DIY Power Ranger Tee

Convention season is right around the corner! *hops around in a circle* 

Which means it's time to start focusing on cosplay.  My friends have been interested in the idea of casual cosplay lately..either because we're getting older and more reserved, or simply more lazy.

So when Friend E came up to visit, we went to K-Mart and picked up six of these brightly colored sleeveless muscle shirts in the men's section.

Okay, we'll pause here and ask - how many of you grew up on Power Rangers? My brother and I collected the cards and everything. But I got mad when they changed the original American cast out and stopped watching. That was the end of that. I remember having a crush on the green ranger. Oh, Tommy, you bad boy, you!

Anyway, I was shocked to learn later on in life that in Japan the yellow ranger is a dude, and that if you watch the action scenes of the American series, you can notice that the yellow ranger doesn't wear a skirt like the pink ranger does. And also has a package. Yeahh. Way to not re-film the Japanese series fighting scenes.

Back to the project..K-Mart (obviously) did not have a pink tee in their men's active wear section, so we bought a white one and some dye.

11 o'clock at night, we forced Sak down to the garage to dye the shirt pink.

He did a good job, though he wasn't very happy. (Bedtime is a usual 10 around here.)

Friend E made the iconic diamond pattern out of paper, while I sat back with my camera and critiqued. I'm so helpful.

Then, the secret trick! We transferred the pattern to dark iron-on transfer paper.  Dark iron-on's are opaque and white, so we could just iron the paper straight on, no muss no fuss!

We decided to iron on the green ranger as a trial, since he's kinda extra anyway. If we messed up, at least we'd still have the original five.  (Or we could just go back to K-Mart and pick up some more five dollar shirts..)

I ironed on the transfers until the guys got nervous and took the iron away from me.

Snazzy, eh?

For the sides, we ironed the transfer straight over the arm hole for the flush diamond look.  Unfortunately, in the process we didn't cover the first diamond well enough, and melted some of the design!

Good thing we started with Tommy.

Here's the arm hole:

Make sure to keep a piece of parchment paper under the arm hole too. Otherwise the iron-on would get transferred to the ironing board!

Friend E trimmed the excess iron-on from the arm hole with an X-acto knife...

And we tried to fix the melted spot with a bit of leftover transfer paper..

Practice runs are your friend!

Anyway, the shirt came out pretty good!

This is Friend E.  He said I could only post his picture if single women read my blog.  I'm sure there's one. Maybe.

By this time it was in the AMs, and Sak and I passed out.  Friend E took the rest of the shirts home with him to finish before Fanime, so hopefully they'll be done! I get to be the yellow ranger. Not the one with the package.

Who's your favorite ranger?

DIY Han Solo Soap

Oh blog, how I've missed you....*pets*

Luckily, my test is over! Unluckily, I'll probably have to retake it in October. It was so hard! Either way, I have at least six weeks to wait before the results come out. Glurgh. By the way, open letter to the proctor who gave me a hard time because my signature didn't exactly match the one on my driver's license: when you are newly married and signing the stupid card at the DMV, how are you supposed to predict how your signature is really going to turn out?! /vent

So! I have a lot to catch up on...How about we make some soap? Some Han Solo in carbonite soap!

Friend E bought us the super awesome Star Wars Han Solo ice cube tray for Christmas, and with a couple Michael's 40% off coupons, we picked up a 2 pound block of opaque glycerin and some essential oil.

Simply set up the trusty double-boiler pot-in-pot, and melt some soap! (We used three "segments" of our 2 pound box. Roughly 3 ounces.)

I bought the green tea cucumber essential oil, it smells so good! It reminds me of the cucumber melon scented body splash I had as a teen. So fun.

We put in three drops once the soap was melted.

Mix, and pour into the mold!

I read somewhere that spraying alcohol on the soap and mold helps take care of the bubbling, but I didn't try it this time. It didn't seem too bad, but it's not the most even either.

We left it to cool while we went grocery shopping, and popped them out easily once we returned (A half hour or so).  Silicone molds are heavenly.

So funny!

The little guys are too small to really be used as soap, but I had leftovers. I might melt them down again to make more of the big ones, though unfortunately I can only make one at a time! I think I should learn how to make my own molds while we're at it.

Sak thinks maybe I should add color to the soap to make the relief stand out more, but something about coppery, metal colored carbonite soap freaks me out.  Soap should look like it makes you cleaner, right?  If I added a little red just to the "Han" part of the soap, would that help? Or would it just look like a scary bloody man coming out of a door? Haha.

Anyway, the soap works pretty good, and leaves your hands smelling nice and cucumber-y afterwards! I plan to let them sit out for a day or so to sufficiently dry out and harden.  A perfect gift for May 4th, yeah? :)

Next I want to try making oatmeal soap, it's my favorite! Do you have a favorite soap type?

(Update!)  I tried again, this time mixing red, yellow, blue and green food coloring to get a brownish color.  It's not too unappealing, and actually makes the relief stand out much better!

Honey Basil Drink

Sak and I, along with all our siblings, spent a lovely (rainy) Saturday traipsing around SF's Japantown and Clement Street.

Penga-Sis bought this interesting honey basil seed drink.  The taste was of honey and citrus, not too bad.

But the basil seed texture was kinda..weird! Which is why half the bottle is still left in the fridge.  I think I'll leave it there until Penga-Sis comes back to visit again. Maybe it'll mutate!

Penga-Sis said they kind of look like frog eggs...kero kero!