Halloween here we come!

I was up until past 2am last night finishing Chris' costume, but it was so worth it!
I was so proud of the mask I wore it to the Halloween bowling tournament at work today.

Costume progress

This weekend Chris and I helped Andrea finish her costume.
It didn't look like much when we took this photo, but trust me, this one is a show stopper. I'm looking forward to Andrea wowing the crowds and I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures after she has a chance to wear it.


Now that Andrea's stuff is out of the way, we can finally start focusing on what Chris and I are going to wear. Tonight we made a lot of progress on Chris' mask.


I just hope we can find time to finish it all before the Great Pumpkin Ball on Friday!

What have I gotten myself into?

I've been accepted for Ladyfest Ottawa's holiday craft sale!
Formerly "Not Your Grandma's Craft Sale", LFO's sale is incredibly awesome. I can hardly believe I made it in with such talented people.

Looks like I have another busy month ahead.

Mr. Dressup would be proud

We wanted to go to the Saw Masquerade Party tonight, but our Halloween costumes are nowhere close to being finished.

Time to raid the tickle trunk!

Not bad for something I threw together in 20 minutes, eh?


We didn't win any costume contests (although I was one of the finalists) but we did walk out with two door prizes and a winning raffle ticket!

The start of something...

Costume progress!

So this is what we've been up to...
some fun with plaster...some more fun with duct tape...and a bit of painting...

Headless Instructable

I've posted an instructable for last year's halloween costume.

You can read all about how I made my beheaded bride here.

October 15th

Hi Mom!

Photo taken at Burning Man

Today is a very special day.
It's my mom's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

matching outfits on the Shuswap

Today is also my best friend's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KRISTY!

Photo taken at Burning Man

I am so lucky to have such amazing women in my life. I love them both and wouldn't be the same person without them.

Look what came in the mail yesterday

156 toy snakes!

Time to get started on my halloween costume. I'm going to be another famous victim of beheading, but this year, I'll keep my head on.

You spin me round

During our unpacking Chris and I have discovered some long forgotten treasures.

When we came across a stack of old diskettes I was reminded of an instructable for record player greeting cards.

A little fun with scissors and voila! super cute upcycled card.

And who doesn't love a reference to Dead or Alive?

The remains of analog media

The work of Brian Dettmer just blew my mind.

via Re-nest & designboom

I'm currently working on a tape cassette project, but it's not nearly this cool.

New neighbourhood, new street art to make me smile

While I miss the monsters on my old walk, I was delighted to find this on my way home.

Let the light shine in!

Our new apartment has some great old features including cute transom windows over all the doors.

At some point, someone must not have liked the windows as much as we do. When we moved in they were all painted over!

Luckily it was nothing a little paint scraper couldn't fix.

One down, another to go...

It was time consuming but well worth it as the hallway is looking much brighter already.

hard at work

Unfortunately the glass above the bedroom door is broken so we'll need to come up with a different plan for that one.

Regardless, those paint scrapers are about to get quite the workout. Now that the windows are done, we're going to try to uncover the tile in the kitchen.

Precious indeed

I want this dress.

The Hitchcock by Suzabelle, over at Victoire

Maybe I've been watching too much Mad Men, but I feel like my new promotion calls for some retro-inspired business clothes.

Let's just ignore the fact that my current wardrobe took 7 suitcases and 3 big boxes to move into the new place...

Help a bro out

I've said this before but my little brothers are very talented.

Robbie has a t-shirt design up for voting on threadless.com
I'm digging the Magritte-like men in bowlers.

You should probably go vote for it now.

Paint proposal

When we asked our landlady if we could paint the new apartment (very important on our list of things to know about a place) she said we could as long as we got the colours approved by her first.

Last night we sent her our proposal and when I checked my email this morning there was an enthusiastic response of "Absolutely, that would be great!"

Here are the photoshoped images Chris whipped up to win her over:

Soft grey in the living room
Glossy black on the stair rail
Turquoise accent wall in the kitchen

The Plan

To save us the trouble of moving over any furniture that we would later need to get rid of, Chris drew up a floor plan for the new apartment.
After looking at the model we could see that my loveseat, loft bed and patio furniture were never going to fit.But even after all that we still brought over too much stuff!
Oh well, at least we saved ourselves from carrying a couch up the stairs unnecessarily.

What we've got to work with

I'm still stiff and sore but the move went relatively well on Wednesday. Yes it took forever because two days really wasn't enough time for me to pack up 3 years of accumulated junk, but the whole ordeal was casualty free if not totally painless.

Here's what the place looked like before I filled it with cardboard boxes and disassembled furniture:

Front Hall

These stairs look very long when you've got another box of records to carry up them

Living Room

That ceiling fan has got to go!

Bedroom

The previous tenants left us their bed (and some other stuff), but freecycle took care of that in no time

Chris takes note of the situation

Kitchen

The stove is rather inconveniently placed in front of some cupboards.

The fridge is also in a strange location

Bathroom

Who thought this would be a good combo?!

The place does come with some pretty cool retro features including big baseboards, cool textured ceilings and pretty air vents.

It's my most favourite time of the year

It's October, my favourite month.
I love the crisp cool weather, fabulous fall fashions and autumn colours, but most of all I love Halloween.

A holiday where everyone gets to dress up in incredible costumes, what could be better?!?

I tend to go all out for Halloween:

2006: Mummy

2007: Roller derby zombies
2008: Headless corpse bride
I can't wait to get started on 2009's costume!