Filed under: costumes, favorites, holiday, photography by ramune

It’s been three years since I started this blog and I am looking forward to continuing the “weekly” projects in the years to come. There is no song today since I used up all of my good Halloween songs last year.

This year for Halloween I had my head in the clouds and spent an amazing evening among some pretty creative costumes (a guy you can count on, political puppet, double rainbow, Benoit Mandelbrot). Below, you can see the raw materials for my costume and the final product, as well as my jack o’ lantern for this year (although I have to say I like last year’s better). You can’t tell from the photo, but the mouth goes all the way around the pumpkin.

Thank you for checking out the blog and being patient with my sometimes inconsistent updates. Here is hoping this year I can really make them weekly projects.

Filed under: costumes, favorites, mask, papier-mâché by ramune

In case you couldn’t tell, I like to make stuff. I also like to dress up, so when my friend Ashley told me about the Green Masquerade Ball at the House of Sweden back in May I could not resist. From what I understood the “green” theme was meant to be more about sustainability and the environment and not just the color green. Ashley and I discussed a bundle of options and then decided that she would go as solar power and I would go as wind energy. I didn’t have enough time to come up with an entire costume, and since it was a masquerade ball I figured I would be “green” and make it out of papier-mâché (newspaper, water, flour). The Personals section of the newspaper works particularly well. I can’t remember when I last made anything out of papier-mâché but I am pretty sure it was sometime in elementary school. I thoroughly enjoyed getting my hands all goopy with flour paste.

The Green Masquerade Ball was fun, but I was quite disappointed in the lack of creativity and relevant masks/costumes. Some people just wore something green and others didn’t even wear that. I am not sure if it’s a DC thing, but don’t bother showing up to a costume party if you are “too cool” to at least half-assedly put some effort in. There are plenty of other places you can go if you don’t want to dress up.

Enough of my rant . . . it was a good time and although you can’t tell from the photo at the top, the wind turbine on my mask actually spins when you blow/push on it.

Filed under: costumes, favorites, holiday, photography by ramune

My Jack O’ Lantern
He eats children

It’s been one year since I started this blog and although I haven’t always been timely I have completed 52 projects in 52 weeks! Since my first project was a jack o’ lantern I figured it would be appropriate to post this year’s jack o’ lantern for Project #53. Since it’s the 1 year anniversary and it’s also Election Day (everyone seems to have some deal going on), I will give you two for the price of one . . . only if you voted. So go vote, and then come back to this blog and read the rest. It’s on the honor system.

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Yay! You voted! Or you are cheating (I hope you can sleep at night). Now I shall continue with the bonus project, my Halloween costume.

On Tuesday afternoon I went to a cafe to use their wifi (my usual routine before Enamels class) but it was not working. I was there for 2.5 hours without access to the interwebs and forgot to bring a book so all I had were my two Moleskines. There is something liberating about being “forced” (liberating and forced in the same thought?) to sit with your sketchbook for that length of time. Since I had a while I thought it would be a good idea to work on a Halloween costume idea since it was only days away. After a bit of sketching I came up with The Peanut Gallery. I was pretty thrilled about it because I love to see creative costumes (especially ones that depict phrases) and I usually don’t think of anything until it’s too late and then I forget about it before the next Halloween.

I started out by taking a bundle of photos of peanuts in various situations. Three of my favorites are below, the rest are on my Flickr site.

Urchin and peanuts

Bobute and Peanuts (Bobute has traveled with me since Summer 2007)

Kinder Egg snail with Peanuts (his head moves forward when you roll him across a hard surface)

After taking the photos I went out to buy all of the supplies I needed. Ideally if I had had more time (and didn’t mind spending more), I would have made gold frames that had more dimension and detail, however I chose to spray mat boards with gold webbing paint. It worked out alright and was probably the best option in terms of comfort (not sure I want the weight of 12 wooden frames on my shoulders). I connected the “framed” peanut images with a ribbon and hung them from two rods which were connected by two ribbons that went over my shoulders. Below are two images of the final product (two is the magic number).

The Peanut Gallery (front)

The Peanut Gallery (back)
It looks like my head might do a full 360 Exorcist style

Unfortunately it was pretty dark when I went out with my friends on Halloween, so my costume was not the most visible and obvious to people. The people who did take the time to figure it out really liked it (after I fed them a number of hints “Do you notice a theme in the images?” “They are framed” . . .). Now to start working on next year’s idea . . .

Filed under: costumes, favorites, friends, holiday, photography, self-portrait by ramune

“A is for Amy who fell down the stairs”
Amazing cut out of Amy falling down the stairs by Karissa

This past weekend was one of the best weekends of 2008 (so far). My great friend Rasa has a catering company in Philly that does a variety of tasting parties. This weekend’s was an Edward Gorey themed tasting party (kicking myself for not having thought of that one sooner!). The invite went like this:

Edward Gorey has been one of my greatest inspirations/influences since I was a wee tot (maybe I wasn’t that wee . . . but still young) and my sister introduced me to The Gashlycrumb Tinies. She even got me a personally addressed and signed copy of one of his last books The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas. Two years later he died on the day of my senior prom (not really relevant, but still). All of this is to say that I was ecstatic when I received the invite in my email. I pulled together a few black and white options, got the ol’ bowler hat I bought some five or six years ago out of the closet (and fancied it up) and managed to convince our other great friend, Vaiva, to come down for less than 24 hours from NYC.

Rasa’s team did an amazing job with decorations, food and a great game of Murder. I happened to pick the piece of paper with an “X” on it for the first round, and thus was the chosen murderer. Unfortunately I only managed to kill maybe four or five of the ten people I intended to kill (you don’t hear that every day). It is an interesting exercise to intentionally make eye contact with complete strangers and wink at them without them thinking you are hitting on them or feeling rather creepy yourself. Several people definitely looked at me like I was being weird when I winked at them with my twitchy Gorey eyes.

The second round was much more exciting since there were two killers and they were on a spree! I was one of the victims and managed to win the prize for best death. I am convinced that it was rigged so that the guest staying at the house the longest would win and share the chocolate (and M&M) covered pretzels with everyone else.

The party was a great success and I think I got a few good photos from it. Below are some of my favorites from the night. As usual, the rest can be seen here on my Flickr site.

“They Got Themselves Up Killingly”

Rasa, before the guests arrived

All Gorey’d Up (without hat)

Vaiva and me all Gorey’d up (with hat). Photo by Adrienne R.

Adrienne was my first victim and she managed to die without spilling any wine!

Gintautas (Rasa’s brother) modeling one of many hats that evening

Filed under: costumes, photography by ramune

Last weekend while I was in New York I went to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. For the past two years they have said it might be the last Mermaid Parade since Coney Island is going to turn into condos (bleh). I doubt it will really be the end of the parade though even if Coney Island does change.

I went in 2006 and had a fantastic time and took some photos that are still some of my favorites. This year’s Mermaid Parade was fun but significantly more crowded, hotter and sunnier, three things that I quite dislike. Either way though, I tried to get some shots even though we didn’t have the best spot. Here are a few of the shots and the rest can be found here.

Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008

Octopus at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008

Coney Island Mermaid Parade 2008

Filed under: collaboration, costumes, friends, silliness by ramune

After the Turkey Trot (and after someone vomited on my costume and I threw it out)
Thanks to Kristina for the photo

Vaidila, the creepy 80s tennis player

Uberathelete Linas

Vasare, the swimmer

The uberathelete couple