I know, I know, I have posted in a while and I really don't have an excuse other than Borderlands 2 and Resident Evil 6. That's right two video games have sucked me in and I almost cried at the end of RE6 (dammit Capcom), which is a testament to how little I've done in the past month.

So in turn, I present to you two things I've done lately!

The first is pretty boring, but just another reason to not knock DIY anything. A bit of back story, I'm naturally a blonde; dishwater blonde to be exact and I'm not a fan. It's ashy, matches my skin tone, and it's just blah. All through high school and part of college I've been dying my hair different colors, red being the main one. Since getting married I've been keeping it Garnier's Sangria, which is a reddish auburn. Its been that way for at least a year and honestly for $8 a month it's super quick compared to going to the salon once a month.

Anyway, just over a year and you can tell the color has been building up cause when the small amount of red that it added to the brown barely showed up and it looked like I had dark brown, almost black hair. So I picked up Garnier's Ultra Color in Light Intense Auburn. The funny part was it went on pumpkin orange.

Lets not talk about how awful this stuff looks in my hair, the color was just hilarious. So, it sat for 25 minutes and in that time it turned blood red, like so...

The splatter on the face was funny and I seriously look like a zombie snack. Not to mention the shower looked like a murder scene. However the final result was amazing! My blonde roots were a nice shade of bright red and most of the dark brown was gone as well, what was left gave me awesome low lights.

Yeah I didn't do ANYTHING but goop it on my head like I normally do, pretty cool, huh?

Away from the hair blurb, I spent October celebrating tons of birthdays (including my own :D) and my anniversary. And for those of you who don't know me or much about NaNoWriMo, October becomes figure out a plot month; which is what I did. Thank you Resident Evil I'm fixing some mistakes you made (bad Capcom, you know exactly what you messed up!) and writing my novel based on it. So long story short, my sister and I tore up the plots of all the RE games and made the make sense on some aspects and are now using their characters as we wish. I'm sitting at 5.3k on my word count and I need to hit 50k by the end of November, so I'm going to get back to that. However, you can expect updates on the novel as the month goes on!

I had this cute welcome mat with a pineapple on it since I first moved out some four years ago. Well after being outside for that long it's lost all the color it had and was just black and blah. It needed to change and I didn't want to buy a new one because my husband and I love it; not mention it's still a perfectly good welcome mat.

The solution? Repaint it, but what paint would a rubber mat need... That's where Google-fu comes in. Acrylic paint stays flexible so it's a perfect fit for this guy! Thanks to a tutorial over at Domestic Imperfection for pointing that out because my poor mat started out as this blah thing.

And after about an hour of painting I have this lovely "new" welcome mat.

Aside from the new paint job I've got the urge to make another welcome mat for a change when the spring comes. Ugh, crafting is addicting sometimes...

Ikasucon just announced the date for their Halloween Rave! If any of you are in the Ft. Wayne area on October 20, stop in for a great rave for only $5; there's even going to be a judge (or judges) for the costume contest this year! I'll be there doing that whole thing, cause you know it's what I do.

Anyway, I bring that up for two reasons. First, it's a great way to have fun and meet fellow Ikasucon attendees while supporting the con. Second, it's Halloween so there will be costumes, just like this:

I picked up this pattern last July while in Michigan and have been wanting to make it since so this is a great excuse to play with resizing patterns. Also it'll be funny to have that campy fifties mom running around a rave.

This morning I started using the app Zombies, run! In case you haven't heard of it, you are Runner 5, tasked with gathering items from the infested areas outside of Abel. It's pretty simple to use, just run the app and while you're listening to music, radio transmissions will play periodically that progress the story. Basically it's super addicting and after walking just over 3 miles, earning a popped blister and probably a few others, I'm getting up early to do it again!

Oh last week, you were my lazy week. I didn't actually get any sewing accomplished, mainly for money reasons. Anyway, I get paid next week which means fabric time! I love fabric stores, I really do.

The other thing that I like to toy with is writing. I'm definitely not a great writer, but it's still fun. I really got into it back in 2008 when I participated in my for NaNoWriMo and have at least attempted it every year since then. This year I've been toying with two ideas. The first is more of a fan fiction, though I'm not sold on it. The second is an idea that I tried writing in 2009 and it didn't work for me back then, but this time I'm taking a different route with it. My first novel stopped at around 24k words and it was a lot of outlining that got it to that point, this time I'm using lines that I want to incorporate into the story. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out in the end but all I know is I want to start writing it now!

As of Friday all the Ren costumes went out. I'm expecting lots of alterations and what not seeing that El Matador and Navy went out with no real fittings. Oh con months, killing my motivation and time management skills for the past two years.

Good news, the sewing bug has hit. I've been trying to figure out what I've been wanting to make next and I was given the challenge for my next con. Sugoicon is the first weekend of November (I think that's right, it's the first weekend after Halloween) and my husband has been wanting a Red Robin costume since before Matsuri. Crunch time hit and his had to get scrapped, but now I have time... and a bolt of red twill sitting in my sewing room. This works well since I've been wanting to do a Poison 
Ivy costume for the past month. Yay for DC characters, even though I don't really know anything about most of them!

Originally, I had planned on making The Batman version of Poison ivy because I thought it was a cute design and then I looked at the wig; I don't have that kind of experience with wigs, let alone my own hair. This meant that I needed to find an alternate version for Sugoi. I toyed with the idea of a steampunk version and possible a fan art design until I stumbled across this beauty:

It's pretty bad ass and gorgeous, plus the challenge of the cloak appeals to me. The only conundrum I have is whether I should paint myself or not, and that's another thing I don't know much about. Long story short, I love this costume, but I think it may need more than two months for me to get it right.

On the same site that I found that design I came across a design for Batgirl but the same artist, which I adored and am contemplating.

It's cute, simple, and probably warmer than Poison Ivy for November. Downside, I've never made a catsuit, well a decent catsuit without a designer helping me, before. It's definitely on the list though! Checking out some of the other articles that the site had I found one labeled DC Girls in Sweaters. Weird, I know; however this gem came out of it.

Yeah I know, shut up its fabulous. Cute, relatively quick, uses skills that don't require testing and mock ups, and warm for November. Bonus? I would wear the crap out of that hoodie and that cap is awesome! Got to chat with the husband in the morning to get a decent second opinion since I get excited and pick costumes that take more time than they seem...

That's Sugoi... Yup, two costumes, none too crazy, but two (close to three) months later is Ohayocon. Unlike Sugoi, I'll be there all three days advertising for Ikasu and possibly Matsuri. Talk has already begun on the costume for that and I know I plan in having Poison Ivy for that. I didn't have any solid plans for the other two days until this.

First, I've never seen Adventure Time. I know, that makes me a horrible person in some circles, but I've just never really watched it. No real reason, just never did. Anyway, my husband posted a link to a bunch of Steampunk versions of the Adventure Time characters and suggested it for Ohayo. A group of us have picked ones that we like and the brainstorming will commence tomorrow (I hope)!



...no, I haven't forgotten about Mockingbird and I still want to do Black Widow just because I don't need a wig. Damn catsuits are going to take over my closet.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I got back from Matsuricon late Monday night and I've been blah feeling since that Friday. Anyway, Olive is 99% finished with only alterations happening, Navy is 75%, and El Matador is 85%. Basically I'm awake right now trimming both and hopefully finishing up El Matador's jacket. 

There it is with the trim! All that's left on it is turning back the facing in the front, the shoulder pads, the side seams, and hemming. Not horrible but I still have detailing left on the pants.

Navy, on the other hand, got slightly neglected because it's so detailed. Not to mention just LOOKING at the basket weaving makes me want to cry. Right now I'm finishing up the trim on the pants, like so....

Still need to cut out the slashing and finish the edges before construction begins. After the pants are done I just have a bit of armscye adjustment and shifting the buttons on the doublet over.

This is gonna be a long night....