Super late Halloween decor post

While falling down a youtube hole around Halloween last year, I came across this video for this fantastically creepy and classy Halloween decor DIY by Karen Kavett on HGTV Handmade.

I actually went out the next day to get the wreath and as many cheap snakes as I could find.... which turned out to be not much, despite being Halloween season. The craft store only had big expensive ones, and dollarama (the great mecca for plastic, not always 100% anatomically correct animals) only had these weird, jelly snakes that smelled awful. I know buying them online is an option, but the lack of instant gratification of finding more snakes and the usual DIY project procrastination resulted in the parts I had collected being put away for an entire year and ignored.

If a new bid to try and actually do some half done/not done projects to clean up the stashes, I started looking for snakes again this year! I trip to Honest Ed's while killing time one afternoon got a few medium sized ones and the craft store had a multi pack of snakes that nicely rounded out my pile.

All you need is a vine wreath, a 'knot' of snakes and some spray paint.

Step 1) Arrange ALL THE THINGS. I went with Karen's advice and started with the bigger guys and filled out the bare spots with the medium and smaller snakes. With Netflix on in the background, weave all the snakes together and arrange until you're happy with how they're looking. I ended up with a few heads sticking out, which gives it personality.

Hey dude!

Getting there.

No actual snakes were harmed in the making of this wreath. Well maybe, I don't know if the hot glue gun ran one over on the way to the craft store. That would suck if it did, but I can't be held responsible for that.

Hot glue certainly helps, and thankfully didn't melt my jelly snakes (which don't smell nearly as bad a year later!)

Step 2) My wreath didn't have a hanger on the back, but some stiff wire from the stash and a healthy application of hot glue solved that problem.

Step 3) After you prepare a spray painting area so as to not ruin your balcony floor and panels, spray paint the crap out of the entire wreath. Make sure you move it around and get it from all angles, and try to get a second coat to make sure you have good coverage everywhere. Let it dry for a good few hours if you can, but it will smell like paint for a while... and maybe make half of your apartment hallway smell like spray paint. Maybe.

My super sexy spray paint set up. It's outdoors with good ventilation, stop judging.

Before....

During/First pass... 

Almost there...

Step 4) Hang it up and creep people out!

"Why did it have to be snakes?" Because snakes are awesome Dr. Jones. Suck it. Also, the lighting in my hallway sucks balls.

I am super pleased with how this turned out. Having it the one colour makes it kinda subtle, as much as a wreath of snakes can be, and it's creepy enough to be outside the spoopy range for Halloween. Also, this turned out to be the only thing I did for Halloween at home, so an afternoon well spent. I know I used a 50% off coupon on the spray paint, and I might have for the wreath last year, I don't remember, but I think I spent about $35 in total for the whole thing, which ain't bad for something I can creep out guests with for years to come :)

My "why I didn't 'do' Halloween this year" post will be coming up shortly, with a nice little Halloween Easter egg, and here's a bad snake pun to tide you all over.

Celebrating the end of Halloween with snow in November.

Yep, I can post regularly to this blog. Totally.

Despite my insane new schedule (Huzzah for employment!), Halloween was a success! I finished the costume in time and managed to wear it out tot 2 parties! I'm so glad there was a second Halloween party I could go to, I spent to much damn time building that costume.

Everybody remember the stupid, sexy Little Red Riding Hood costume and the awesome T-shirt design from Threadless of "Little Red?" It all culminated in one bad Little Red, who didn't need no Lumberjack to kill that wolf.

Hello ROM camel.

He was warm at least, in death.

I'm quite pleased with how ex-Fluffy came out, even with all the issues he has. I was sewing up his butt by hand about 2 hours before we left for the ROM's Friday Night Live Halloween party, and thankfully I owned everything else already for the costume. I also learned some entertaining things about using fun fur, including that I really should have done some basting stitches along my fur and lining. There was a point around one of the paws where the lining had ridden up do far along the fun fur that I was short by about 6 inches. Also, despite being really careful and using the proper technique for cutting fun fur, there is STILL fun fur all over my apartment. 

1. Ex-Fluffy was made from scratch. I used a few weeks worth of grocery flyers to draft a pattern for all of his pieces. I also spent a fair bit of time looking at wolf stats on wikipedia and pictures of real wolf hides to work out the dimensions and basic shape. Loosely speaking, ex-Fluffy is about the same size as an adult grey wolf. Anatomically wonky, but more or less correct length wise.

Bits and pieces in No Frills' flyers.

2. Cutting the pieces out resulted in some solid blisters along my thumb from the slow, careful cutting that the fun fur required. And my knees were mildly ruined by the amount of floor action I had from tracing this pattern out. Worth it though.

 Trace, cut, repeat.

3. As I mentioned before, sewing ex-Fluffy together was a learning experience. Generally speaking it went very, very well, especially considering I haven't used a machine in a long, long time. It helps that my machine is really awesome.

The tail and ears were hand sewn into the body and head. While annoying, it did create nice seams that needed minimal combing to make then invisible.

4. This awkward bathroom selfie was done about a week after Halloween, when I had time and energy. When posed, this is was the hood looked like with it's slightly uneven ears.

However, when left to it's own devices, the hood proved to be a little too big..

All in all, I am super thrilled with this costume. Ex-Fluffy turned out great, and provided an extra source of warmth on the windy walk home, the dress and petticoat worked out really well to round out the costume, and I received several compliments from people at both parties. Now we just have to find a use for him... other than a wolf skin rug over the foozeball table.

Hallow-EEK!

It sounds better than "Hallow-month."

The roommate and I have been pondering over Halloween ideas for this year. It's on a stupid day of the week (Thursday), her family is in town visiting for a week and I'm going out of town the weekend after to Montreal. So, for a while we thought our options were limited. We've just discovered that, not only are there a few decent options for the weekend prior to Halloween, we're probably (still need to buy tickets) going on a GHOST WALK around the Tdot. We found a Groupon for Tour Guys a company I've been known to promote and love in a previous life as a Hostel front desker, and I'm pretty excited, especially with a promise of "No gimmicks, no capes and lanterns, no b.s." and a tour name of "I ain't afraid of no ghost!"

On to the important stuff about Halloween, costumes! My roommate has been collecting bits for what we all think is a hilarious and awesome costume, a killer bee. Not just a bee costume, but a bee with weapons like knives, bullet belts, throwing stars and guns. Yep. Pretty awesome. For a little while I thought about doing Lady Gaga in the new Applause video, specifically the colour blur/explosion thing she has going on, but I wasn't sure how I was going to dress up the rest of me. After some perusing on the internet I saw this, amongst the other piles of sexy costumes.

I'm not crediting this image since the store sucks ass. Look back through some of my posts to work out which one, if you're that desperately in need of knowing.

At first I thought "meh, standard sexy Red Riding Hood," but it then reminded me of a shirt from Threadless that I own, and the ideas started to form.

"Red" by Anton Chigurh, which can be found on Threadless.

I need to have a wander over to some of the fabric stores and do some swatch shopping for the wolf. He's probably going to be a pain to make, but I've got the other two thirds of what I'd want this costume to be, so there's hope yet.

We shall see....

As a semi-related note, here's "Little Blue Riding Hood"by Grant Stephen Shepley, also on Threadless. You're welcome.

Adventures in Chinese cooking, attempt deux.

One of the few bonuses of having our parents attempting to move in the spring is the wealth of stuff that is now up for grabs. I've been slowly accumulating some favorite furniture and knick knacks out of the basement, and had the fortune to find my giant Chinese cookbook in the process. I've always appreciated cookbooks with CLEAR instructions and tips and tricks, both of which this book has. It also doubles as a coffee table book due to its beautiful pictures, and a coffee table if you put some legs under it. This thing weighs a ton.

The Food of China, photos by Jason Lowe, recipes by Deh-Ta Hsuing and Nina Simonds

I've been meaning to try and make congee for a long time now. For some reason I always thought it was a hard thing to make, although clearly I was delusional. It just takes a while. The Risotto of China. Or rice porridge. Risotto sounds nicer. This recipe is also only for 4 servings, unlike the mega bowls you get at Chinese restaurants. There's nothing wrong with the mega bowls, but it helps if you have six to seven people, versus the one that I'd be feeding. I halved this recipe, and it was a great dinner and leftover lunch the next day.


Plain Congee, with accompaniments
Serves 4

220 g (1 cup) of short-grain rice
2.25 litres (9 cups) chicken stock or water
light soy sauce, to taste
sesame oil, to taste

Toppings!
3 spring onions (Green onions? Are these not the same thing?) chopped
4 tablespoons chopped coriander (ignore)
30 g (1 oz) slicked pickled ginger (I used fresh)
4 tablespoons finely chopped preserved turnip (didn't have)
4 tablespoons roasted peanuts (didn't have these either)
2 one-thousand year old eggs, cut into slivers (really?)
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds (nope)
2 fried dough sticks, sliced diagonally (hate these things)
[I added 2 cloves of chopped garlic. Because I'm like that]

Put rice in a bowl and, using your fingers as a rake, rinse under cold running water to remove any dust. Drain rice in a colander. Place in a clay pot (if you're authentic), casserole or large saucepan and stir in water/chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer very gently, stirring occasionally, for 1 3/4 to 2 hours, or until it has a porridge-like texture and the rice is breaking up.

Add a sprinkling of soy sauce, sesame oil and white pepper (if you're fancy and have many kinds of pepper)  to season the congee. The congee can be served plain, or choose a selection from the toppings listed and serve in bowls alongside the congee for guests to help themselves.

As you can see form the pictures, I added shrimp. Normally, they taste great in congee. According to the seafood congee recipe underneath the regular one, you add the uncooked shrimp at the end, bring the congee back up to a boil, and cook them in the congee directly for about a minute. I discovered that this was mildly dangerous, since the congee bubbled and exploded frequently, and didn't really taste that exciting. I may stick with plain and toppings from now on. Otherwise however, this turned out great! I can see this being done frequently during the upcoming winter, especially now that I go to Bulkbarn regularly.


Also, December starts on Saturday. I've waited long enough to start holiday posts. You've been warned. Again.

Also, the chicken survived!

It's November?

So yeah, that whole blogging thing.

Ye olde month of October was a bit busy, on all fronts. I'm sorry.

Also, since it is now November, and Christmas season has started, so there will be a few Christmas stuff posts in the upcoming weeks. You've been warned.

The beginning of the month saw me at my first executive meeting for the Photographical Historic Society of Canada, because I am their new Image Curator for the Spring Photo Show! I am also acting as a content manager for an exhibition in the spring that will e using the various collections of various members. I'm attempting to change a few things about the Spring Image show, all of which will hopefully result in better attendance. We shall see.

The middle of October saw a busy 2 weeks! I have returned to the great world of paid employment (finally) and am back at an Art Gallery I worked at before and during my graduate degree. This coincided with the week that I GRADUATED with my Master's degree and went to my first, adult wedding. The vintage dress I had hoped to wear was not going to happen, but the back-up dress I ordered from Eshakti turned out to be amazing. I ended up wearing it to both events. And I wore heels. Both times. My feet really hated me by Sunday morning.

I have no pictures of the graduation ceremony, since I was mildly distracted by seeing all my classmates again for the first time in months. We spent most of the afternoon calling each other "Master," fussing over the gowns and hoods and hugging each other frequently. We survived getting a Master's. I almost cried when I saw my parents after the ceremony. Almost. Saved it for the wedding a few days later.

Two days later my best friend from highschool/undergrad got married. They had a lovely, short ceremony in the church that we grew up in in Mississauga, and a fun little reception several hours later in another town. If I sound slightly bitter about that, I am. I love them dearly, and am so proud of the two of them, but arranging transport and dealing with the 4 hour break in-between when you don't drive was a little annoying. I wanted my date (who was a friend of mine that I borrowed from his girlfriend for the day) to be able to drink since he'd never met these people, so that eliminated him driving too. Thankfully my Dad offered to ferry us around all afternoon. Thanks Dad!

The only picture I got during the wedding. Seriously. Was a little busy beaming with pride over Brendan and Kathryn. And then crying during their vows.

St. Stephen's on the Hill. Actually on a hill, cannot be seen form the road as our cab driver proved.

 

 

And then of course, Halloween. My costume was a bit last minute this year, surprise surprise. I had been rummaging through my closet and found my old chicken purse. I love that purse. and haven't used it very much. It was the key prop in a Halloween costume from almost four years ago when I dressed up as a farmer. Creative, I know. It was about 5 days before Halloween when I remembered that I needed a costume since we were going out and figured I'd just do the farmer again. My roommate was not impressed by this idea, and after some further searching on how to incorporate chicken into a costume, we came across the Robot Chicken mad scientist. Perfect. I just needed a lab coat, black work gloves and boots and a wig, and then make a costume for my chicken. 

Ze chicken, with some of the tools used to give him his costume. Those wings are pockets. Amazing.

The rest of the ingredients for this outfit. Most of which were found at the local dollarama.

I opened up a paper bag and painted it to recreate the Chicken's metal parts. I wanted this costume to be as reversible as possible so my chicken purse wouldn't be modified. 

 Scrunch up for added texture.

I added some black and gold with a really dry paint brush to give some more depth to the metal.

And scrunched again.

Then I cut up the pieces to vaguely resemble where the metal is on the real Robot Chicken chicken, and held them on with a few small whip stitches. I'm hoping (haven't done this yet) that I can just snip some of the threads and pull these all off later.

The 'eye' is a giant plastic rhinestone I'm probably going to salvage when I take his costume apart. 

All in all, I think it worked out well. Again, I have no pictures of the night itself. I think my roommate may still have a group portrait of the 4 of us that went out that night, I'll see if I can find it.

Here's hoping I can be a little more diligent with the blogging in the upcoming months.

 

Halloween and an archive update!

Yeah, it's a been a while since I have posted on here. So a bullet point update is in order.


-The PhotoHistory XV symposium was last weekend in Rochester, New York, and a bunch of us did some planning and managed to get down for it. We had a great time and caught some very interesting lectures. One of my favorites was about the cameras that were on the top of Mount Everest in 1954 when the summit was first, fully climbed. It was great to see Team Rochester as well, and a good, drunken time was had by all. 

-I've been working at the Archives of Ontario for a few weeks now as part of my Master's program, and I'm having a fabulous time. I've ding so much stuff and generally making some of my fellow students a bit jealous about it. Most importantly, I think I've sussed out my plan for my thesis, which had been a niggley thing for the past few weeks. Once I've got a solid body of work decided upon, I will further post my idea here!

-Halloween. This year was a D.I.Y.O.D.S. (Do it your own damn self) and thrift store special. My classmates hosted a party and my roommate and I went along for some house party and Wreckroom action. My roommate spent almost a year pulling together pieces from Craigslist and Value Village to create her own Shera costume. The best part was a hideous gold dress she butchered for parts to create the headdress, insignia, belt and armbands. I was inspired by one of Meg Allan Coles's old Decor it Yourself videos for Threadbanger, I had decided to go as Melanie Daniels from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and had managed to find a skirt and retro-ish jacket in tweed, in my size (that's the miracle part of this) from Value Village. I picked up some fake birds from Micheal's and Dollarama, and attached them to the jacket, skirt and my hair. I added a bandage to my head to show the last scene in the movie when she's been attacked and is being taken to the hospital. I also managed to put some peck and scratch marks on my legs, chest and face to complete the look. I only had one casualty over the course of the evening, about an hour into our time at Wreckroom I found a trampled foam bird on the ground. Other than that, I was really proud of the costume.

Back to work, back to school and hopefully some food along the way.