DIY Hello Kitty Costume Tutorial



Super adorable

This post is almost a year late, because it has taken me that long to get over the trauma that was this Hello Kitty costume.  The creation of it was not the problem.  It was what happened to it after it was finished.  More about that later.  First, how to make your very own Hello Kitty head.  My inspirations were found here, here, and here. 



Someone has a bigger
problem than I.

The finished product.

Unbelievable!

I got busy drafting a pattern, which is important to getting the sizing right.  I folded the pattern in half so it would come out symmetrical.  Then I put it up to Tootie Pie's head, to make sure it was not too big or too small.  After making adjustments here and there on the paper pattern, I cut two pieces from felt, and sewed along the edges, leaving a semi-circle to go over her head.  Before I sewed up the semi-circle, I filled the head with packing peanuts, then closed up the head along the semi-circle.  I attached a piece of elastic to both sides, and used fabric paint to draw in kitty's features.  Then, the bow was cut from pink glitter felt, cut into two rough rectangles, which were sewn together, and then a long single rectangle was sewn closed over the middle of the rectangles to form the bow.  That was it.



Someone in this crowd is a thief.

I had the flower as a backup, but it's just not the same!

Now, for the traumatic part.  See Tootie Pie in the lower right of this photo?  She is not wearing her kitty head because she is at a magic show, and she was being considerate to the spectators behind her.  Immediately after the show, they were giving out Halloween treats, and Tootie Pie ran right over, leaving her head on the floor.  Can you guess what happened?  Shall I remind you that we live in New York City?  Does that help?  Yes, study the picture, because someone in the audience TOOK THE HEAD!!!!!  I was so upset.  Tootie Pie was so upset.  I spoke with mall security, a police officer (Whom I needed to ask if he was really a police officer, or just wearing a really, really good costume) and the mall administrators, to zero avail.  The friend we went with asked where we got it, so we could get another.  She obviously does not know that we do things THE HARD WAY.  Luckily, every good costume designer has a backup, so when we went trick or treating, she wore the flower I had made, but it was so disturbing that someone would steal a child's Halloween costume on Halloween.

Try it for yourself, document the process, and send me the pics.  I'd love to see them!



Another High-End Knock-Off: Emil Stejnar's Mirror

The original - Ahhhh!

It is a poorly hidden fact that I have expensive taste, and no budget whatsoever to indulge it.  So, over the years, I've just made my own versions of the things I covet.  Sometimes it seems impossible to recreate, but then the inspiration hits, and there are many missteps, retreads, and do-overs, but eventually, I create something that not only looks nice, but has the added bonus of affording me the ability to say "I made that".  Of course, during the "creative" process, I'm swearing like a truck driver, taking up what little space we have in our tiny home, and taking out my frustration on my family.  No one ever said creativity was pretty.

So, my latest brainstorm was to recreate the Emil Stejnar backlit mirror.  It involves, duh, a mirror, some math manipulative linkage strips, a random street find of a circular metal frame, an Ikea light strip, lots of tape, and milk jug cutouts of the variety used in my Curtis Jere knockoff.  I tried boiling the linkage strips to bend them, but over time, they just bent back.  Since it is still in process, and most likely will be for quite some time, I thought I'd share some teaser photos.



The proportions are admittedly
a bit off.  Too lazy to fix.

Finding a good use for linkage strips.

Milkjug cutouts.  Need
about 1700 more.



Planning the placement.

My Experience Painting Upholstery

A nice, if somewhat blah, chair

Around two years ago my craigslist search keywords were "french provincial chair", when I struck pay dirt in some long since forgotten part of New Jersey.  A nicely appointed home had greatly underestimated the cost of their beautiful carved fruitwood chair.  The quality upholstery was in a light blue that had no stains, although it did have some sun fading that made it dingy looking.  I bought it on the spot and then had to deal with the classic craigslist reality check-euphoria letdown: how to get it into my trunk to get it through Manhattan.  It has graced our living room ever since, and it was time to tie it into my "decor". 

My custom paint blend, with
my fabric medium (Golden)

There are many tutorials online that tout the fabulous results from painting upholstery.  I tried to paint my daughter's flatweave rug, with disasterous results.  Rug, meet garbage; garbage, rug.  The step that it seems I was missing was two very watered down primer layers.  Armed with a bit more knowledge learned, as is usually the case, from failure, I felt it was time to try it on my fateuil. 

There are oh-so-many photos of progress because there were oh-so-many stages of progress.  I thought it would never end.  This project came critically close to being called off; if my fourth coat didn't finally cover the original blue, I don't know that I would have tried coat five; thankfully, it mostly did, so I did. 

 

After first coat

After second coat

Ooooh, I am starting to see the
progress finally

The application makes it seem as if its
 covering more, but when
it dries it fades to "more like a stain".
Up side: great shot of my shapely leg.



And here it is in its finished glory.  It IS a bit
crunchy, but it goes better with the color scheme
of my living room.

The Love Masters

It's been two months since my last confession, Father.  We here at the Hard Way successfully celebrated Tootie Pie's 7th birthday, danced in our third dance recital, had our second Spring Concert and Piano recital.  My school year is winding down, and I received the great news that all of my students this year "Met Promotional Criteria", which means that none of them are "Far Below Grade Level".  Well, I don't know about that, but when it counted, they certainly pulled a rabbit from their collective hats.  I had a very good year professionally, since I taught two honors classes this year.  That certainly makes a teacher's life a great deal easier!  It also makes my Teacher Data Rating look like a roller coaster ride, which goes to show how much influence a teacher truly has over test scores.  As always, if the students put in effort, they will perform well on the standardized tests, and if they don't, there's no point punishing the teachers.  They're tortured every day, trust me. 


I know he's a father, too.  God help his child. 
Seriously.

My private life, on the other hand, continues to deteriorate apace.  Tootie Pie is picking up Mr. Hard Way and my poor habits, and it will be this summer that this cycle of disdain and hostility must and will come to and end.  I am confident that I have done everything in my power to try to right the ship and held out longer on the Titanic than most reasonable people would have.  I wanted to share an article that states what happened to my marriage pretty accurately.  Active destruction, indeed.  Of particular interest to me was this quote:

"And people who treat their partners with contempt and criticize them not only kill the love in the relationship, but they also kill their partner's ability to fight off viruses and cancers. Being mean is the death knell of relationships."

Enjoy  http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/

Another Birthday, Another Party

It's almost that time of year again: Tootie Pie will be turning seven!  My goodness, the time is going by so quickly.  We are celebrating at a YMCA pool, so the theme will be mermaids or the sea.  I will be crafting and cooking away once again, but this time I think she can help out more than in years past. We made shell invitations, and she cut out the mermaid cover and inner detail, and put on the heart and pearl, and labeled the cards.  I told her to just put the name of her classmate on the envelope, but she insisted on including siblings, many of whom we do not know the names.  So, some envelopes are labeled "Meghan, Riley, and other sister" - which is far more welcoming to siblings, I think you will agree.  Oh, and she glittified our entire home.  But, they're done, and will be distributed tomorrow.

Making Videos with Tootie Pie

 

 

Many things that I do, especially activities with Tootie Pie, begin out of innocent questions. Somehow, a discussion of Mr. Peabody and Sherman turned into reenacting the siege of Troy on film.  There is a connection there, and I challenge my followers to find it.  Tootie Pie and her bestie built the walled city, the horse, and brainstormed all sorts of details.  Follow me down the rabbit hole and see what they came up with.

After the rousing success of this movie adventure, Tootie Pie was hungry for more.  My husband's "niece" (for lack of a better and/or easier term) just gave birth, and Tootie Pie is learning "Brahms Lullaby" in her piano class.  There are German lyrics to this song, which she knows.  So, in honor of the newborn, we quickly whipped up a cute video with her singing "Guten Abend, Gute Nacht".  My favorite part of this process was when she was working the camera and I was on props.  Non-German speaker that I am, had to rely on Tootie Pie to tell me when the part about the angels was.  I asked three times and she didn't respond, so I just started moving the angel around aimlessly.  This was not the take that we used, but when we replayed the video, it struck my funny bone.

Because of Tootie Pie



Tootie Pie and I just finished "Because of Winn Dixie", our first book with no pictures.  The author used a literary device where India Opal's father told her 10 things about her mother, who abandoned her when she was very young.  She cherishes these 10 things as a way to hold on to the memory of her mother, whom she can barely remember.  But, at the end of the book, when Winn Dixie goes missing, India Opal creates a list of 10 things about her dog so that she can put these ten things on a "Lost" poster.  She realizes that you cannot get to know a dog, or a mother, or anyone from a list of ten things.



An even better metaphor!

Still, though, the ten things about India Opal's mother and Winn Dixie were nice lists.  I want to make my list of ten things about Tootie Pie, not so that you will know her, but so that when she grows up, she will know something about herself at six years old. 

Ten Things About Tootie Pie

• She has never given anyone any trouble
• She jumps up and down and squeals when she's excited, which is often
• She loves to dance and sing, and does both very well
• She sings German and Mandarin songs with no detectable accent
• She loves to learn and make connections
• She will hold hands with special friends and relatives
• She will invent funny stories and even speaks her own language, called Carrot language
• She is loved by all who meet her
• She has made my life more rich and fantastic than I ever thought possible
• She has a great sense of humor and makes people laugh