Update - Nothing to tell

I'm posting to say that I've got nothing to post. After a big October of posting galore November has been decidedly non-crafty. Boo.

Of course this is mainly because I have been spending most of my free time renovating my new apartment. Yay! And getting ready for the big CATS auditions. Double yay!

Last month I closed on a short sale of a really cute 2 bedroom apartment near the theater. It's awesome and I can't wait to live in Wailuku town - too bad Marc Aurels closed. Double boo.

The 2nd bedroom will not actually be a bedroom but a crafty sewing space for creativity 'n things.  So I'll be able to nicely separate my life from my hobbies, which is hard to do with all my sewing stuff in my living room.

The place is cute, but looks like it hasn't been renovated since it was built in the 70's. So we've been doing work to make it a nicer place to live.

First step: remove the popcorn ceiling. Popcorn ceiling is hideous and even if it does serve an acoustical purpose it's not worth the ugly.  So we got rid of it. It's relatively easy to scrape off if you wet it a bit with a sprayer first. It is rather messy though

Second step: fix the ceiling drywall. Because they were gonna put on the awful popcorn they didn't finish the drywall on the ceiling, so that had to be re-mudded and sanded in places. Awful dusty.

Third step: paint. This was actually the only step that I had a lot to do with. I was bad at the scraping and my dad was smart enough not to let me do the mudding and sanding.  But the painting I did a lot of and boy did it hurt.  But it certainly made a difference. I'll post pictures soon.

Next I'll move in. Woohoo!!

Zombie Shoes

One last zombie post for the year - I promise.  This just ended up so cool, that I had to share.

Originally I was going to wear an old pair of character shoes with my Zombie dress for Thriller this year, but I realized about halfway through rehearsing that that probably wasn't gonna work. They were a little to slippery. So I went to the mall to look for some flats that might work and while there were lots of cute shoes, there were none that I could justify buying simply to destroy.

I remembered that I had a pair of generic Ked's from Payless and I decided to make them into zombie saddle shoes.

Using a couple old black fabric pens and a sharpie I turned the white keds into saddle shoes:

Unfortunately I was running out of time and didn't take pictures of the rest of the process.

Once I finished with the fabric pens (I didn't worry too much about getting good coverage because I was gonna destroy them - and my pens were running out of ink) I painted the white parts with some watered down Rit dye (kinda like water colors). I used navy blue, cocoa brown, and gray. Then I used some green spray paint to complete the effect (the spray paint also nicely darkened the black parts even though it was green paint).

I dyed the shoe laces and a pair of socks in some gray dye.  I find that when dying for zombie clothes a quick dye that isn't even (don't stir very much) works the best.  Just remember that it almost always ends up lighter when it dries.

Here's the finished product:

I really do think they made the costume.  They were also super comfy and easy to dance in.

Zombie Dress Part 3

Happy Halloween!!

My stats have sky rocketed this month because of all the people wanting to make Zombie Ballerina costumes. Hopefully next year my zombie dress posts will gain some ground too.

Tonight is our third night performing Michael Jackson's Thriller at the Historic Iao Theater. It's been a blast this year, and I finally have some pictures of my wonderful, complete Zombie dress.

I ended up spray painting it a bit with some green floral spray, and I used a batch of brown synthetic wig dye (sharpie ink fillers and rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle) that I had left over from the Wedding Singer. I thought this added a wonderful effect.

I also did some extra work on my shoes. I'll go into that in the next post.

Zombie Ballerina - Degas

I was going through some pictures on Facebook of last years Thriller and I found some I thought I'd share. As I've mentioned in many of my posts, I was a Zombie Ballerina in previous Thrillers. I didn't mention that I altered the costume slightly last year. I did slightly different makeup and I added some elements (mostly ribbon) to try and make the look evoke a Degas ballerina:

 

 

 

Tennis Skirts 2

Update! Here's a picture of my mom's tennis team at Nationals in their adorable skirts that I made for them:

Unfortunately they didn't win, but they sure look cute.

Zombie Dress Part 2

In the last part I made the zombie dress. In this one I destroy the dress.

I started by fading the dress in a bleach solution. It took about 30 minutes to get a slightly aged faded look:

 

The left is the original fabric and the right is the bleached fabric. My next step was to distress the fabric.  I didn't want to make too many holes because it's best to start out small so you don't over do it.

I used pinking shears to mangle the hem. I like pinking shears because they will control the fraying.  Since I'll be dancing and sweating in this dress I'll want to be able to wash it often, and I don't want it to fall apart more each time.

I also made a couple tears in the bottom of the skirt.  I don't want to expose too much skin - because exposed skin has to be covered with makeup - so I tried to limit the holes to the lower part of the skirt.

My favorite distressing tool is my apple corer - I've never actually used it to core an apple - I bought it to make the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes.  It has a lovely serrated end that I dragged across the fabric to create little holes.

 

Next I tea-stained the dress in a combination of tea, an instant cappuccino pack, and some espresso grounds (I used what I had so I wouldn't have to go out, but I wouldn't recommend the espresso grounds since they never dissolve and you have to deal with them when rinsing afterward. An instant coffee or espresso would've been easier).

 

The tea-stain gives the dress an overall dingy look. One nice thing about making something ugly is that you don't have to worry about even coverage. Normally when dying you need to stir a lot to make sure the color is even. But because it's supposed to be dirty looking you don't have to stir too much because a mottled effect looks more like dirt. Dirt and dinginess happen inconsistantly.

The tea-stain is subtle too. This is after about an hour of boiling (it was actually dirtier looking than in the picture).

My next step was to add dinginess with regular Rit Dye.  I started with Cocoa Brown and dipped about 8" of the bottom of the skirt and the collar in.  The Cocoa Brown works fast, but also looks a lot like dried blood. Since I don't want to look like I died in a bloody massacre I followed up with a similar dip in Navy Blue and then an ink solution.

Note: I washed the dress in the sink with detergent after each step (bleaching, tea-staining, dyeing).

I love the dinginess on the bottom of the skirt. I think I might do a little more to stain the rest of the dress, especially the edges of the collar. I'd like to distress it and darken it some more.

I'm wearing my tutu from my Zombie Ballerina costume under the dress as a petticoat. It works pretty well, but I might see if I can find an actual one instead. I'll probably also dye some pantyhose so I don't have to put make up on my legs.

Once I have the dress finished and get all zombified I will post more pictures.

Zombie Dress Part 1

For my third year of Thriller at the Historic Iao Theater's Annual Haunted Theater Experience I've decided to forgo the Zombie Ballerina costume and make something new. I decided to go period rather than professional this time and I bought this vintage 1955 Simplicity dress pattern:



I had to add about 2" to the pattern because the pattern was too small, and I didn't bother with the pockets because I won't need them. Here's the finished dress:



I may get a petticoat to fluff the skirt out.  The next step will be to destroy and zombify the dress. I'll post another entry about what I end up doing, but right now I'm thinking I'll bleach it a little to fade the color, then distress the fabric (my weapon of choice for this is usually my apple corer), and finally dye it. I'll probably tea-dye it then dirty up the edges with a black or gray dye. I'm thinking I'll also zombify a pair of nylons so that I don't have to put makeup on my legs.

We are also doing another Zombie themed dance that is more tribal/earthy so I'll have to figure out what to do for that.

Stay tuned for more...