Do I already have a christmas tree up? Why yes, yes I do. It’s officially Christmas time in our house.
First up – here’s the house Halloween night:
I had brought the dressform downstairs with Sarah on it to take a video in front of the fireplace, then set it up in our front window.
Fireplace:
We actually had a few trick or treaters! 4 all together, 2 groups of 2. I had set a bucket out on the front porch with candy in it. I was really feeling like we weren’t going to get anyone – it was a low turnout last year – so I was pleasantly surprised.
We didn’t dress up or answer the door or anything. Instead we had “Halloween dinner” of steak and scalloped potatoes and watched The Witch. Unfortunately dinner turned out… blah. The steaks from the grocery store were tough and stringy and the scalloped potatoes (which we made based on one of our fav cooking channels on youtube’s recipe) were tasteless. It was so disappointing we didn’t even have the dessert we got (tira misu). And then later on that night I got sick to my stomach. Not fun. I want a re-do!
Sunday we ran to Target, did some yardwork, and after a nap I woke up and told Chase we needed to discuss something – getting a new Christmas tree. We’ve had the same fake tree for almost a decade and we’ve talked about getting a new one for a couple of years now. And last year I saw that “twinkly” tree that is app controlled and I WANTED IT. And a Walmart nearby had ONE LEFT. and I WANTED IT.
So we figured out a budget plan and went and got it.
It was SUPER easy to set up, physically. Getting my phone connected was a bit trickier, took deleting the app and resetting the tree to get it working. But it works now and I’m so excited about it!!
And now I can set up the old tree in the dining room window. That will be pretty.
Got this totally cute vintage-looking reindeer and these trees at target, since the mantle was cleared of Halloween stuff, Chase set them up there. And a little “Sean Connery” tribute on the message board.
Last bit of household business before I get into costume stuff – I got these new pinboards last week and got them up in my office.
But they were really crowded and messy looking. So I took the Padme and Leia pins off, put them back on their embroidery hoops and back over on the Leia wall. That cleared up space so I could put space the pins out a little more. It looks a lot better now… though I don’t have a picture and even though it’s literally 10 steps away from me I’m not going to go take one because I am lazy.
Now onto costume photos!
Saturday morning I got up and got into Jupiter so we could go out to my parents house, to recreate this photo from Halloween 2000:
First up, the ground was still really wet and soft from all the rain we had last week, so I was having to walk pretty gingerly to avoid sinking into the wet ground in my boots. Second… at first I couldn’t find the same spot again! I thought it was the first set of trees closest to the house, but it was missing a tree. Finally dad came outside and I asked if they’d lost any trees since 2000 LOL. He said yeah, remember us standing in the garage during that derecho and watching that tree rip out of the ground? LMAO yes I DO remember that actually. So one of the trees is missing in the re-do photo.
Mum had surgery last week so it was good to go check in on her.
And Skye was happy to see us.
And now onto photoshoot pics! I have 4 out of the 5 sets uploaded so far.
Jupiter pics:
Details:
My only nitpick about the entire costume is that I think my belt is too big, like width-wise, I think I could stand to lose 1 set of links in the back so it sits closer to my waist.
Dapper Day Bespin:
Glad to finally have nice pics of this.
And new pics of Merida with the new wig:
And new pics of Aurora with the new bodice:
Interestingly, compare those new Aurora white backdrop shots to the previous ones:
(I can’t remember when we took these, 2013-2014ish?)
It’s the same dress but colours are so much more saturated in the older set. Part of that is because yes, I did pop the saturation up in the older set, something I don’t really do as much anymore – but also, in the newer set, we had to do some colour-correcting because everything had a magenta and yellow cast to it – which wreaked havoc on the blues. We got them as close as possible to real life without being over-saturated, I think – very happy with the softer look of the new photos.
I still have to upload the new Carrie photos, but there aren’t a lot of those and I think I’ll have them up tonight.
I got my bugle beads for the Arwen sleeves so back to that soon. And I want to get started on Liberty Dies again.