WWWC Costumes: Casual Friday

Chris didn't have a costume yet when we hit WWWC for the first day, so I decided I didn't want to seriously outdress him. As such, I declared it "casual Friday" and put together a cute, simple costume out of every day clothes and steampunk accessories. The cargo pants and aviator cap came from Buffalo Exchange, the lace tanktop and corduroy vest came from Target, the boots were $25 on sale at Charlotte Russe, and of course the stripy socks are from Sock Dreams.

The accessories are what really make it, of course. Brass pins from Creative Etching and Airship Entertainment (aka the Girl Genius store). Awesome goggles from Brute Force Leather. And of course, my necklace, Time's Dead Flowers.
You can find more handmade steampunk jewelry at my shop, Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs. I'm catching up on my jewelry-making to-do list, so hopefully I will have new one of a kind necklaces up soon! Yay!

Happy Halloween!

You've waited long enough... Here are the pictures of my tribal-style steampunk costume! Lovingly cobbled together out of things I already had -- I didn't buy anything specifically for this costume -- it's the perfect blending of two costume styles that I truly love.

From top to bottom we have:
-Steampunk feather clip from The Gypsy's Kiss. You may recognize this from my Dancehall Steampunk costume earlier this year.
-Three hairsticks tucked into my bun, sagging a bit because I'd already been dancing when this picture was taken.
-Primitive grey niobium earrings and earcuff from The Beaded Lily.
-My peacock feathers woven necklace. I was going to wear a steampunk necklace that Chris gave me, but it was too long, and this one matched the colors of the costume.
-Vest purchased from Target, upgraded with vintage glass buttons. I wore this last Halloween, too.
-My coin bra, which doesn't jingle much with a vest over it.
-Green lace choli with 3/4-length sleeves, purchased at Plaza de Anaya last week.
-Brass bracelet that Chris gave me for the holidays, awesome coin bracelet that I bought in NYC, and an assortment of rings that I grabbed on my way out the door.
-Tribal steampunk belt. My vest covers it in this picture, so I'll get better pics of it next week. I ended up tying it with some black grosgrain ribbon, and amazingly it stayed up all night.
-Bustle skirt! I'm so happy with how it turned out. There's nothing like wearing a bustle to dance.
-Gradiated sage green harem pants.
-I was wearing my sequined ballet flats, but they're really uncomfortable, so I kicked them off as soon as we arrived.

And here's a back view so that you can see the beautiful gathers on the back of my bustle skirt. Squee!

I hope that everyone has a fun Halloween. I'm spending mine at home with Chris, tidying up the office to make room for our new computers.

Armed with needle and thread...

Remember when I said that I was hoping to finish the mushroom pixie necklace this week? Yeah, I haven't touched it. When I made that statement, I forgot to take into affect the fact that Halloween is this week. Yesterday I was struck with the desire to make a bustle skirt, so I did. I took scissors, needle and thread to an old skirt of mine and bustled it up. It looks pretty sweet.

Today I had to stitch the elastic straps for my zills, and while I was doing that, I started thinking about Chris's steampunk costume, and how his vest would look a lot better if it had vintage brass buttons instead of cheap-o plastic ones. I'm almost done with that project. Tomorrow's project will be my crazy steampunk belt to go with my bustle skirt.

I swear I'll get some beading done over the weekend!

Learning, always learning

Hey look, the Gossiping Pixies are here to tell you what's going on in my life! Well, not really, but they are today's Daily Special.

My class on Thursday was great. Crowded, hard, but great. Dancers of various ages, levels, and even genders pretty much filled up the floor (but with enough room left that everyone could move), and got a crash course in Beginner A and B before we could move on to C. I have a few moves I need to practice, and arm cues that I need to try to remember.

One of the most fun things about being a dancer is the costuming, so of course I did a little shopping while I was there, too. I bought a pair of black Tribal Fusion pants, and found a cute sheer embroidered tie-front crop top on the used rack for only $5. I think it will look cute over my bra, or over my teal halter top. I'm going to try to limit myself to 1-2 new costume items a month, otherwise I'd go crazy and my closet would explode from all the goodies.

Then yesterday, I finally went to the MVD and got my learner's permit. Yes, at the age of 27, I'm finally learning how to drive. I've had various reasons for spending the past 11 years relying on other people for rides -- some were genuinely good reasons, others were excuses. But I've decided now that I want the freedom to get in the car and go wherever I want, without relying on husband, family, or friends. Tomorrow should be my first lesson. Wish me luck.

The day I steamed it up in Tempe

Today Chris and I drove up to Tempe to meet an on-line friend Serge and his wife Sue. Like me, Serge is into steampunk, and he was dressed up to attend FiestaCon/WesterCon. I couldn't attend the convention, so I chose to do what I am told is "ghosting." And to make myself easier to spot, I dressed up in steampunk gear as well. But let's face it, we all know that I love an excuse to dress up!

I'm developing a steampunk persona for myself -- a dancing girl who was abducted by airship pirates, and decided that she liked the pirate life better. It's a good excuse to combine glamorous elements like my bronze bustle skirt and gorgeous feather headpiece with the military-influenced styles of my pseudo-corset (with brass buttons) and suede short-sleeved jacket. Next I need a name for my persona. I think she'll be showing up as a character in my steampunk jewelry stories, too!

Anyway, we had a great time hanging out with Serge and Sue. We all had a lot to talk about, and we stayed in Tempe longer than I expected, only leaving because I didn't want to leave the corgis home alone for too long (Mom did come and give her "grandcorgis" their dinner and some love). It was so much fun to get out of town and kick back with some new friends and chat about sci-fi, writing, work, pets, and childfree life.

By the way, back to the costume. I love sharing my resources! The gorgeous bustle skirt is from Damsel in This Dress on Etsy. I really love my bustle skirt (I may have mentioned wearing it to the Swarovski party back in February). Unfortunately, she doesn't have any in her shop right now, but you could probably request a custom order.

The feather, flower, and clock-hand headpiece came from The Gypsy's Kiss. I clipped it onto a lace headband that I bought at Target. A gentleman at the convention even came over and asked to take a picture of it. It really is that beautiful! Amy does fantastic work, I'll definitely be buying more.

The socks are of course from Sock Dreams. I'd forgotten that last time I wore the skirt, I wore either black lace tights or my brown-striped thigh highs. I can't remember which, but knee-highs are not high enough. That doesn't make the socks any less awesome, though!

And that's about it. The shoes are just from Payless, and the pseudo-corset and leather jacket are both lucky finds from Buffalo Exchange, our local resale boutique. Plus my steampunk cameo necklace, and a brass bracelet that Chris gave me for the holidays.

I'm off to edit more photos and upload them to Flickr. I'll post links tomorrow!

Fun with 'Net Outages

Today's Daily Special is Snowdrop, on sale for $80 down from $100. Sale ends noon PST tomorrow!

I was a bit delayed with setting up today's special, as our internet was down for about 3 hours. When I say our, I mean pretty much the entire city of Tucson, or at least, anyone who uses Cox. Chris's best friend and my best friend were both suffering 'net outages, and neither of them live very near us. Luckily it came back up.

I'm working on designing a new necklace with some of the beads from my Phoenix trip. Black lava and copper from Rings and Things, and a copper and silver (not sure if it's Sterling or Nickle Silver) focal. I need something else to pull it together -- I'm thinking a little bit of Bali-style silver, and maybe some mother of pearl.

To move things away from "all business, all the time," last night I had a lot of fun dancing. I'd moved my big, evil craft table (long-term blog readers will remember this table as the one that mangled my finger) out of the living room, so there was a lot more room to dance. This meant that of course I had to break out my new 10-yard skirt. What fun! Every movement of my hips or knees was accompanied by a flounce of ruffled skirt. My current goal is to figure out how to do one of my favorite moves that the Ren Faire belly dancers do: kicking up the hem of the skirt and catching it in their hand as they dance. It just looks so impressive, much better than reaching down to pick up the hem.

Of course, you might be asking "AJ, why would you even want to pick up your hem?" and there's an easy answer for that. In tribal-style belly dance, when you wear a big floofy skirt, there's all sorts of little flourishes you can do by picking up the hem, waving it around, wrapping the skirt around yourself, or hold it while you twirl. Similar to veil work, and lots of fun to do.

I'm trying to dedicate a lot more time and energy to dancing, so expect to read more about it!

Beading. And Shopping. But not shopping for beads. Yet.

I've spent the first half of this week doing housework. Since I know no one comes to this blog to read about housework, I won't bore you with the details. I'll only say that I was bored with the details. Too much domesticity does not do an artist's mind any good. I kept trying to set time aside for beading, and failing miserably, so last night I put my foot down. I delcared that today would be a day of no housework. It was a day for beading!

True to my word, I picked out beads for a project. I have this shell cameo that I picked up at Michael's on Thanksgiving, and I wanted to bezel it to make a neo-Victorian necklace to go with the steampunk outfit that I want to wear to next Thursday's dinner. I picked out some Delicas and size 15 seed beads and got to work. Of course, the first 15s turned out to be galvanized, and thus I knew they would flake all to heck. Ok, I picked out some Charlottes instead. Those proved to be too light. Then I picked out some other 15s, and they looked nice with the Delicas, but not necessarily with the cameo. I decided to soldier on anyway. Then I realized that the bezel was going to be much too wide for this super-thin cameo, so I scrapped it. Now the cameo is glued down to some felt, I have 4 colors of beads picked out (thus drawing out more of the colors of the shell), and all of the beading that I did this afternoon was for naught. Oh well, I've got plenty of time this evening!

And then there was shopping. Actually, there was shopping throughout the day. While I was working yesterday, I kept thinking about how I really wanted a pair of TotusMel's tatted cuffs to wear to gem show. So today I treated myself to a pair, as a reward for all of my hard work. But while I was logged on to Etsy, I also had to buy some cool carved wooden earrings, and a present for Chris (can't tell you what, because he reads my blog and wants to be surprised, but he can just not click on this link), and then later I had to go back and buy myself a hoodie, because I keep stealing Chris's hoodie that I bought for him as a present. And I had to buy socks, to go with my steampunk outfit (because neither of the two pairs of steampunk socks that I already had would look right).

After dinner, we had to go to Target, for important things like cat food and dog toys, and while there, I had to get pants, because skirts really aren't practical for cold weather or dog training. I got two pairs of practical jean-weight pants, and one pair of dressier navy blue slightly shiny wide leg indescribably cool pants, which probably don't go with anything I own, but I had to have them anyway. Plus we got three plain-colored dress shirts for Chris, so he can wear all of his stylin' pin-striped vests. Oh yeah!

Hey economy, you feeling stimulated yet? Or do I need to go buy more dog toys? (the dogs say: buy more toys!)

The night of many vests

Before I talk about the vests, I'd like to let you know that Mr. Skully-Man is on Etsy! I think the pictures turned out very well. Now that I've learned how to use the macro focus, I can't believe that I ever took pictures with the "auto" feature!

Anyway. Vests. Chris and I went to Target tonight to get a few things. I noticed that they had men's vests on sale, and last time we'd been in, I saw a lady's vest that I liked but talked myself out of buying. I decided to go look for that vest. They didn't have it. They did have a denim vest, which I liked the cut of, but denim is not steampunk. They also had a GREAT grey double-breasted wool-ish vest. Except it was only half a vest, sewn onto a t-shirt. You know what I do NOT miss from the fashions of my childhood years? Vests sewn onto shirts. I thought they were dumb when I was a kid, and I think they're dumb now.

I did find a really sweet short jacket made out of brown suit fabric, and while it's more of a 1940s-50s kind of style, I'm going to wear it in a steampunk way because I can. Chris really liked how it looked on me, which is the most important thing.

Then we went to the men's section, where they had *lots* of vests. Chris got a cotton pinstripe vest, and a really sharp suit fabric pinestripe vest with a sort of collar. I really liked that one and tried on a size small, but it was still too big for me. Then we found the courderoy vests, and they were on sale, and they came in brown. I really wanted a brown vest, so I tried it on and it actually fit. And unlike my black vest, it actually has pockets! So I can wear a pocket watch. Or a chain that looks like it should have a pocket watch.

So we bought four vests and a jacket. It was fun. Now we just need shirts that look good with vests over them.

Beads, beads, I love 'em I need 'em...

(Ok, so the original song is about brains. I can take a little liberty, right?)

I managed to get down to the Post Office today and finally get my hot little hands on my box of Earthenwood Beads. They're all gorgeous and I can't wait to make things with them. I always love it when I can add a new artist's beads to my selection, and when it's a new medium, even better!

I've got hearts, robots, skulls, faeries and so much more. This is going to be great!

Today I also had to break down and buy some new Fall clothes. Dear Fashion Designers: Please stop trying to make me wear ugly 70s-inspired designs made out of cheap fabric. I'm rather image conscious and I know what looks good on me. I also know what won't last more than 3 trips through the washer and dryer. I'm not going to waste money on garbage and I'd really like to be able to buy some tops other than plain long-sleeved tees. Thank you, that is all.

Oh yes, and as it turns out, Lebanese food wasn't quite as exciting as I hoped. It was tasty, but the nearby Greek place offers similar fare in a larger variety and a nicer ambiance, for about the same price. Still, it's good to try new things, and beef shawarma is quite delicious.