Work is really trying my patience.
I’m soooo ready to go. I need a break from work, a week out of the house.
Well of course, I don’t really have much to post about since I’m pretty much DONE. I’m just gonna go through this weeks pics one at a time in no order.
Ok so first up let’s talk Christmas decorations because I have 2 new ones I really want to discuss.
When I was a little, my absolute favourite Christmas decoration was this sleigh with the little Santa. I would play with this every Christmas season – Santa would bring presents to my toys! I don’t remember it ever being out much past the 90s though, but I knew my parents still had it – so a few years ago, I mentioned it to mom, asked that when she got Christmas out next, I’d like to have it. So she found it and… Santa was in a million pieces 🙁 The sleigh was still ok though!
So I’ve had this in a box ever since, not sure what to do about Santa. Then a couple of weeks ago I ran across it, and then got curious, so I started doing some research.
Turns out the sleigh is probably older than I thought – 60s. And I found a LOT of them out there, with a LOT of variations! Some had the sleigh and/or deer flocked. Some had different presents and greenery in the sleigh. Some reindeer had spots. All of the Santas were slightly different. I couldn’t find one with an exact Santa, but I did find one fairly close…
And it arrived last week!!! Santa fully intact! It has all the presents in the sleigh too, which mine has lost ove the years.
So I plan to put both out this year – the Santa-less sleigh and the Santa sleigh. I think the reindeer on my original sleigh are cuter LOL. But they can all hang out together. I’m gonna put busted Santa in one of those clear ornaments with some tinsel and put him on the tree.
The other new Christmas item is a new ornament… which I don’t have pics of. A few weeks ago when we saw Hallmark had a Main St Electrical Parade ornament, we had to have it! We headed to the one Hallmark store we have left here, and no dice. Already sold out. But they put our name on a list and said no promises, but if we get more in, you’re 18th on the list and we’ll call you. I honestly never thought we’d hear from them, but we got the call Friday and went to pick it up Saturday! YAY!
My goal this Christmas is maximalist. I’m putting EVERYTHING out. Every string of lights, every ornament, eveeeeerything. I want a freaking winter wonderland in here. (I usually only put maybe 40% of our ornaments up every year because I get tired halfway through LOL)
Oh and we saw the goodyear blimp while we were picking up the Disney ornament:
Ok anyway, let’s talk costumes.
Tried on Seven of Nine. All in all pretty good. The pros-aide was doing a so-so job of holding the face pieces in place, so went and got some wig tape this weekend just to use on the ends to keep them down.
I did buy a new bottle of pros-aide for this (tossed my old bottle a couple of years ago, didn’t think I’d need it again), and it did come with a remover spray. Now I’m kicking myself for tossing my old pros-aide remover too because this new remover succccks. It didn’t really seem to do ANYTHING. I’ve been trying to be really gentle with my skin leading up to dragoncon because I’ve had a lot of redness, irritation and breakouts in the last few months and it’s finally starting to clear up, so scrubbing like a maniac at this glue left on my face was not something I was wanting to do. Googled and somebody said use olive oil – tried that, and it worked great. So I guess I’m taking olive oil to dragoncon with me.
I don’t know what’s up with Target’s false eyelash sections. Our local target’s section has been almost completely empty for weeks. I keep trying to get my lashes for dragoncon, and think, oh they’re just restocking it’ll be back to normal next week and nope. So this weekend we tried a different target and same thing. This is all they had for lashes. What the heck.
I asked target on twitter what gives and they just gave me a total non-answer. It’s especially frustrating because they’re the only place that carries the 3 pack of the lashes I like, and you can’t order them online without it being a $35 order. I ended up going to walgreens and buying something else, I’ll just have to make it work. But it’s so irritating.
Also Saturday – I had my first therapeutic massage for this ongoing knee problem I have. Basically for the last few years, the muscle right above my knee on my left side tenses up and feels like FIRE if I walk or stand too long. So NYC, Disney, conventions – you’ll see me trying to do weird leg stretches to get it to calm down. Oddly enough it doesn’t do it when I wear heels – my theory is that heels work different muscles in my legs/make me stand differently so I don’t get the same tension as when wearing flats/tennis shoes. I noticed this at Huntsville Expo, when I was wearing heeled boots all weekend with no issues, and then Sunday I wore wedding Leia with the flat boots and my leg was on FIRE.
So anyway, she worked my leg and it all felt really good, and also gave me some exercises to do. Yesterday and today I feel like my leg got into fight LOL It’s so tender at points! Fingers crossed this and the exercises help me at dragoncon. Now I want to go back and get my neck worked out after con.
Saturday was a big day because right around dinner, this finalllllly showed up!!
Ok here’s the saga. I ordered this a few weeks ago, using half gift cards. Waited a week for it to ship, then finally got the tracking and a delivery date, yay! The delivery day arrived and nothing. The next day the delivery date on the tracking changed to “delivery date will be provided as soon as possible.” Contacted disney and they said give it a few more days.
So a few days later still nothing, I contacted them on chat and a very nice person apologized and set up a new cape for me. Yay! Got the new tracking and a new delivery date.
New delivery date rolls around, I check the tracking – it’s being returned to sender for incorrect address?? I glanced at my receipt and it looked right, but chalk that up to my dyscalculia because once I got on chat, THAT rep caught that my shipping address had been wrong on both the first and second shipment. 2 numbers transposed.
But I have no idea how that would’ve happened. And I’m sure you’re like, didn’t you just mention dyscalculia? Yep and that’s why I use auto-fill for my address in my browser when ordering stuff. It’s saved and it’s right. I used it here, AND the disney store made me do that USPS verification check on the address. So I really, really don’t understand how it was wrong the first time.
Well unfortunately this time the rep couldn’t really help me because technically, my fault. They were able to fast-track a refund so I could reorder, and told me to contact them again when I do because they’ll expedite it for me.
So I reordered — keeping count, this is cape #3 LOL – and then contacted support again mentioning my previous orders should have notes about expediting. Well it didn’t need it because it shipped before I even heard back from support, so that was nice.
So yeah it’s FINALLLLLLLLY here. I unboxed it on tiktok. It’s gorgeous! It’s definitely too long so I’ll have to hem it once I figure out shoes, and thinking I may need to reline the hood in something stiffer, but overall I’m super happy with it.
Between Friday night and Saturday night I finished up some stuff on Leia:
I took up the pants a little through the legs because I felt like they were a tiny bit too wide and looked bulky. Hemmed the bottom and got the elastic stirrups added. Finished up my boot wraps – got zippers installed in the back. Belt’s finally painted, just need a closure, and I’ve got the belt buckle master making my belt buckle – dad’s making it LOL
I did determine I need a couple more snaps on the tunic. Thought I could get away with 3 but it’s gaping when I blouse it over the belt, so I’ll be adding a couple more — might just add a strip of snap tape from the belt to the collar, I have some in white. Also got the badge painted last night.
Luna the spider eater
Sunday I started making up work. I tried on wedding Leia that morning, which I’ve been needing to do to test out how I redid the front gathers. That worked great, and while I had it out, I decided to add the trim at the sleeve arm openings. It’s the same trim I used at the top of the cincher.
But I don’t love it.
I had to glue the ends of the trim to keep it from unraveling. Originally I was going to tuck both ends into the sleeve split at the front, but I thought curling the end around like this would be cute. But it meant the glued end was visible, so I covered it up with a few beads. I just think it’s too much. Plus it looks wobbly because getting this round trim sewn was not easy. I can push it into the right place but it just rolls back into the wrong place. I think I need something flatter for this. Everything else in my gold trim stash didn’t look right, so I’m shopping this morning.
But since I’d dug out some green beads for that – I decided why not put the rest of these green beads on the back applique. There wasn’t a ton left, maybe 75? Leftover from Tink. So I started adding them onto the back of the dress, and that’s what I spent most of yesterday doing. Completely unnecessary LOL
So that’s where we are at as of this morning. Let’s look at the to-do list.
Rebels Leia:
Trim belt (all done, velcro closure added)
paint accessories
attach
make hair piece (stlll need to actually sew the bun onto the main piece, waiting on Chase to paint my hair comb first)
Nadja:
test vampire fangs (was going to do this last night but decided to wait on Chase, since he needs to form his to his teeth also, figured we could help each other)
Breha:
Paint buckle/attach
trim bottom of pants (I ended up hemming them. It looks ok.)
Seven of Nine:
paint combadge
Beefsquatch:
install new zippers and shorter straps
Jedi Leia::
hem bottom of pants/add elastic
paint belt
add more snaps to tunic
paint helmet
make belt buckle
Oh! Mom brought me some things that belonged to my great aunt on Friday. Vintage jackets and hats! Two of the jackets are shorter jackets which will be nice for fall. But this full length with the fur collar is my fav:
I don’t dress up enough in the winter to wear this with anything cute – so I’m going to be wearing it with jeans. It’s too nice to just sit in my closet forever. Best part is that my great aunt’s initials are sewn on the inside 🙂
That’s all for this week. This week I also start packing. Got my packing list and time to start putting finished stuff in the bins…