Sunday, November 10, 2013

Steampunk for Charity!

So over to the Visual Arts Collective for socialization, fortune telling, an auction, a DJ, and dancing!
It was hard to shoot in this space, but I captured a few things, including Travis's Beantown top hat.
I wish I took a better pic of the back of Sue's hair, it was quite fancy.
Psychic Kevin.
My husband really dug this art installation, so photographed we lovely harlots flanking it.
I'm unsure why Beantown is in this pic...
But missing from this one. The event ended up raising $57,000 for a great family charity in town. Happy steampunk!

Steampunk Preparty

The day of the event we received a special delivery in the mail! So fancy!
Check out the fancy details on these drink tickets!
The final product!
I was lucky to have the handsomest date at the event.
We both liked steampunk a lot.
I didn't take a lot of great pix of my hair or my wee top hat fascinator, but this do was really easy to put together and to wear. The hat had tiny clips that made the hat stay tightly affixed. $3 in the "new" section of the thrift store.
Then this one showed up! With her fancy ringlets that I covet...
And these steampunkified boots!
Here's a closer look at those fancy goggles. And apparently a paper towel I couldn't bother to move for my photo shoot.
And then we sat around in the drawing room dressed like Victorian harlots and chatting about steam engines and dirigibles and night-vision goggles.
After some steampunk tamale pie prefunk, we were off!

Steampunk Preparation

Next up: we were invited to a Steampunk charity event. "Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery, especially in a setting inspired by industrialized Western civilization during the 19th century. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has regained mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. Steampunk perhaps most recognizably features anachronistic technologies or retro-futuristic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art." Thank you, Wikipedia. 
I bought this prom dress at a thrift store for $20 for steampunkification. I decided to shorten the inner layers...
and..."bustle" up the top layer.
Thankfully I have this tiny wooden footstool I made in seventh grade woodshop. It's a little hard to see, but my name is routered in the top. Top-notch work.
I affixed the bustling with these big silver buttons all the way around, but my husband said it needed something more, and suggested these rows of buttons. At first I wasn't convinced, but then came around. We are a good team.
And with some mismatched gold and silver buttons on this jacket I bought for $8, I was mostly steampunk-ready.
My husband acquired this top hat, and I helped gussy it up a bit with a thrift store belt that worked quite well. Despite it being a hat from one of those pop-up Halloween stores, it's a pretty nice piece! It will definitely end up in the Halloween chest.
Somehow early-90s Navy-issue combat boots worked for steampunk quite nicely.
The goggles ended up on the hat for the evening, but mostly he was put together too!

Five Years!

Halloween par-tay! Lots of good costumes, as usual. This was a zombie bagpiper on the right, who ran into Batman and his buddy who were randomly from Edinburgh. You can't write this stuff.
This is a terrible picture of my favorite costume of the evening -- a jellyfish. And also of Lori.
Always send a former Russian spy and femme fatale in for Jell-O shots reconnaissance. And acquisition.
We calculated this was our fifth year from the pix that are displayed around the room, which I love. This pic makes me happy, these have been one of our most-loved costumes.
Happy Halloween! 

A Boy... A Girl... An Open Grave...

This year we went with the Addams Family, Gomez and Morticia. This was my makeup test run, and turned out better than the final product I think. When I texted this pix to Dad he responded with "Yeck! What happened to my little girl!" Haha! The wig was two cheapie Halloween store wigs sewn together to have more volume than just the one.
I bought this dress at a thrift store for $8 and gave it a V-neck, and added gauzy ruffles to the sleeves and the bottom.
Ruffles courtesy of this weird strapless dress, also from a thrift store, $6. Looks like a skirt, but trust me, it was an 80s era disco number, complete with handkerchief hem.
Then over to the Halloween prefunk, where I completed my look with those red talons. After affixing them it was pointed out to me that I would have to use the powder room at some point, and was wearing black tights. Hmm. Hadn't thought that one out so thoroughly.
Thankfully Gomez was able to still use his digits to help with the awesome spray-painted black crayons...
That with a little duct tape were made to look like bullets in a wrist bandolier. And this one says she's not crafty. Hah.
The Black Widow! (Not the Asian pool shark.)
The Black Widow character was first introduced in 1964 as a Russian spy, and antagonist of the superhero Iron Man. She later defected to the United States, becoming an agent of the fictional spy agency SHIELD, and a member of the Avengers. She's also not above cleaning up some spilled ice in the name of peace and freedom everywhere.
I love this hilarious expression.
We don't really have the stature to properly be this couple, but the Addams Family was the first movie we saw together in a theater. And we have tickets to the traveling Broadway play in December. So a little sentimental. And mostly really fun! 

The Halloweekend is Near!

I just love Halloween! As if our creaky old house wasn't a little scary on its own, having a dress form doesn't really help.
Me wandering around in my Morticia wig doesn't help either.
Time to bust open the costume trunk and fire up the sewing machine!
This year Grandma's buttons came in very handy. Oh to have the time to sew that she had. One day. The buttons are protected by my small collection of stuffed wiener dogs. The two on the outside are Beanie Babies, but the dark one on the left was customized in a rather laborious process for me by my husband to look like Mr. Beans. SO sweet.
And then there are wigs and other costume accoutrement just lying around the place.
I love my upstairs studio space. It needs a bit of clean up, but working very nicely.
And the new guest bed makes a good place to stage all our costume pieces. Although mostly it looks like we just left our clothes lying around. AGAIN.

We are Sara

We had fun at Halloween this year, both of us dressing as Sara. People fall into two camps: "I don't see it," and "OMG that's scary."
A group costume is fun. And we didn't have to buy a single piece for the costume. And we thought of it at 4:30 the previous day. :)
To "shorten" my hair, I just put a ponytail holder around the bottom of my hair and pinned it up at the nape of my neck. Then sprayed it with a bit of brown hairspray. This is like one of those examples on the Internet outlining bad lighting and...
....Good lighting. I look 10 years younger in this picture than in the previous. And here's my reverse ombre at the end of the day!