My Summer Vacation

Oh yeah, summer is over. I forgot.

We didn't exactly end up shooting the town scenes. Instead we shot some backgrounds and are hoping we'll be able to piece them together with the action using amazing bluescreen technology.

By the way, remember that lovely bathmat I made? Mr. Tusks has taken to peeing on it. He's never peed on anything else except for his litter box. Why must he be so bad?

Here he is being helpful:

I sewed the velcro (which holds the legs together) while he was sitting on the other end of the dogsuit. 

He has a tiny fluff of retriever fur on his nose because he'd just finished sleeping with his face buried in the it. He always wakes up when he hears the camera turn on. In case he might need to follow me when I go into another room. 

Sorry I don't have a picture of myself actually wearing the dog costume. You'll see it eventually.

Even though this whole flea thing happened

we still had a really good time this weekend. 

These are at the South Yuba River, after we finished filming the panning for gold scene. It's really nice there. I wish it had been possible for us to get there a little earlier so we could swim, but the sun was starting to go down when we finished, so it wasn't warm enough for my tiny body anymore. Plus our swimming costumes were back at the hotel. But I guess people still pan for gold here and all around this "Gold Country" region. 

Also, I couldn't wear my dog costume here because we didn't bring a leash.

Blood on the sheets

I'm in Nevada City, CA. It's 4am, and I'm not awake because I've been enjoying the exciting nightlife of Nevada City. I think we actually went to bed at 10 because we wanted to get to sleep early so we could wake up before sunrise to shoot scenes in town. Unfortunately we didn't actually sleep at all because of the mattress being stuffed with fleas instead of comfortable cushiony stuff. It seemed comfortable at first, but it turned out to be just a huge rectangular block of fleas bound by a fitted sheet. After tossing and turning for however many hours, getting up to take a shower, and being baffled by the fact that I was obviously suddenly allergic to poison ivy (which somehow must have gotten inside of my dog costume), and trying to go back to bed, I finally trapped a flea. Then stripped the covers and saw the streaks of blood and trapped 19 more fleas. Mostly fat guys.

So, yeah, not going back to bed. 

Yesterday we shot in the woods, and it went really well. And the Yuba River, where we shot the panning for gold scene, was incredibly beautiful. I'm not really sure if shooting is going to continue as planned in a few hours. We're awake, but both of our costumes might be filled with fleas. Even if they aren't I have so many bites on my back that I'm dreading the thought of putting on my dogsuit. We'll see.

The paws that refreshes

It's the one on the right. 

Mining Tools

I whipped up this pickaxe last night. Still needs to be painted.

When I was in 10th grade I made a model of half of the Globe Theater out of cereal boxes and tape and a broom (for the straw roof) and paint. Maybe I also did a layer of papier mache. It was probably one and a half boxes high and four boxes around, so big enough that it was really awkward to carry. When we presented our projects we were supposed to say what was difficult about what we made, and I said "it would have been easier if I had used stiffer cardboard instead of cereal boxes." The teacher looked confused and asked why I had decided on cereal boxes as a building material, and I said it was because I happened to already have some cereal boxes. This is still the way I almost always go about making things.

I did actually have some real cardboard to make the pickaxe out of, but I didn't use it because it was hard to cut. I used posterboard instead. It's stuffed with the styrofoam packing from my birthday present that I already opened, so it's slightly less likely to get smashed. I also made some other things out of that packing material, so none of it is getting thrown away. Not yet, anyway.

I got a dress form for my birthday. I was allowed to open it because I bought it for myself (although technically my mom is buying it for me as soon as she sends a check for it) and because it arrived in a box that had pictures of the contents on the outside. My birthday is Monday! I have a job interview on my birthday! I hope this year is less disastrous than my past few birthdays. If I get a job, and my niece is born, and my pie (peach and raspberry) turns out well, it might make up for the Balloogna incident and etc. But at this point I'm kind of dreading what terrible things might happen on my birthday.

My dogsuit is at the point where I look like a dog instead of a corn-dog or chicken nugget.

Whenever I start working on things, I think of more things that I want/need to make. Good thing there's still a little more than a week left to work on movie things.

By the way, even though we're filming the gold mining parts in a few weeks, the movie won't actually be finished for a long time. There's another part which I haven't started working on yet and which will require a lot of work.

GOLD!

I got this gold cellophane stuff from SCRAP for making gold props. It's only gold on one side, so to make a gold chain I had to cut long strips then fold them in half and glue them shut. Then I glued the folded strips together and finger-crocheted the chain and taped it together at the end. Of course there is an easier way to do this. It's called getting a fake gold chain from SCRAP instead of a sheet of uncut wine label cellophane. Or/and getting a cat who doesn't have gold-batting fever. But I guess they didn't have those when I went.

I made gold nuggets and bone using a covering of the same cellophane, but it was decided to be not quite shiny enough. The nugs looked a bit like chocolates. So now I'm gluing gold sequins to the entire surface of each item. I don't think I'll do the chain because the sequins would probably just fall off. Maybe I'll get some glitter glue or something if it looks horribly un-shiny.



I also made the prospector hat and beard, neither of which are entirely finished yet. The beard needs more hairs, and the hat needs to not be purple. But Channing looks pretty prospectory, right?

Today I'm going to focus on the dogsuit. Definitely. I've been procrastinating on that part, and I really shouldn't wait any longer because I haven't decided exactly what direction I'm going with it. And it's like the most important thing! Eeek!

sewings

I've been getting cranky lately about my wardrobe. I've had most of my clothes for a really long time (like shirts from 4th grade) and am getting tired of wearing the same things after 15 years. Plus they're starting to wear out. Noooo! When I go shopping I just get more cranky because everything in the store is too big or too expensive or both.

Luckily, I know how to sew. So yesterday, instead of being cranky and refreshing the job listings on craigslist 1000 times (like I did the day before), I decided to do some sewing. I made a skirt out of an ill-fitting shirt that I never wore because it was too big.

Before:


After:


I got the idea from the CRAFT magazine blog. I didn't actually look at the tutorial until I was finished, but I did basically the same thing with the exception of the puffy front pleats. And I moved my shirt's pocket onto the back of the skirt. I think mine is less puffy because the shirt I started with was 100% silk instead of whatever stiff fabric men's shirts are made of, not just because of the different pleats.


I also finished the nose for my retriever costume. Here it is 3/4 of the way complete:



Today I'm going to work on the paws and tail. The filming got moved back to the weekend after my birthday because someone neglected to book a hotel before everyone else who wanted to book a hotel in Nevada City. (Who are these people?) I would have been more enraged, but it's actually good because it gives me a little extra time to work on everything.

Last night Channing asked me "what did you learn today?" and I said "I learned that I'm much happier when I'm making things than when I'm looking for a job." Which I guess I already knew.

The only appropriate way to celebrate

is with more pretending to be a bear and mauling! Hooray!

And hooray for face cut-out things!

Some of my hobbies

Holding hands


Celebrating holding hands through pie


Pretending to be a bear


Mauling



Celebrating pretending to be a bear and mauling through.....?

More details coming soon!

Hooray, I did things!

I am waiting for my ex-landlord to call and tell me when she's going to do the walk-through on our apartment. She told me to call first thing in the morning, which I did. Actually I called about 18 times because her phone was busy forever. I finally talked to the guy who works in the office and left a message for her to call me, after Channing left two messages this morning on the answering machine and her cellphone before the office was open. But now it's 1:30 and I still haven't heard back from her.

Aaaaughhh! But I suppose I am taking advantage of not being able to really do anything to get small things accomplished. I posted dvds for sale on etsy. People don't really seem to use etsy to sell dvds, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe you should buy one! You know someone (besides me!) has a birthday coming up.


Yesterday we finished unpacking everything! And finished a few decorating projects.





I made my own bathmat, which took forever. I used a fabric that was likely to fray if I left rough edges, so I had to sew 28 five foot long tubes and turn them all inside out before I started weaving. But, as an ex-Bed Bath & Beyond Employee (circa 2000) I know that buying a bathmat that's long enough to go in front of our super long tub would be both expensive and boring-looking, so I think my effort was well-spent. I'm really happy with how my mat turned out. It reminds me of a mermaid.






Mr. Tusks really enjoyed the weaving process, but he wasn't too bad because he was pretty tuckered out after going outside for the first time ever and trying to befriend the other cats in/around the building. Actually he's sleeping in pretty much the same position right now, except he hasn't even done anything today. The sunbeams falling on the bed are pretty hard to resist.





We hung these picture frames which I painted to match our turquoise and orange (it's not as bad as it sounds) kitchen.





And found a temporary home for the movie set I built but am not going to use for a long time. It's like Babe, Pig in the City, but with huge non-porcine animals. So maybe it's more like Godzilla. Godzilla probably liked sponge painting. We, however, are planning to cover it up as soon as possible.

For the rest of the week I'm going to be doing a lot of cooking. Channing's birthday is tomorrow, and I'm making sugar-free pear pie! I know that doesn't sound great (because it says sugar-free) but I have a magical cookbook which has really great sugar-free recipes, so it probably will be. Then on Saturday we're having a housewarming/Channing's birthday party, so I'll be making lots of snacks for that. Mmmmm. I love snacks.