. they have to be about books in some way! It's a really fun idea and I'm getting introduced to a lot of new books. We meet at a restaurant in Harvard Square and just have a grand time. Anyway, I'm going to be setting up a blog for the group, with swag, so you'll be able to see what we're doing, check it out: www.booksonbooks.blogspot.com

And so tomorrow I'm getting a group together for a Birthday dinner at my favorite restaurant, Chili's and then we're going to go bowling! I know it sounds weird to say Chili's is my favorite place to eat, but since moving to Boston I've really only gotten to go about once or twice a year, so it's become a treat. My favorite thing there is their Chicken Enchilada Soup and last year they didn't have it, so I'm hoping that doesn't happen this year. My other favorite, which I totally plan on having is their Molten Chocolate Cake.... mmmmm... so delicious! Should be fun and I'll post pics for sure.