Patriotic Outfits: Stars and Stripes

Another day, another patriotic outfit. In contrast to my last post's serious, more professional outfit, today's is purposefully laid back. After all, what patriotic holiday isn't celebrated with picnics? Can't think of one either, eh?

Now, I'm not one to usually wear things exposing my midriff, but if you aren't in danger of muffin-toppage, these tied crop-tops sure can be cute. This denim Octavia Tie Crop Top from Motel does happen to be one of my favorites. With a high neck and buttons, this top does price out to be $50 (gulp), but there is definitely more than one summer's worth of use in it. Now, if you can only keep the tummy to match it....

The pants, likewise, are expensive. FreePeople always is...although they are also the website that has a handy "download picture" button to support my excessive blogging habits. If you look closely on the leg of these American Flag Super Flare jeans, you'll see that the American flag does reside in white on the right leg. Apparently these run a little small, but getting a larger size is a small price to pay for the nostalgia of looking cute in bellbottoms. I'll watch from afar to see if FP has a sale anytime soon.

Of course, every girl needs her accessories. For a day in the park, everyone needs some nice shades, and aviators definitely have a patriotic feel to them (no idea why. Maybe it has something to do with excessive spy movies). As a plus, these glasses can double as Nikita's for dress-up purposes or when the need arises to look exceedingly cool and have reflective sunglasses. ANYWAY. With the laid-back feel of a picnic, little or no jewelry makes the look. Wild natural beauty looks best. Besides, what fun is it to be outside when you have to make sure every hair stays in place?

Oh, yes. I did save the best for last. I fell in love with these Stars and Stripes TOMS. Not sure how appropriate it is to have flags on your shoes, but cute tootsies are very important and it isn't an actual flag so...I'm sure we're all good. I hope. Either way, these are comfy shoes for busy days. Go play some volleyball!

Patriotic Outfits: Running Up The Flag

What does a girl do for patriotic outfits? Why, spend money, of course! (I only wish I had an unlimited budget!). As I sit within a stone's throw of my state's capitol, my thoughts, for some reason, have turned toward patriotism and the 4th of July. Rather than writing a memorial post and wonderful, deep thoughts about our nation's foundations and how they are quickly eroding, I decided to go on an extravaganza and spend lots of imaginary money by posting four awesome patriotic outfits that I have put together through internet means.

Ironically, my American series was inspired by a ~$900 pair of shoes. Rupert Sanderson's Marquita Sandals, to be exact. I absolutely love these shoes (even though they're exclusive to a British store, Selfridge's), but even for shoes I love...I'm not coughing up that much cash. It did, however, inspire me to hunt around for a few outfits that I think are patriotic...and I've tried to make sure they don't totally break the bank, either. Thus, I can promise that none of these outfits are as expensive as those shoes. Anyway, to go with the shoes.

Today's post is mainly professional in taste, so to match with the shoes (of course!) is a beautiful knee-length Vacation Day Skirt from modcloth, as well as a Windowpane Jacquard Top from Coldwater Creek. Finally, make the outfit perfect with some final touches in the accessories--Patriotic Nail Wraps and a Rock Star Spangled Scarf! There. Your patriotism is complete--and each piece can be used in other outfits, too. Unique, but versatile.

Tweet Tweet! I've Been Twitterpated!

TaintedLoves has its own Twitter now! Pretty amazing, huh? I was hesitant to get a twitter, but I finally decided to when I realized I was running across a lot of deals that I simply didn't have time to blog about. I barely have time to blog once every other day right now, yet I'm constantly running across great coupons, discounts and products that I just absolutely love. At the same time, I don't want this blog to turn into a "ooo, look, here's a deal! and here's a coupon! and here this looks so totally cute, and it is on a BOGO sale!" On the other hand, I don't want to hog all the sales, either.

Thus, the perfect solution. A twitter. With twitter, I can swiftly inform all of you lovely people about any deals I find in 160 (or is it 150?) characters or less. Secondly, if I feel incredibly witty or sarcastic, I'll have a place to let loose my randomness. So be warned, I'm sure the twitter will turn into a mixed bag.

Not scared away yet? If you aren't, you can follow me here.

Cake Stencils: Amazing Cakes Made Easy

Last Christmas, I mentioned these wonderful cake stencils from ModCloth. I enjoy baking, and I actually took cake decorating classes for several years. However, these stencils always looked lovely, so I purchased them a while back, but I never got a chance to actually use them until recently.

I was going to spend the evening alone, so I decided to make a one layer chocolate cake from scratch (which nearly turned out disastrously--but I survived). The stencil kit contains recipes, too, so I tried out the chocolate ganache. Incidentally, I cheated and make it in the microwave rather than on the stovetop, but that is neither here nor there. The ganache was quite tasty, and I simply poured it over the top of the cake, let it cool somewhat, and then applied the stencil and powdered sugar. When I took the stencil off, I actually had a bit of trouble trying to convince myself to cut it, just because I was so proud of it.

There are, of course, a few catches to using the stencils. For one, you want the cake to be flat, or else the stencil isn't going to be able to lay flat and the image is going to be distorted. This wasn't a huge issue at all for me, as I'm used to trying to make my cakes as flat as possible. However, I guess not that many people know how to do that, so here are a few options:

1. Pound your cake. This is actually pretty simple. After you pour the batter into the pan, put a hand on either side of the pan and essentially pound it against the counter. I usually throw a towel between the pan and the counter, just in case. You should see little air bubbles coming up through the top of the cake. You're technically supposed to do this until air bubbles stop coming up, but you can pound forever. I usually stop when my arms get tired. By getting rid of the air bubbles, your cake will be denser and should rise more evenly and not as high.

2. Cut the top off the cake. Before you take it out of the pan, grab a large sharp knife (serrated works best) and cut off the top of the cake. This also allows for the cook to have something to snack on while finishing cooking. Mind your fingers, though!

3. Flip the cake. As soon as you pull the cake out of the oven, flip it over onto a plate/platter. I usually leave it in the pan when I do this, so that the shape actually flattens, rather than inverting.

Once the cake is rather cool, ice and then apply the stencil. The book has instructions for how to use the stencils, and as long as you follow the step by step, it is rather easy. I've used it several times so far, and I'm quite happy with it. I'm still working on my technique for using it on cupcakes, though....

Brave: Hunting Down The Right Weapons

Merida's hunting accessories do say a bit about her. Finding a replica of Merida's bow says a lot about the costumer. I've left off her more queenly attire to review later, as I'll be examining her mother's too, so I thought those two were best reviewed together. Thus, a short review of Merida's hunting attire.

Key to Merida's dress is her belt/thigh quiver. The belt is leather and holds a quiver--but I can't really see the quiver to find a good match online, although there are matching arrows. While I cannot prove it, I am pretty sure that the belt is actually part of a thigh quiver (essentially, that means that the belt and the quiver are attached to each other). This not only makes sense historically, but also aesthetically, since the quiver seems to hang toward one side, and may have a flattened leather look. Thus, ArmStreet's Bowman Leather Quiver in brown would probably be an accurate match. If you are disinclined to wear a quiver, a close (non quivered) equivalent would be Dark Knight Armory's Peasants Medieval Ring Belt in a brown.Incidentally, this is a very handy costuming accessory, since many fantasy, pirate and medieval costumes will use a belt like this one. 

In contrast, Merida's bow is highly practical. it is a standard long bow of light wood with silver and leather accents. Unfortunately, bows can be quite costly and I don't know how often you could get away with carrying one into a theater. On the same note, while you can buy arrows from the Dark Knight Armory, I would suggest not actually carrying any real ones into the theater.

It is relatively hard to find a bow with the light birch. This bow from Dark Knight Armory is a dark wood and gold version of Merida's. The much more accurate (and exceedingly more expensive) Lothlorien Longbow from the same provider is the right wood color with the light detailing. And it is half a grand, too. Pocket change, I'm sure.

Brave: If The Dress Fits, Put It On!

Brave appears to have some very realistic costumes (with a few exceptions). Thus, I have taken on writing up some notes and observations about them for you. I was planning on going to a prescreening tomorrow, but things have come up and I will be unable to attend (boo hiss). The nice thing about going to a prescreening: you get to check all your facts. The nice thing about *not* going: you don't have to remember everything and write it just-so. Thus begins my commentary on Merida's outfits, and how they are anything BUT just so.

Merida has two basic dresses and a cloak. The first dress I examined was her green travel/hunting dress. It appears to be made from linen, or something with a looser weave and thick thread. Goes to the ankles. If you have $150 laying around, you might consider stopping my ArmStreet and taking a look at their linen Autumn Princess dress. Slight differences include a boat neck and no cream lining, but hey. It is close.

The dress is, incidentally, very close to the one in the painting The Lady Clare--down to the cut of the sleeves and the striped underdress. It made me begin to wonder if the one was not modeled after the other. Who knows if that was the intent or a happy coincidence, but I would say it wouldn't be too hard to simply create a green Lady Clare and call it Merida's dress.

Merida's other dress, her Princess dress, appears to be made of a lighter, satiny fabric. It has the same basic cut as the travel dress, but it is much tighter--hence the tearing that occurs when Merida enters the archery contest. It appears to have the same cream underdress as the Travel Dress does. The belt is a fairly simple gold belt--if you look at the pictures, you could easily create the same thing with some wide golden ribbon, a snap and some jewels. I am still hunting for a replica of her head covering.

Ok, I would never make a version of the ripped dress, just because, well, it is ripped. However, here is a solidly constructed dress that could imitate the tears. Grab your bow, ladies!

Underdress: This, perhaps, is a silk or satin? It has a sheen, and is striped. Is almost as long as the other dress, but shows at the sleeves and collar with a ruffle. If you don't mind losing the stripes, I'd be willing to bet that the Flax Linen Underdress/Chemise from ArmStreet is about what Merida is wearing. In other words, a nighty.

Finally, Merida has an awesome swishy cloak. The fabric appears to be a sort of woolen fabric. Appears to have a hood. Stops about six to 12 inches above hem of dress in some shots--in others it appears a bit longer. It is easy to find cloaks, but hard to find ones with this specific length. I think almost any generic cloak would pass, for a costume, though. 

More notes to come later....

Madagascar 3: Two Free Tickets in San Francisco

Hey everyone! Today I have a little surprise for you: two free movie tickets to see Madagascar 3! This is a free giveaway, but it is also a contest. Below are several different ways to enter this contest, but first, please review the details:

1. These tickets are to see Madagascar 3 at an AMC theater in San Francisco. They are "valid for any 2D show beginning Monday through Thursday, through the run of the engagement." In other words: they aren't good on weekends.
2. The Madagascar 3 tickets are FREE. However, don't be troll. If you want to resell the tickets or something else like that, don't enter. If I catch you...well, I'm not sure what I'll do, but I'll think of something.
3. I'm not responsible for any issues you might have at the theater. I was simply given two free tickets, which I am passing on to you my readers. It is your responsibility to check what show times are available, as well as to confirm that the particular AMC theater you choose will accept the voucher.
4. I will need a valid California address from the winner so I can send you the tickets. If you refuse to share a valid mailing address with me, you forfeit your winnings. And I will only ask once. I will not mail the tickets out of state.
5. The contest begins with the posting of this post, and it ends at 12:01 AM on June 24, 2012. I use a bot to choose the winning entry to eliminate any foul play cries or chance of fudging on times.

That said....good luck to you all, and remember to enter every day! Oh, and tell your friends, too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Madagascar 3: Creating Gia's Cat Eyes

Gia the Jaguar has probably been one of the funnest costumes I've researched/planned in a long time, but unfortunately her time as a featured character on my blog is coming to a close (mainly because Brave comes out next week and I would like to talk about Merida a bit before it opens). I will, however, write one more post about Gia, giving comprehensive instructions, Things You'll Need lists, and a Cool Things I Didn't Use list. And, per readers requests, pictures. But don't expect that for a good while.

On to Gia's eyes. As you can tell from the pictures, she has a strong black outline to her eyes, along with long lashes and a bit of a shadow above her eye, but none below. Obviously, unless you are blessed with a particular ethnic background, there is no easy way to achieve her beautiful almond eye shape, but there is always a way to manipulate looks.

The best way to deal with the long lashes is simply to buy fake ones. Two sets that I particularly like (and require little to no trimming) are Eylure's Naturalites for Gia's regular look and Hed Kandi Lashes for Gia's blacklight look (the lashes are supposed to have purple accents in them). If you look closely at Gia's eyes, her lashes are very short close to her nose and very long at the corner of her eye. Both of these sets are already trimmed that way, cutting out the nasty work of trying to trim them Just So.

Beyond the lashes, of course, you want some good eyeliner to give the black edged look that most cats tend to have. You have good liquid eyeliner and a steady hand, you'll do fine--just add a little Cleopatra flair to the corner. If you have issues with applying eyeliner or aren't used to using it, you might want to try something like Eye Rock Designer Liner. I've never used this one specifically, but I must say, I'm a huge fan of the peel-and-press sorts of makeup--it makes everything so much easier and cleaner!

Finally, a light swipe of grey eyeshadow finishes the look. You won't want to do more than one brushwidth above the lashes, and it shouldn't be very dark at all. If you don't care to use eyeshadow, smudging the eyeliner a bit will give the same sort of effect.

I feel a bit sad moving on from Gia. This has been very fun and I enjoyed writing and researching about her. Who knows? Maybe we'll see her again in Madagascar 4.

Brave: Change Your Fate

Brave is the next big animated movie coming up (at least in my world). Based on the fairy tale of The Bear and the Bow, it is a Tangled-esque story of finding yourself, your true family and the like. Now that Madagascar 3 is out for the world to see and I have very little other commentary about the film, it is time to move on. Brave comes out next, so, logically, it is my next blogging stop, thoughts on Merida's dress included.

Apparently, despite thinking earlier that there were no interesting films coming out this summer, I was wrong, since the line up does include Brave, Dark Knight Rises (but only because Anne Hathaway is awesome), and, uh, maybe Ice Age 3. The Katy Perry film looks interesting, but not interesting enough to wrench open my pocketbook to go. I think it looks interesting mainly because of the weirdness factor. But back to Brave.

The story follows Merida, a king's daughter who is, well, a feisty redhead who knows how to handle a bow. Her wish to be able to change her predicted future leads to the near-destruction of her family, which she then has to save. Accomplice is mad that they changed the name and thus is prepared for it to be awful. I'm a bit more optimistic, although a little concerned that Brave follows so close on the heels of Tangled. I'm hoping that it wasn't simply a response to having such a successful film that they try to churn out another one like it.

I won't be making any costumes or anything based off of Brave. I'm simply not that into the film, and even if I was, I can't create something from every film I like. However, I will be writing about some costumes, especially since Merida's gown reminds me of Susan's archery dress in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Doctor Who: Tips on Becoming The Time Lord Himself

I was flipping through my Doctor Who sites the other day, and I ran across one that I had saved a while back. Obviously, I won't be making one of the Doctor's costumes for myself, since, well, I'm a girl. Despite that, I appreciate how much this fellow blogger has put in to researching, designing and writing about the Doctor's costume. After wandering around his blog a little more, I remembered exactly why I had saved the blog, beside the fact that it is a great guide for referring other costumers to.

It was because of little Jamie, who loves Doctor Who so much that his lovely Mum sat down and made him both a 10th Doctor and an 11th Doctor costume. As far as I can tell, Jamie's mum doesn't have a blog of her own, but I somewhat wish she did. Jamie looks so cute and serious in his costumes. At the same time, it is obvious he loves them. Anyway, take a look at Eleventh Doctor Costume, and be sure to pop over to his other Doctor Who sites. Meanwhile, I am going to go back to studying another Doctor--Doctor River Song.

Madagascar 3: Creating Gia's Spots

Before I share my thoughts on easily making jaguar markings, I will say this; the reason why I haven't really blogged anything for the last week is because the prescreening was highly frustrating. Don't get me wrong; the movie was very well done and overall highly enjoyable. What wasn't so enjoyable was that we had been sent the wrong time, given bad information, and all around had a frustrating trip. The movie itself was great.

Because I was planning on returning home and writing about the showing, and then promptly came home and didn't know how to best to write about it, I've put off posting. However, at the least I should finish my notes about Gia for everyone. On to her spots!

If you look closely at the pictures of Gia, you can see that she has a variety of different spots. Some are the classic O with a dot in the middle look, while others, especially those on her face, are much more dash-like. She also doesn't really have any close to the center of her face, and they seem to fade out if they are close to her nose. The spots probably should be applied over all other make-up; I tried it the other way and didn't really care for the results. At some point I should write something about what base colors to use, but not right now. I'm tired. Anyway, part of the reason I've tried to post good Gia pictures with each post is so that you can get a good idea of her spots for yourself.

The easiest way to do the spots actually struck me while I was putting on concealer. Covergirl liquid concealer is brushed on, and is perfect for applying shapes. You just have to get handy with the brush and have good control to make the shapes. It is always handy to have a picture of Gia close by, so you can try to base your spot design directly off of her face. And, an easy way to do that is to put a picture of her directly below your mirror and simply apply the spots mirror image. Incidentally, that's what I did the first time I ever applied all of my Mad Hatter make-up, and it helped remove a lot of frustration.

What I experimented with much more--and, frankly, I like the looks of better, although it takes more time and a good (or several good) eyebrow pencils. Each pencil stroke equates to a hair, and it looks really cool and furry. This needs much more practice, so your family might want to get used to you doodling spots on your arms. I found that, with this, it is best to practice first on your arms, just so you can get the feel of it and decide what shorts of shapes you like before trying to apply them to your face. If you just start out doing it directly on your face, chances are you are going to get highly frustrated. A much more time-intensive and expensive way is to settle in with a color wheel, like the ones from Ben Nye, as were used for there sample cats, which I talked about previously. However, there is nothing about this look that can't be achieved by simply utilising the options sold at the local grocery store. Perhaps the only thing that isn't easily acquired in town is white face powder, but that is another post. I personally would probably rely on BN to get the basics done, then apply the design on top of that.

Incidentally, one last tip. While I'm not saying that ever spraying hairspray in someone's face is a good idea, I rely on it to hold the detail and shape of my styles. But don't copy me on that because I'm probably poisoning myself by spraying super glue hairspray on my face. Or something. Anyway, it works really well.

For instructions and commentary on creating a Gia, see also:
Clues on How To Create Gia
Making Gia's Whiskers