My 2008 Halloween Costume

Hoping to accomplish something that looks like this, from UFO:



I already bought a silver dress that I will cut up. I have the purple wig, which just needs trimming on the bangs, and I need to figure out how I will do the boots. I hate the pants the girls wear on the show so I will create a short skirt. Hope it looks HOT.

I submitted this in a contest.

Hoping to win something... The contest rules were simple: you must submit a digital photograph which features some kind of KISS. Your photo can be freaky, funny, silly, sexy, sweet or even scary ... but not obscene or pornographic, please. All entries must consist of an original photograph taken for the purpose of this contest, and must include either a product manufactured by Sideshow Collectibles or a sign reading "ToyTracker.Net - KISS and Tell". No digital image manipulation is allowed beyond basic cropping, resizing and color correction.



Something about the photo above...I took about 30 minutes setting up the pose after thinking about the specific poses last night. My camera sucks and seems to be getting worse especially indoors which is why I always photograph outdoors. Now I notice that when I take photographs when the sun strikes my objects in focus, where the sun shines on it is blurry and it drives me insane. I think perhaps the chip inside is going bad and I'm too poor to buy another one. So....I played with the sun and snow options of the autofocus settings. Tried about 50 total shots. The picture came together after I told my son to cast his shadow on my figures...for some reason the light was just perfect and whatever it was I wanted to focus came out the way I wanted it to. Well, it was fun and not fun photographing because Dylan my nine year old son kept saying, "Oh my God, Mom. Do you have to do this? Oh my God!!"

Cornelius's mens suit

I totally recut all the parts and resewed:



Forgot that the facing becomes the correct side of the lapel, so I was not very careful about matching the checks. I will re-cut a new left facing and resew to match the right side. I also don't like the way the notch is so big from the collar to the top of the lapel. I need to remember to cut that better on the next one.



I also noticed that I am running out of fabric, so I had better stop reworking this jacket and get on with the pants to make sure I get one complete outfit. I have another pair of pants I got at Goodwill with the same kind of check pattern and luckily the fabric is thin enough. I just have to look for it. Hopefully it's in a bag in the laundry room.

This is how the suit looked before I decided to start all over. Because I added a second seam as in a real mens suit, I did not measure it very well and the width of the sleeves became too fat.

My New Old Purse

As purchased from Goodwill for $3.99:



And after its makeover:

New Gorilla Mask

Just purchased this very cool gorilla mask. I will repaint the face so it's not grey. I was just so impressed with the fake fur hair. I have seen a lot of very ugly gorilla masks in my day.

It also comes with a costume (very Mego, and not very film accurate but that's an easy fix for me)...

Cornelius Escape Out on the Town Outfit

It's rough but it's a start. The checks match, if you notice...!!!

Currently selling these Mego-sized pants

These pants have real pockets that work!

I'm going to make a monkey of myself!

After 35 years of dreaming about it, I have finally secured almost all the funds from commissioned sewing work for me to be able to splurge and purchase makeup from Apemania. Several months ago, I was able to snag the most scrumptiously perfect chimp green for a future outfit for Zira. The past two days I have been working on my outfit! (Yay me--why did I wait so long?)

I would have killed for a sewing form when I first started the project. It was obvious that I needed one when it came time to create the fake leather of the outfit. I was able to rig one up using a close-fitting turtle-necked sweater. Propped the sweater on two home-made stepping stools and stuffed it with fabric to create a form which was so helpful in pinning. This is how the outfit looked before I started the hieroglyph:



This is a closeup of the glyphs. I will need to add more puff to make it pop, but it is definitely going the way I want it to. It's the fake leather material sewn over a fluffy piece of nonpilling fleece (the same fleece that I used to make my own chimp sweater many moons ago).



This is the jacket as it looks on a hanger. Looses its "oomph" as it no longer is 3D...but still a great and beautiful thing considering I am putting this together without a real pattern...just making stuff up as I go along.


I have already sent in my 50% deposit to secure the mask. Sometime down the road, when she is ready, I will receive Zira's appliances. This is one of the 8 masks that toured the world in celebration of Planet of the Ape's 30th anniversary. I will probably faint when I finally open the box. I hope that I look ok under the mask...kind of worried about the dang epicanthic folds I was blessed with, but at least my body frame is perfect for a chimpanzee from Planet of the Apes: Five feet tall, 105 pounds.

Someday I want to silkscreen this.

I need to recreate it in black and white.

I love this photograph of Zira