They're Here!

So here's the view from my front door today:

It's all ice and dreariness as far as the eye can see. Yesterday, I was so excited to see flaky white stuff falling in my yard, but my happiness was not long lasting. Shortly after the snowfall, it began to rain, and then sleet. Combine that with temperatures in the 20's and you have a mess. I needed to get something out of my car last night, but it was frozen shut. Today it's a tad warmer, so the icicles are melting, and by the middle of next week, we're supposed to be experiencing 70-degree weather. What?! I do not understand what's going on at all right now.

However, the crazy weather cannot bother me. Wednesday, I got my first package of costume accessories in the mail! I am now the owner of pointy-ear prosthetics and a wild pink wig. The wig has a little more black in it than I anticipated (Leah's hair is all pink), but I know I can make it work. The ears are just awesome. They're made in USA (bonus!) and are exactly what I wanted. A little makeup and they'll be ready to go. I might just wear these around the house sometimes!

I think the elven look suits me.

Step one to awesome troll hair.

The Pet Net

Part of my goal for this year is to more efficiently use the space I've got in my home. Our house is 1400-ish square feet, so it's not terribly tiny. However, it's an old home, so closets are small, and the layout is not quite as accommodating for a modern lifestyle. That means I'm having to get creative and make storage space where there isn't any.

My first project of the new year involved making a hammock or "pet net" for my little one's burgeoning stuffed animal collection. I know I could have just bought one, but none of my local stores had them in stock, and I would've felt ridiculous ordering that one thing, paying for shipping, and having some delivery guy drive all the way out to the boonies for that. That's not very thrifty or eco-friendly either, especially when my mother had just given me a large, fantastically bright pink piece of nylon material that I had literally no plans for.

Now, I cannot find the tutorial that I originally used to make this hammock, so I'll do my best to describe what I did. First, I measured how large I needed the net to be. This is a corner net, so I went to the corner and eyeballed how far out into the room I wanted the hammock to be and measured from that point to the corner. Then I cut out a square according to those measurements, folded it in half diagonally to form a triangle, and cut it out.

So I had the triangle that was to become my hammock. I then sewed a small hem on each side, somewhere between 1/4 and 3/8 of an inch. After that, I folded each corner over and sewed it, which gave me a straight edge about 4 inches long at each corner. It looked something like the shape at the bottom left of this pic:

Source

The next step was to sew pockets for the hammock's hanging rope. I simply folded over each long side about 1 1/2 inches and sewed them like you'd do a rod pocket for a curtain. Then I ran a rope all the way through each pocket, starting at the corner that would be against the wall, i.e. the corner that forms the right angle. I made sure to leave enough extra rope so that  could have enough to  make loops at each corner, and then I tied it off. All that was left to do was install hooks in the ceiling and hang it up. Once I got it up, I made a few adjustments with the rope to get it to hang the way I wanted, then I loaded up with my little one's stuffed animals. Now she has more floor space and doesn't have to sort through her less played-with toys to get to her favorites.

Tell me that doesn't look nice?

It's Been Decided

I have to start working on Halloween early. It's only January, yes, but this year I want to be Leah,  my troll hunter from World of Warcraft, so I have to get busy making stuff. It's my hope that I can make all her gear myself, but holy crap, that's going to take some work. Her transmog set, which will be what I'm constructing, you can see here.

I've already begun cutting out templates for the shoulder pieces and gauntlets. To keep the gear lightweight an inexpensive, I've opted to make my pieces out of papier mache and craft foam. Keep your fingers crossed that my faux painting skills are good enough to make it convincing!

This costume has a few challenging aspects that I'll need to overcome. Leah has a hot pink mohawk and braids, pointed ears, tusks, only two toes on each foot, and only three fingers on each hand. The ears and tusks I plan to take care of by using prosthetics, and the hair I plan to take care of with a wig. For the fingers and toes I'll have to get creative, and I'll show you my solution for this when the time comes. Oh, and did I mention she's green-skinned? I guess a little cream face paint will take care of that.

I'm photographing the whole process, and I plan to do step by step coverage of my journey to becoming Leah, so you guys will get to see the whole thing unfold throughout the coming months. My enthusiasm has been contagious, it seems, as my husband is now thinking that he wants to resurrect his old troll warrior Boaris to dress up with me. Frankly, nothing would make me happier, but we'll see if he goes through with it or not. I'm hoping to make the whole process look so fun that my little one will want to be our little troll baby. If she doesn't, that's okay, but I can't pretend that I won't be a little bummed. I've always wanted to do a themed family costume set, and a troll family would be awesome.

An Argument for the Oxford Comma

People I know sometimes look to me for advice on grammar. "You were an English major," they say. While I remember grammar rules and can normally help, I don't consider myself any more qualified than anyone else to give advice, because my degree is actually for literature. Besides, if my time studying lit in college taught me anything, it's that the rules for writing are fluid at best. Some of the best writers of all time bent the grammar rules or even broke them entirely. This is not to say I believe grammar rules are unnecessary. I firmly believe there's a distinct difference between E.E. Cummings writing exclusively in lower case, Lewis Carroll writing "Jabberwocky," and the stuff that ends up on this site: The Best Responses to Misspellings on Facebook. The grammar rules we were taught in elementary school can prevent confusion and occasionally keep you from looking downright stupid. It's with this in mind that I bring you a most convincing argument for the Oxford comma:

Source.

The Oxford comma is considered optional, but you can see here that it does lend clarity to just who was invited to the party. In this case, leaving it out could cause some... ambiguity. Either way, using it or not is up to you (or your persnickety English teacher). I'll have you know though, if the Internet is to be believed, Hugh Jackman finds the Oxford comma sexy. I hope you enjoyed your little grammar lesson. If you'd like to see more grammar and literature related funnies, visit my Pinterest board: I'm an English Major