First Mixed Media project

Love this!  Ok, so I had a wedding with a few steampunk pieces of flare.  This pic was amazing and the whole project turned out better than I expected.  Even my hubby liked it!! 
I used walnut stain distress stain, Hawaiian blue chalk ink, glimmer mist, gold acrylic paint from ranger, pearl dust embossing on the little embellishments, a clockpiece from tim holtz, and i dont know what else!  I love it & more so because my hubby likes it too!  Cant wait to show it off!

What am I missing?!

With headgear!  Err....

So far...

Here is my steampunk outfit so far.  The creamy blouse has been in my closet forever.  My grandmother made me the Asian looking corset.  I'm reinforcing the boning to make it less-well, pudgy.  The pants are actually slacks I wear to work, so they are comfy.  And the leg brace is something I needed years ago after knee surgery.  Must post a closeup.  It looks cool!  J-baby's paint ball gun isn't finished.

I'm wearing my earpiece and goggles, but I'm not sure how I'm wearing my hair.  A friend is making jewelry and I'm excited to see it!  What am I missing? I'm making little pouches to hang off the belt thing.  GRRRRR

Vest FAIL!!!

Well, everyone is bound to mess up sooner or later, right?  I was so obsessed with finding the right color combination for J-Baby's outfit, that I didn't listen to his horrified voice when he said the vest I was making was a NO GO.  I forced him to try it on anyway, and the result was...scary!  I made the GAYEST looking vest in the world...and poor J-Baby looked like...well...a twink in it!

This is my dumb butt making the horrifying garment...

This is the horrifying garment in its early stages.  Yes, I finished it before he tried it on, and OH GOD MY EYES!!!  Now I have no idea what to do with it...  What was I thinking?!

Steampunk Outfit Progress

Well, this weekend I was able to work on J-Baby's outfit a little more, and thought I'd show you some progress photos.  This is why I love Goodwill, because I can find cloths that I can easily alter and rip apart for costumes!

This is J-Baby's outfit, so far...

The light brown pockets were actually part of an old leather hat I've had for centuries (back in my Indiana Jones stage.)  I only had to buy leather for one of the pockets, and Goodwill supplied me with the belts.  The watch is from Full Metal Alchemist cosplay that I never did, and the dark leather utility belt is actually a Goodwill purchase:  a very tacky dark leather skirt!!!  I still need to replace the buttons on the red shirt with something other than white plastic.  One thing you won't see in this picture is J-Baby's blue striped vest-which I just finished altering last night, and will definitely post up here soon!

Please refer to my Awesomeness from J-Baby! post to see what the vest was inspired from.

LAST SECOND BIRTHDAY CARD!

All I have to say is,  thank goodness for amazon gift cards!  This little steampunk themed card took me about five minutes.  Ten, if you count the five I took panicking for ideas.  I used Tim Holtz paper and distress ink (walnut stain), and the Tim Holtz gears die cut.  Basically, thanks Tim Holtz!
J-Baby printed out a gift card, and gave him a magic card, and vuala!   Instant birthday gift for the any otaku! LOL

Nuestra Adventura!!!

Well, my non-existent readers-  Today's little blog is about my most recent adventure in wedding planning!!  If you haven't already guessed it, planning a wedding SUCKS.  It takes a lot of money, time, money, creativity, people, and money to pull off one of these shin-digs, and did I mention all the money?

One of the smart things to do is plan everything in advance- give yourself at least a year, ladies, to plan every detail.  Hence, why I've started planning for my little March 2012 wedding in June 2011.  Anyway, to my adventure:  the wedding cake...

Pricing on these things is just sooooo overblown, it's ridiculous!!!  Even the consultation to MEET the bakery costs money!!  (In this case, $25.00)  I've been looking to stop by at The Cake Lady for a month.  Today was my appointment, and boy, did it not go very well...

See, she *had* two stores open:  one in Camden (closer to me) and one in Columbia.  Oh Lordy, did I have a little thrill of panic rip thru me when I went into Camden, and the lovely little bakery was GONE!!  Only empty shelves and a 'for lease' sign left.  My mom didn't get it until I explained, yeah, this empty space was my bakery.  *whimper*  The store owner in the next shop said they had been closed for a week...

Since I didn't have my phone, (forgotten at my mom's house) I couldn't find the number, but the sweet shop owner found it, and I made a call.  Turns out, The Cake Lady still had her Columbia shop open, and couldn't get ahold of me for an entire week.  *face palm*  I thought I gave her the right number, hell, I thought I gave her my email too.  I don't know...

So we reschedule for an hour later to just GET to Columbia, and finally make it into our appointment.  Here is where the experience gets a little better.  We show her a picture of a steampunk themed wedding cake, and tell her we want cupcakes instead (which my mother doesn't approve of, but hell it's my wedding).  We get a quote, try out some very interesting flavors, and go on to shopping!  

This is my mom at the cake tasting!!!

So the flavors we tried in order of the best:

1.     The OBAMA!!   yup, you read right...The OBAMA CAKE!!  Chocolate coffee and OMG good!!!
2.     Strawberry-banana
3.     Apple Jelly with Caramel icing AND OMG I just realized what I ate to hurt my stomach!!
4.     Rum & Coke cake - needs way more rum and less coke, please
5.     Banana faust or something like that
6.     Butter cake with buttercream frosting
7.     Lemon yuckiness

She was out of coconut *pout*.  So, we tried cake, had WAY too much sugar in our systems, drank a TON of water, and went on our way.  Brought home some slices for J-Baby, who scarfed down the Obama and strawberry-banana, and still whined that I hadn't fed him real food.  Excuse me, I had dinner with my folks at Applebees!  Score!  The waiter was adorable!

Which reminds me, I finally met face to face with the Catery On Broad people and will FINALLY set an appointment next week to try their food!!  More to follow.

Awesomeness from J-Baby!

Look!  My new sewing machine of awesomeness!!!!!!

As you well know, Dragoncon is less than seventeen days away, and we are running out of time!  J-baby NEVER cosplays or dresses up in any manner, so when he said he'd dress steampunk for dragoncon...well, happy doesn't even cover it!  We have been running things to goodwill for months now (the BEST way to rid yourself of clutter) and each time we run in to see if we can find cloths for our outfits.  Josh found these amazing boots already!

Anyway, I found this awesome image online for a steampunk utility belt thing.  Here is the inspiration:  I MUST find this guy and thank him for his awesomeness!

J-baby liked it too, so I got some leather? ($5 lady's tacky skirt) and started trying to sew...using my grandmother's EVIL ANCIENT POS machine.  That thing hates me.  And all the directions I was given were in spanish, AND didn't cover the evil little bobbet holder refusing to work!  So I was a little upset I couldn't make J-Baby the utility belt.

Well, every sunday he goes off to do the grocery shopping with his sister, and he was sneaky & super sweet when he came back with a new sewing machine!!!!  It's so sleek and has an automatic threader!!!!!  I love J-baby so much!!!  Now I can make the utility belt & i promise to post pictures!!!

Steampunk Ear Piece

With less than 25 days til Dragoncon, I've been wracking my brain for ideas for our steampunk costumes.  J-Baby found an old ear piece for my phone & thought this might be a cool WORKING piece of art!
What I used:  a gold calligraphy pen (makes painting object easier), scrapbooking embellishments, krazy glue, hot glue, and an assortment of little gears I bought off ebay.  I truly wish there was a better (and cheaper) way of buying gears.  And if I find it, I will share it with you!
Let me know what you think in the comment section below!

The sacrifices....

Really, if your going to create anything steampunk, you have to sacrifice your free space, time, money, & yes...sometimes your blood & fingers! 

Steampunk Goggles

Everyone says you can't dress steampunk without the goggles, so here are mine.  Simple swimming goggles for about $3 at K-mart, and random nuts and metal pieces from J-Baby's crap collection!  It took about three hours to make.  Guess watching tv while working isn't helpful....

Just testing out the insanity...

Some days it's so slow at work, I can get away with pretending to be four years old & color.  I happen to be coloring paper gears for a steampunk costume, but it's still knocking down my maturity level.