Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

With the Giant's parade mania today, who knows if I'll actually get home in time to pass out candy, but hopefully!

On Saturday we held our annual Halloween party. Every year I never take enough pictures, but this year was the worst! I seriously only took like, three during the party. Boooo.

But it was fun! Aside from the part where I forgot to cook the rice for the katsu curry. Blurgggh. I made people wait. for FOOD. Unacceptable.

Girly favors had soap, nail stickers, buttons, and a magic towel..cause everyone needs a towel to go with their soap, ha! When it comes to goodie bags I apparently have the mind of a twelve year old tween. :)

I started a theme for the downstairs mantle, potion shop! It's still got a ways to go, maybe next year or so it'll be more cluttered and wizardy looking.

A bunch of 99 cent bottles from Michaels (with coupons, even cheaper!) filled with water and food coloring. Also bottles with loose leaf teas.

Anyway, costumes! Here's Sak, as DBZ's Great Saiyaman. (I did Videl as Saiyagirl, Gohan's counterpart)

I'll do a post eventually on cosplay specifics. We weren't able to do the helmets in time, so that'll be my  project to finish before the next convention.

Almost everyone else dressed up too! Yay!

Weddingbee folks may recognize the lovely Mrs. Glasses the pirate and her Dr. Who husband! (Glasses - so glad you guys could come to our nerdy get-together even in the abnormally hot weather lol)

Later on there was a Jimi Hendrix, a (medical) doctor, and MODOK. Unfortunately, I did not get their pictures. Puu~

Anyway, the party highlight of course was the movies! First Black Sheep, which is basically killer mutated zombie sheep in New Zealand. And the second wasn't a horror movie at all, but rather the world's most horribly made movie: The Room. Hi doggy.

After which we played a few rounds of telephone pictionary before everyone either went home or passed out. :)

Thanks to everyone who came, especially the long distance L.A. folk!

Now we have a year to come up with new awesomely bad movies. This'll be a tough year to beat, for sure!

Halloween Rabbits

Halloween is almost here, so I tried really hard to get a picture of Mochi and Katsu in their halloween hats. They really don't like hats, and they really don't like standing still! So basically we let them run around the house til they were too tired to resist the hat for a few minutes. :P

Katsu is a pumpkin! They are actually cat hats, but it's perfect for rabbits too!

Mochi is a ladybug.  A real feisty one! It's funny when she runs around the hard wood floor, if she has too much momentum, she'll slide around like Thumper on ice! Katsu is much lazier and prefers to hop around slowly, looking for things to nibble on.

I think (hope) they are full sized now, and we'll definitely be making appointments to get them fixed in the coming month or so. I think they'll be much happier together without the partition between their cage, and I'll rest much easier knowing there's no chance for baby bunnies!

They like their pellets the best, and alfalfa hay. Other types of hay they will eat, but only if it's the last thing left in the cage. I don't think they are quite ready for fresh foods yet, as they haven't been too interested in the few veggie bits I've offered them. I think the only thing they ate was the fresh chrysanthemum leaves left over from hot pot.

What I did find interesting is that Mochi will drink her water nearly twice as fast as Katsu.  Is that a girl bunny thing? Is it just because she is more active?

Anyway, being as they are larger, they are way messier than rats or guinea pigs. They poop SO much. They also have jaws of steel and chew through the bungee cords that keep them in their cage. >.>" But they are super cute and fun to watch, so that makes up for it I suppose! :)

Clover Chinese Knot Kit

The first time I ventured into Britex Fabric store in downtown SF, I freaked out at the insane yard prices and walked promptly out. Luckily I went back though, because their floor of trims and notions is pretty amazing since they have a great selection.  I picked this guy up for about $6:

 It makes flower knots!

The instructions that come with it are pretty simple, just use some rat-tail cord and follow the numbers!

I put little black pony beads on the end!

Cuuuteee. I'm going to put them on the Halloween favors for the girls.

Anyway, they had other knot style kits too, and you can order them online if they don't have them at your craft store :)

DIY Candy Corn Bunting

Halloween craft, Halloween craft, time for a Halloween craft!

A white felt triangle, with the tip rounded serves as the base. Sew on a layer of yellow and orange!

A candy corn!

I started by hand sewing them, since I find hand sewing nice and relaxing. But then I got impatient so I returned to the machine :P

Add them onto a simple ribbon..

And display!

Festive! Yay!

And..since we're near the kitchen, our fridge has a new face!

Black construction paper with thin magnets taped to the back, fully movable!

Did you try any new Halloween/Fall crafts this season? I want to do more, but I'll probably run out of time :P

Umai! : Hedgehog Bao

Deep in the frozen tundra of the Asian freezer food aisle lived a band of spiky little fellows.

A warm trip to the sauna warmed their cute buns to a perfectly squishy state.

Why hello there, little guys!

Mr. Hedgehog bao, you are so adorable!

I must take a bite.

Red bean blood! Eep!

(Found them at Marina Food Market in San Mateo for about $3.5)

DIY Halloween Soap

So I've been itching for more soap-making excuses, and a Halloween party totally counts, right?

I used this Wilton mold originally meant for making chocolate covered oreos, and it makes for really nice sized decorative soap pucks.

Using the dropper, I filled the image (pumpkin/cat) part of the mold with one color of soap.  It hardened while I mixed up the second color of soap, and then I just poured that in to fill up the entire mold.  The tricky part was getting the soap out though.  I ended up sticking the tray in the freezer for half an hour before it would release, and if you can tell, I kinda tore up the plastic sides while trying to wiggle them free.

But they came out fairly well!

It's shea butter melt and pour soap with apple pie scent. Very..autumn-smelling.

I plan to put them in favor bags for the girls. I'm thinking guys wouldn't be that interested in decorative soap. Maybe girls wouldn't either, but girls would be nice enough not to comment on it in front of me, right? Haha!

DIY Dragonball Z Cosplay Boots

Whoa. Halloween is seriously almost here. I'm definitely behind this year, though in my defense my weekends have been filled with fun things like a Japanese Cultural Festival, my first ever Magic the Gathering match, and numerous rounds of 7 Wonders (we now have both expansions, lol).

Anyway, we're going as some Dragonball Z characters this year (YES, SKIN SUITS! EEK), and we were in dire need of some iconic white boots. Here's a reference picture for the boots only (neither of us is cool enough to ever cosplay Vegeta).

(source)

I used this tutorial for the basic shoe covering, slightly modified to fit my needs.

First, Dearfoam slippers, donated by my mom. They are size 11-12, which was a tad bit unfortunate since the shoes are HUGE on our small feet. But free is free!

Start ripping the seam along the back of the boot.

Then along the sole.

The shoe should start to split apart easily.

Here's the shoe, disassembled:

Remove the shoe cover from the inner foam,

and cut the toe of the cover off.  We'll use the extra foam to extend the height of the shoe into boot shape.

Sew the square-ish foam panels to the foam boot to get a finished inner shoe.  Then trace that boot with some seam allowances (1/2~1 inch) to create an outer cover pattern.

I wanted to use a nice, thick vinyl for the boots, but I made due with blackout drapery fabric since it was similar and in the remnant bin. Remnant bin = $avings. If you have something a bit thicker, it will probably look less wrinkly in the end though. Sew up both sides and clean up the edge at the top with a roll over hem.

Now the fun part! Place the rubber sole into the bottom of the outer cover (while it is still inside out), and hand stitch it all back together. Use the thread holes that were already there to make it easier!

Now, simply turn it all inside out!

Boot! I love how nice and finished the sole looks :)

Now, shove the inner boot back inside and you could finish here. But I needed that blasted yellow/gold tip on the end! I'm still not sure if it's supposed to be yellow or gold (which is colored yellow for TV). I went with some gold strap trim (from Joanne's), because I like shiny things.

I'm sorry to say it gets a bit derpy here. Unfold, pinch, and hot glue onto the shoe as best you can.

Trim the excess and glue some more.

And...call it a night!

Not bad, though I know it would have looked a little cleaner if the shoes had been a 7-8 size instead of 11-12. Next time!

They are warm and toasty and comfy too, bonus points!

Alright, I've got a few more pieces of our costumes to finish, hopefully sometime before Halloween! I thought the shoes would be the hardest part, but it really wasn't too bad. I just hope they last. I don't know how easily blackout fabric stains (like, grass/dirt), and I'm too scared to find out. :P

Do you have your costume sorted out yet, or are you just gonna wing it? Some of the best creative "spurts" come under time crunches!