the pit of despair

Being back at work after being off for 2 weeks suuuuuucks.

Also my mental health is currently being completely propped up by a trip we are planning this spring. Thank goodness for that.

What have I done the past week? Not much. I did start taking Christmas down yesterday, so that’s something. We did some more photoshoots, which I’ll talk about in a bit. Discovered my website has broken even more… the image re-sizer for things like creating the portfolio banner is no longer working. I tried finding a work around, but alas. As soon as I finish the photoshoot round, I’m going to find a new theme and start getting this all updated.

Played dress up with all of the new costumes – so glad I have 5 dressforms and can show all 5 2025 dragoncon costumes at once now LOL

New Year’s Eve – Chase was off early, we ran a couple of errands. Came home and watched the Stranger Things finale. It was so good, I’ve loved that show and I’m so sad it’s over.

Friday night we shot 2 old costumes and that was an adventure.

We shot Asuka, which I was REALLY worried about because of the pleather pieces. Thankfully it was still in OKAY-ish shape. One of the silver discs had been pressed against the red pleather boob cups and it left some paint on it, and the black pleather on the shoes is peeling, but otherwise ok? The hair clips were broken – the barrettes wouldn’t close. Had to just pin the hell out of them to keep them on. The biggest issue though was the suit. It was pretty hairy trying to get that thing over my hips – it stretched as far as it could and I had to kinda shimmy to get it over my hips. But we made it. It’s been shot on the backdrop at long last.

The other was Giselle, which I didn’t take a mirror pic of. Oh my god, that costume was in atrocious shape. There’s busted seams and stains all over the skirt (busted seams came from the outer chiffon layer fraying and the seams coming undone, not hulking out LOL). The top was a mess, with weird darts I put in trying to make it fit better. I took some of them out and handsewed the facing down so it wouldn’t flip up. It’s still pretty ugly. All of that used to be hidden pretty well by the shoulder wrap, but the my arms/shoulders are much bigger than they were in 2008 and the shoulder wrap wasn’t hiding it anymore LOL I cleaned it up as best i could, I think it’ll look ok in photos.

Biggest issue though was the fact that I made that when I was like… a size nothing and I am definitely not that now. I was surprised to put it on and be able to zip it up to just under my bra band. Past that point, there was no hope LOL. I sewed some ribbons onto either side of the zipper so it could just be tied on – hidden by the wig. The shoulder wrap was another issue, when I put it on for the shoot, I could not get them down over my arms correctly. I ended up having to have Chase just cut it apart in the center back and pin it. It was only a scrap of silk chiffon from dharma so easy enough to replace if I ever need to. But let’s be for real, I’m never wearing that out of the house in the shape its in, so what’s one more thing LOL

Sunday we did 2 reshoots – Padme’s lake dress and pink 18th century Belle. I restyled the wigs for both.

I feel like I maybe got the bottom curve of the wig a little too high up. Restyle for another day – probably later this year since I’m prob going to take it to dragoncon. But it looks a lot less messy, the bands are all sewn back on properly, so an improvement from the mashup shoot a couple of weeks ago.

Had a lot of fun shooting spinning and with a fan and hopefully I like these pics better than the ones from 2019. Was never happy with those.

For the 18th century Belle, even though this is technically a reshoot, I’ve reworked the costume since the first white backdrop round in 2015. Dress is updated, bustles are finally done, and I restyled the wig AGAIN. I feel like this is it’s first proper white backdrop shoot. Excited to have the pics soon.

And with that, I think I’m done with shoots for a while. I’d wanted to do Teela and Yuuko, but I’m at the point where I’m ready to move on. Clean up my sewing room, clean up the upstairs and have a fresh start for 2026.

Took Kevin shopping Saturday. Got him a hilarious dinosaur shirt for our trip this spring. I didn’t think to take a pic of it though.

Went to dinner at Huey’s last night and spotted this on the wall – so close to being Mama Gin?? So crazy.

Funeral is thursday. Hoping I can arrange bereavement leave Wed-Fri so I have another long weekend. Would love to be able to get my sewing room reset.

Speaking of — I have big plans for upstairs. So upstairs we have my sewing room (which is the bonus room over the garage), Chase’s office, Kevin’s room, and my work office/guest room. That work office/guest room is what I’m focusing on here. We have a queen size bed in there, and I’m thinking about getting rid of it, and instead putting in more shelving for costume storage. Yeah I know, it’s taking over another room… but like, that bed never gets used? It just sits there taking up 50% of space in the room. Why not move it out and make the space more functional?

Anyway let’s move on to photoshoot stuff.

Did I post Belle stuff? I don’t think I did, except in the wrap-up post.

So happy with these and glad to have better pics of it.

Padme’s lake dress/Taylor Swift lover suit mashup:

Shot it with both wigs, and with and without the shawl, so I have lots of options when posting it.

And then we reshot Sally Jupiter:

Sally was the very first costume we shot on the white backdrop, and it shows. The new pics are an improvement, technically speaking.

Here’s 2009 and 2025. The costume (and me) were in better shape in 2009, but that’s life, whattya gonna do LOL.

We also shot Julia (Cowboy Bebop) from 2010 that I’ve never worn again since MTAC that year.

Wore it with my Taylor wig which I felt was a little more accurate than the one I wore with it in 2010. The black neckband was long gone, so I just used some scrap black ribbon tied on my neck.

How I feel heading in 2026