The Ariel Costume

So, last Tuesday, Josh came over to finish up some stuff on his Once Upon A Time-Hook costume that ended up looking like this:

We added the red satin panels, trim, and buttons to an old vest and gave the jacket some cuffs, buttons, and collar patches.

Since we were doing this for his & Andrew's Halloween party taking place that Saturday, Josh asked me if I knew what I'd be dressing up as.  I gave him a hesitant but thoughtful sigh and said, "No clue."

Matthew and I had kicked around a handful of ideas, but a decision hadn't been made.

Since he was out of town and had everything he needed for his costume options, I quickly made a decision a little later that night after remembering this awesome mermaid scale fabric I'd seen at Joann the other day.  I did up a quick sketch and got my measurements and ordered the corset & gloves from Amazon.  The corset looked like this before:

Which was too goth for Ariel...so when it came in on Thursday, I took all the black lace off and covered the remaining black trim with this rad silver trim and relaced the back with a metallic silver ribbon.

The tail skirt was an interesting experiment.  I wasn't working off a pattern or anything and the scale fabric was stretchy and my first attempt at a hem turned out awful because I'd used the wrong stitch setting on the machine.  My side seams are where I figured shit out and it was smoother sailing.

Tulle is a bitch.  I say that lovingly because it made excellent fins and my "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" way of getting things done was totally on track, but it's not my favorite fabric to work with.  I did a loose hand-stitch along the top to gather and then bunched that shit up before I ran it through the sewing machine.

Also, it was glittery and the entire house still looks like a unicorn farted up a storm.  The girl at Joann gave me the awesome advice of spraying it down with hairspray. That helped some but my vacuum cleaner has an interesting layer of mermaid fin glitter mixed with cat litter.

To hide the stitching where the fin meets the tail, I trimmed it with a glittery green ribbon.

Can I just tell you how much I love Liquid Stitch?  That stuff is amazing.*

Ariel needed accessories so I dug around the house and found a dinglehopper (plastic fork painted with silver glitter) for my hair, a thingamabob pendant (old corkscrew painted up and on plastic pearl beads), and a snarfblatt (belt buckle pipe I wore on an arm strap).

When I finished it on Friday, everything looked like this:

When I wore it on Saturday, I looked like this:

And for the majority of the night, ran around yelling "I'M A MERMAID!!"

______________________________

* Josh, can I get an Amen?

YouTubesday!! Tommy Edison!!

For the past year, here's my favorite blind guy on YouTube: 

He has this channel called Blind Film Critic.

That's where you can find him on Twitter and Instagram as well.

And there's also Tommy Edison XP where he talks about his experiences, takes on challenges, and answers questions from the comments section.

The guy is fuckin' adorable and he gives a super interesting perspective on life from his point of view (haha...view).

He held an AMA on Reddit last week that I'd mentioned on Facebook and as happy as I was that one of my questions got answered, it would've been nice if it hadn't been the douchey one that was 3rd in line on this list:

But hey, at least it was answered & didn't surprise anyone at all.

YAY, small victories!!

Anyway, check him out & his producer buddy, Ben Churchill - they're awesome and I'd like to give them hugs & buy them a beer someday.

Reptiles Live Among Us -or- A Very Special Episode of YouTubesday

Matthew and I used to watch Morning Joe before we gave up The Cable and before Mika B. got on my fucking nerves.*  Andrew Sorkin would occasionally show up and I'd always yell "AAAAHHHHH!!! LOOK AT HIS LIZARD EYE!!"

That happened years ago and just this week, for whatever reason, I stumbled across this crazy ass video:


And I started reading the comments and was fascinated so I clicked on this video:


And I started reading those comments and clicking on more videos with weird music and crazy people and trolls going nuts in comments sections.
Apparently Rihanna's one, too.  Which makes sense.  I mean, how else can you explain Chris Brown??
I bet there will be video of Miley Cyrus showing up soon enough.
Of course I ran over to wiki Reptilian Shape Shifters and I'm learning all about David Icke.
And now I wanna get these.
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*yes, there was actually a time when she got some cool points from me.

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*UPDATE!!* Here's some VICE for you, too!!

Hey Look! It's still Tuesday!

That means I can do a quick YouTubesday* because I just found Mary Doodles today, and Callie Moore, who I've been following for a few years, has an indiegogo for a new album.  So, it's a girlie YouTubesday.  And if I'm going girlie and youtubey, I can't not mention Nataly Dawn.







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*not to say I couldn't just post this tomorrow and call it Websday, but I'd like to keep it youtube specific, if I may.  and Youdnesday just doesn't make sense.

TED Talks Tuesday

I watched these while at the gym this a.m.  Thought I'd share.

The Never-Ending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part 1

Monday Day 1 - Nice leisurely trip to the gym to burn off some of the weekend after being hungover and sleeping almost all day Sunday.  While I was there, Trainer Brian was there and we caught up on things.  He looks like a Beatle now.  Hadn't seen him in months...hair's all grown out and he's rockin' an interesting mustache configuration.  Got home and cleaned up and Willie stopped by to give me some shit about something and brought up Dave & Buster's.  So we went.  And proceeded to get a bit of lunch and a little drunk and a lot excited over some pretty silly games....  Like, video lawn darts (my shit) and a Pirates game we fuckin' pwned through all 3 acts, and a Spaceballs game that was a big ticketer that was basically just a rubber ball version of Plinko from Price Is Right (also my shit).  We had some >3,000 tickets and went crazy snatching up cheap toys & candy from the winner's shop.
The next morning I would realize that I'd left my check card at the bar.

Tuesday Day 2 - The night before there were talks of waterpark action.  Aquatica or Typhoon Lagoon?  Typhoon won out because I used to work there and hadn't been since.  13yrs?  So we stopped by Dave & Buster's to grab my check card and cruised out to Typhoon.  After a quick stop by the bar, The Crush'n'Gusher made me dirty giggle and we grabbed a dual tube to jump on the Bananas slide first.  Got a workout up those stairs and jumped in to immediately start screaming down the slippery slopes and yell "SHIT" on turns when I thought we'd flip over.  Zippy bags full of cards were lost & found more than once.  Mayday Falls flipped me backwards.  Gangplank was shorter than I remember and still pretty lame.  Keelhaul was fun and I scraped my foot on the bottom of the Creek in the same spot Pannacakes pool attacked me from the weekend.  The water seemed low.  Terry made green crazy shots. They were tasty.
When I got home, Matthew and I were supposed to dance.  After another couple of jager shots, I ended up passing out in the car on the way to dance.
Being the Awesome he is, he went in to check out the situation (explaining that I was "not feeling well") for a solo dance with Instructor Brian's instructor lady friend, Lindsay but she was busy, so he rescheduled us and had a cider at the bar we frequent next to our dance studio.

Ze Frank

I dig this guy.

YouTubesday - DamnItsGood808

Just Because

These trees make me want to turn our house into Whoville.

YouTubesday - Onision

Public Service Announcement.



Reminds me of my prom date (story for another time).

YouTubesday - Boonehams

Also check out Boonehams' Inappropriate Soundtracks.  Those are quite good fun.

YouTubesday - LaurenOC12

She's got one of those haunting voices.

YouTubesday - swanoffinland

You love him.

YouTubesday - HouseholdHacker

YAY!!

YouTubesday - RhettandLink

I love these guys.

YouTubesday - brazosdazos

YouTubesday - Guldies (bonus)

This morning's was too short.

YouTubesday - Guldies

Its short but sums up my mood this week.

YouTubesday - nicepeter

This guy gets lots of views and is pretty damn funny.  Here are two (sort of) recent faves:

Sunday Confession on Tuesday - 4th Class Review

I was cranky before arriving at class last week.  Dayjob was annoying me and then I got stuck in traffic after stopping for gas.
I got there about 10mins late and everyone was already set up and working on that October piece.
Sally, the teacher, had the commission she'd mentioned working on, on display.  You can see it down there on the right.  The dogs.  She likes painting people's pets.

We worked on "October" for a bit after going through "toning" a canvas.....which is basically your primer coat that you build from.

Here's what my "October Barf" looks like after the 4th class:

Everyone was so tired of this one and vocally ready to move on.  My little red-roofed house looks like it needs stick figures outside of it.

The more we work on it, the more I kinda like it.  I'm just gonna keep adding to it and will keep you posted & show it again when I think its done.

In maybe a year, at this rate.

While this has helped to give me a new appreciation, landscapes aren't really my thing.  

Luckily, for me....after our toning dried, we got to work on our base lines for this VanGogh:

Yay.  More landscapes.

Pretty sure everyone will get tired of doing this one, too.  Although, we get to play with heavy medium and will be gloppin' that shit up.

We're all such good students.  Look at us, paying attention and crap.

Here's what my garbage looks like so far:

Kinda lookin' forward to layin' it on thick and smearing that shit around.  Stay tuned.