Vanity

I do this alot. Just sit and take pictures. It's silly, but whatever. haha. This was Halloween night - the lighting was good and I can't resist taking photos when I'm wearing fake eyelashes.

Costumes (Part I of III)

So this is just the telling part of the costume story. Making of photos as well as finished product photos are to follow.

Megan mentioned she wanted to be something different and imaginative this year. I was just going to be a snowflake again, but I love Halloween too much to wear the same costume two years in a row. So Megan got me thinking. Of course I had some bad ideas ("I know, we could be FEELINGS!") but after I slept on it I came up with three options.

The Fates (ala Greek times minus the oldness and sharing of one eyeball)
The Three Blind Mice (more recognizable as a group, less fun dressing up opportunity)
Three Witches (ala Shakespeare)

We (Megan, Whitney and I) all really liked the Fates idea because it meant we would have some fun and different costumes and accessories. We get to have fun with the dresses, jewelry, makeup and hair.

So I drew up a sketch giving each of us a different greek-style dress with details to tie us together. We went to DI (a very successful trip in fact) and found three black dresses (it was black or white and they didn't have white - we figured the black was more appropriate considering we were the Fates) to use as a base for the costumes. I didn't really know what I was going to do, but I knew we wanted to remain modest and comfortable and not have to worry about shifting and such. Then we bought black sheets and I spent the day draping the sheets and pinning the dresses so we didn't look like we were actually wearing sheets.

Let's take a moment here to realize that this is not an easy task. At all. Sheets have a lot of fabric to deal with and I am in no way a professional (I just thought, "It doesn't look that difficult, I could totally make a toga" and then we did some trial and error). Anyway, the dresses all came out looking great. Each dress has a different style (all pretty accurate with my initial sketch) and a different neckline and I think the styles are flattering for the person wearing them. It probably helped that I just made Whitney and Megan stand there while I pinned and sewed (that's right, they are even all hand sewn in the sloppiest way imagineable) the dresses together and tried to make them still look like they had a figure. I made mine the simplest design since I couldn't do the draping on myself and it's turned out quite nice as well. I still have a bit to sew on that one.

Last night, Megan and I went to Michaels and bought the stuff we needed to make gold jewelry. Different earrings for each of us, a few necklaces for Megan and the props we needed for each of our roles. The Fates each have a different job. One holds the thread of life, another spins it on a spinning wheel and the third cuts the thread when a person's fate is decided (think Hercules).

So we found some sparkly thread for Megan to carry, some cheapo scissors for me and we fashioned a spinning wheel kind of thing for Whitney. The scissors and spinning wheel were spray painted gold and we will wear them around our necks.

Bascially, Megan and I are geniuses because honestly, where does one find a miniature spinning wheel nowadays? So we found a cheap wooden bracelet, used gold ribbon and duct tape to make spokes for a wheel then attached a piece of pointed dowel rod to make a spindle. It looks a little like a snail or a freak fishing pole, but also a little like a spinning wheel so good enough for me.

Anyway, there's the update there. I will be posting photos soon.

Everybody's naked sometimes.

I'm tempted to change the title of my blog to that little gem of wisdom. Remember it people. Most people pay money for that kind of advice.

In other news, I'm all moved into my apartment. "All moved in" meaning all of my crap is shoved into my new room and now I just have to get it unpacked and organized. Any other time, I would have turned into Lindsey the Unpacking Hermit and organized the heck out of my room, but there were more important tasks at hand this weekend.

First, there were several things I needed in order to unpack/live. The rest of my junk, for example, which was still at Heidi's house. Also, bathroom necessities, shelves, a lamp or two, trash bins, and the like. So Saturday was spent shopping with my Krilifis. Target and Ikea were the places to go based on my initial internet research. I am trying to not spend a lot of money (since I have very little) and checking out items and prices before hand helped me a lot when I was at the store. I bought mostly what I needed (the luxury items maybe added up to $20) and left behind the things that could wait until later. Ikea supplied me with a few dishes (two giant round yellow plates and two green bowls), a 3 pack of pans for $10, a bath rug for $2, a bedside lamp, a bookshelf for $25 (score! by far the best bang for my buck, although I had to settle for white), two trash bins (one for bedroom, one for bath), and a few select picture frames (I can't live much longer without photos of the kiddos plastered all over my room - I'm in severe withdrawal).

So after the shopping and fetching was complete I headed back to my apartment to empty my car. This time I was without help. That means climbing the stairs 8 or so times (not counting the 5 trips I made at Heidi's). I live on the third floor. I just moved from Maryland. My meager little weak sea-level lungs permitted me two trips every hour or so. I just took my time and unpacked while my lungs desperately tried to gather enough air for the next trip. Dri (my new roommate) graciously helped me and cut out two additional trips. I am hoping it doesn't take much longer to acclimate to the elevation - certainly those stairs should help build up my lungs. So once everything was in my room I promptly left it all behind and went to have some fun with Megan and Whitney.

Megan had some friends over and we started watching Willow. When Whitney (who will now be referred to as Whitley because of a reason I'm sure I'll explain at some point) got home from her date, the two of us made a late night Wal-mart run for Halloween costume supplies. I won't go into much detail regarding our costumes until I have all the pictures to post with them, but they are pretty much amazing. It's a group costume and I spent all day after church (seriously, 1pm to 11:30pm) hand crafting our costumes. I still have mine to finish, but Whitley and Megan's are complete except for details. I'm kind of amazed and proud of myself because I did all the sewing by hand. It's in no way professional, but everything will stay together and you can't see the stitching. Also, much of it was done while Megan and Whitney were wearing the costumes. That's right, I just sewed it all while they stood there quite patiently. I can't wait for the finished products to be captured on film. Stay tuned.

While all this sewing and craftiness was going on, Megan and I continued our Halloween themed movie watching month. We've carefully gathered all the movies that have the least bit to do with the supernatural, fantasy, thriller or horror genres for our veiwing pleasure. I owned a lot that fit into these categories which surprised me, I didn't realize I had to many that were appropriate for October. So far we've watched Corpse Bride (for obvious reasons), The Stepford Wives (killer robot/feminist thriller from the 70s)and Truly Madly Deeply (ghost boyfriend/romantic comedy?). Just yesterday we watched Signs (Aliens), The Brothers Grimm (disappearing children and an enchanted evil witch in a tower) and 1408 (John Cusack in a haunted evil hotel room). We have plenty more on our list (including but not limited to What Lies Beneath, Red Eye, Nightmare Before Christmas and Little Shop of Horrors). I'm thinking we need to throw in a viewing of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (for sake of tradition), Wait Until Dark, The Fall (Lee Pace) and maybe even Edward Scissorhands. I realize that is a lot of movie watching, but you know, I have my priorities.

So there you have it. My room is a mess, but it's mine so that's happy. I will get it organized this week and sleep peacefully knowing I'm not a foot away from someone else and I have my own bathroom. Tonight is more costume making and planning and I'm sure another creepy movie viewing.