What's A Princess?

It doesn't matter how many new and different sewing projects I delve into, I learn something new every time, and I love that about sewing. Kelly and I are finally going to be Disney Princesses for Halloween. I say finally because I've had my fabric to make a Snow White costume since probably some time in the late 90's! And I've been holding on to an awesome out-of-print (OOP) Cinderella pattern that I've been dying to make for Kelly for almost as long. Our costumes aren't a secret this year. At least I don't think... (sorry Smelly!)

Anyway, in the process of starting my Snow White costume I have learned SO MUCH about fitting a formal dress to make an ordinary chick look like a princess. I've taken our Halloween costume construction as an opportunity to practice some new techniques I've been reading about for making formal dresses, specifically bridal couture. Now, in now way can I call myself a couturier, but I love reading about couture techniques and trying to learn some of them. It's amazing what a difference a little extra hand stitching and careful planning can do for a garment.

For a couple months I've been kinda thinking about my game plan for the construction of my wedding dress. I've read through lots of blogs, and looked through some wedding gown forums on pattern review. It seems that everyone is using Susan Khalje's book "Bridal Couture", so I had to buy it. I also bought a book by Susan Andriks about making the wedding dress of your dreams (I don't remember the actual title). This pair of books is all anyone needs to make beautiful formal gowns. They're both full of information, and each fills in any gaps the other may have left open.

I was able to use some techniques I learned from each book already in fitting my Snow White dress. I also learned a new interlining/corsellette method, and it all went together flawlessly!

I've heard style and fashion gurus make statements about how a well fitting garment makes any woman look beautiful, but I always thought "yeah, everyone but me". Yes, it's true, Stacy and Clinton do know what they're talking about. As soon as I got the bodice all boned up and lined I was able to just hold it up to myself and see the princess shape! AMAZING!

Now I can't wait to get started on Kelly's, and I feel totally confident that I'll be able to put together a gorgeous wedding dress for myself (even though I don't have a pattern).

Also, I found this blog that I thought was really interesting: Drawing Women

Costume Patterns

Every single one of my costume patterns are now in a slide show. Just go to my Costume Patterns page.

Halloween At BigLots

I love BigLots this time of year. It's a wonderland of creepy low-priced Halloween props and decorations. I think this bride and groom are especially cool. It's so nice to see the undead settle down and tie the knot. There are also some maniacal clowns and witches that are similar to the bride and groom which are also pretty cool. I noticed stacks of boxes with the magical orange Jack-O-Lantern stamp blocking some of the aisles in the store, so I'm sure as the actual holiday gets closer, there will be even more terrible treasures for me to drool over. But I was so excited about the two aisles of goodies that have been put on display, I had to snap a couple crappy cell phone pictures.

The aisle where the bride and groom are, is really the one that catches your attention, but the other aisle of outdoor lights and other electronic-type gadgets shouldn't be ignored. This year they have a motion activated thunder and lightning strobe light set. Basically when it's activated it makes pretty high quality thunder sound effects and a series of pretty good little strobe lights make the lightning effect. I think it would be perfect for lighting up your front door for the trick-or-treaters (TOTs). I might consider buying them, but for today I just pressed the "try-me" button a couple times. There are the stupid el cheapo lighted lawn stakes, that aren't cool-looking or creepy in any way, and the pre-carved lighted foam pumpkins that you can never have too many of. But another new decoration I was kinda interested in was the creepy signs. There is one that says "The Witch is In", and the "Bats Motel" which just looks like you forgot the "e", and then there are quite a few motion activated signs. My favorite is "The Blood Cafe", it looks all bloody and dirty.

I really could just spend my entire paycheck on Halloween stuff, but today I only bought the old standby 5 foot Glow-In-The-Dark blowmold skeleton. I'll pop of his skull and use the rest of him for the talking tree face/skull project I started a couple months ago. The anatomically correct skull model in no way matches the cheap blowmold plastic skeleton, but I figure I should be able to make them match each other a little better with some paint.

"I'll Be A June Bride"

 

It's official!

We're engaged!

 

My sweet, sweet Michael proposed in the most memorable way yesterday. He asked me to marry him with orange cupcakes. It was very sweet and cute. Of course I said yes, and I can't wait to be his wife.

 

I love him with all my heart, and I can't believe how lucky I am. Michael is everything I could ever want and more in a man.

 

 

Is It Halloween Yet?

My wonderful lovely and talented Michael Bacon has been staying up all hours of the night to get our new kick-ass Halloween Party Website up and running. There's even some original MB artwork on the site!

All the pictures from the parties past have been uploaded including 2007, and he added a really cool new guest-list feature. Party people can just click on the "get on the guest-list" link from the home page and send me an email requesting a place on the guest-list! Pretty cool, huh? Keep checking back as more fun stuff is added to the website as we get closer to the party.

Thank You Michael Bacon!!

 

 

Halloween party planning has begun. I've been working on my collection of bottles for my Witch's Kitchen. I got the idea from AranaMuerta. I can only hope my Witch's Kitchen will look as cool. I'm planning to transform our everyday white tile kitchen into a creepy witch's lair. Also the skull/christmas tree face merger has begun. But, It's being held up while I try to locate a suitable skeleton. I don't want to continue with the talking head until it has a body.

Elliott's Monkey

Jess and Dex and Elliot are back home!!

My mom had a little family get-together two weekends ago, and the Conrads were coming and bringing Jess and Elliot. I was so excited to see them because they had just moved back home after living in North Carolina for a little over a year. Elliot really is such a happy baby and I love to get to spend time with him and Jess. I wanted to make something other than clothes for Mr. E, so I found Simplicity 5310. They're neck pillows for older kids, but I thought Elliot could use it to snuggle with while he's playing on the floor. I happened to have some swirly orange polar fleece in my stash and some bright yellow craft felt squares. I always have fiberfill and I had safety eyes leftover from some teddy bears I made as Christmas gifts.

Assembling the monkey was pretty simple just a lot of little dart seams. The hardest part for me was making the ears round. Making an outside curve on a little tiny piece of polar fleece at 4am just wasn't as simple as you would think. But the monkey turned out really cute, and I was excited to give it to Elliot. He was much more interested in Mama Sheila's green heart-shaped sun glasses than his monkey, but I'm sure he'll cuddle with it soon.

The best part of this pattern is the nose. All the animals from this pattern have the same basic nose pattern piece. The contrast fabric is doubled and folded over the make real nostrils. This is so great because you can actually put your finger up the nose!

A Whole Year!

One year ago I met the greatest guy in the whole world. We went to a Padre game and then to dinner at Red Lobster. The next day I went all the way to his house in Escondido and we watched Blade and had ice cream in rainbow cones. We got together again the next day and saw Pirates 3. Pretty much that was it. We haven't spent a day apart since then.

Michael is so kind and generous. He's the most talented artist, musician, & creator of all things cool that I've ever known. He even loves kitties, which is good because we have 4 of them. My family and friends all love him, and you all know how important that is to me. All the time we've spent together the past year has been so wonderful, and I'm such a happy girl.

Today we took it easy. We had breakfast in bed for the second Sunday in a row (just cereal this time). Then eventually we made it out of the house and went to the beach. Oceanside is about 20 minutes from our house, but for some reason I always feel like we live really close to the beach. Maybe because I'm used to places like Coronado and Mission Beach where a trip to the beach is a major ordeal. Oceanside is just at the end of the 78, and there is always easy street parking. We actually went yesterday too, and parking was a tad bit crowded but we still found a spot in the shade just a short walk from the beach. Lots of people go to the beach, but it's a real laid back crowd. People are nice and I think a couple strangers even smiled at us. Nothing like the crazy hardcore locals at Mission.

Today we were able to park in the shade again. I didn't bring my camera but I snapped a couple silly little cellphone pictures. There was a hibiscus bush in bloom next to the car in a really pretty pink. Normally I could care less about hibiscus. But this one was exceptionally pretty and it was such a gorgeous day I took a picture. We also saw a chic pulling a wagon with a huge iguana in it. I was too excited about seeing such a giant lizard hanging out at the beach I forgot to snap a picture. She said he's ten years old and never tries to run away just as he jumped out of the wagon to munch on some grass. Pretty cool.

It was perfect beach weather today. The sky was bright blue and the water was just refreshing enough to want to stay and play in the waves for a while. We got tossed around by the waves and got piles of sand in our bathing suits. Michael loves to play in the waves. It's so great, he never stops smiling and giggles like a little kid the whole time. I love it. Since both of us are so white we almost glow, we could only take so much time in the sun. So we came back home and rinsed all the sand and seawater off, then took a little nap. We're planning on going to dinner at Red Lobster like we did on our first date. :)