Midsummer's Part 2

The next step was to teach the girls their make up design. I wish you could see truly how magnificent these turned out. They were brilliant. The colors were amazing. You might see it a little better in the production photos. (soon to come.) Anyway, I was very proud of my make up designs!

First up, Puck. This ended up being my favorite actually. I was blown away by her makeup and how beautiful Kamilla was in it. 

Cara's actually ended up looking amazing, you can't really tell from the pics. I wish you could see more. This girl GLOWED with her gold makeup and hair and costume. She was Titania.

Winter Fairy

Summer Fairy with her Mask

Wind/Air Fairy

Morgan (Water fairy) was striking with her blue makeup. She was GORGEOUS in her costume.

Pyper was Earth Loved the way her makeup turned out

Kenna was spring and looked GORGEOUS! She was so easy to work with!

Autumn Fairy

Fire Fairy.

Anyway, they turned out and looked fantastic. Loved the girls and Loved how they looked in their beautiful masks and makeup! Next to come: Costumes. :)

Nice new bathroom

So we've lived in this house for about 12 years now. (I know, can you hardly believe it?) And we've had the same decorations in our bathroom that whole time. Except for Christmas when I decorate the bathroom all chrismumsy. Anyway, I decided we needed a change in the bathroom. I was sick of the white walls. I was sick of the frog shower curtain that we had for 12 years (sorry mom, but it's true.) and I was sick of the one bathroom that strangers were allowed to use looking lame and gross and not fun. Soooo what did I do? I changed the bathroom. I picked a happy shade of blue and I went from there. I ended up going with a very coney island beach look. After shopping for a new shower curtain for a whole day, (online, bed bath and beyond, target, wal mart, jc penny, ross, etc.)  I gave in and bought fabric to make my own. and you know what? I LOVE THE WAY IT LOOKS AND TURNED OUT!!! I am thinking of making more and selling them on Etsy.com. Isn't it so cute!!!!??

Even the bottom turned out so cute! 

I am eventually going to get newer, nicer towels. (We've had these towels forever as well in case you couldn't tell.) But everything just pulled together so well. I love how the colors match the curtain. How happy and festive and how they say, "GRAB YOUR BEACH BALL! LET'S GO RIDE THE WONDER WHEEL!"

Also, if you look at the top of the pic above this text, you'll see a pink glass lantern? those are candle filled lanterns that cast such a nice fun glow when you're taking a bath. Love them!

I got some shelves to put above the toilet. The top shelf will have guest towels on it, but I haven't gotten them yet. There is a plant on one, her name is Genevieve, and then more glass candle holders on the toilet and shelf. The one on the shelf next to the plant, if you click on this picture you can see it bigger, but I made a beadwork thing to go around it that just looks incredible!

I found these cute little mirrors with resin frames at Ross. I got all 3 for just 4 bucks. Woot. And The vase you see in the corner was only 3. I love Ross.

My sister Jacki is going to make me some cute vinyl lettering that will say, "By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea." I also need to get a new light bulb since one went out. And with the blue paint it seems a little darker in there, especially with the non see through shower curtain. (we always have a sea through shower curtain.) So I need to get some more light in there somehow.

Also, I want to hang some pics of Coney Island in the bathroom. I'm really hoping my Holga pics turned out. ( don't think they did, I'm afraid the film might have gotten exposed.) So we'll have to see how they turned out. Maybe I can make cea's look vintagey, or just buy some of my own. And it would be great if I could find some good frames that match my mirrors. 

Anyway. Love my new bathroom!

Midsummer's Night Dream Part 1

The next stop on my adventure of life is busy and I am gonna kill myself of exhaustion was the biggest costume show I've ever done in my life. A Midsummer's Night dream. Once again I was so lucky to have Chad with me. Who sewed a million buttons on and sewed crystals on and was just my savior, because hand sewing is so time consuming, but i just told him what to do, and he did it. 

Isn't he so cute?

My next saviors were Mom and Aunt Sandy. Sandy who isn't a big fan of sewing came over and helped us sew men's doublets. No way could we have done this without her. I was so busy with fairies and the girls and wedding dresses and puck and etc. etc. etc. the thigns I had to make patterns up for, that I set mom and Aunt Sandy to sewing things that DID have a pattern. And thank goodness. 

Poor Coco hated our allnighters. This is her bed. She sleeps on my dad's chair and she hated that we were sewing and up with the lights on all night. Poor thing. She would keep one eye glaring at us all night, sighing and huffing and puffing. Poor thing.

This is actually clean compared to how the house was normally looking. Normally there was fabric all over the floor and the couch and the EVERTYTHING. And costumes everywhere and glitter everywhere and buttons and lace and ribbon. it was insane.

A little better to see the mess.

My machine broke when things really started getting serious and crazy. And I bawled. By the way I kept track of my emotional break downs from the beginning of this project. Grand total: 4. Not as many as I thought it would be. But wow. Not having my own machine put a huge damper on things. And i really am going to need one. (yes, I'm accepting donations. :)

Aunt sandy was really proud of the doublet she sewed! It's so big on her, because Bill is such a huge teddy bear of a boy, but it looked amazing. THANKS AUNT SANDY, CHAD, AND MOM!

Curious Savage

As I posted a long time ago, I directed a play. And I know it's been a while, but I've been so busy that I haven't had time to blog. And I lost my camera cable. SO here we go. I'm catching up on all my blogs. So there's going to be a few posts in a row.

But yeah. I directed the Curious Savage. And you know what? I was really proud of my play. I was really lucky to have an amazing, very professional, and talented cast. We had our problems, as all casts do. But there seemed to be very little drama and the problems were handled very well. 

So thank you to my amazing cast.

I always knew that directing a play was a lot of work. I knew that. I've assistant directed, costume designed, written plays, I have even directed, but it's never been as hard as doing one like this. The plays I directed were in High School and College and I always had a friend or teacher there to tell me what to do. 

Luckily I had chad.

Now I don't know waht I ever did to deserve a friend like Chad Craner, but I'm sure I'd do it over and over again. He had no obligation to this show, wasn't in it, etc. BUT he was there every moment that he wasn't working, helping me paint, painting, painting, painting. Keeping me sane. Running for Mt. Dew. Running for my house for stuff I'd forgotten. Running to Arby's for dinner, and painting some more. 

We even had to spend the night sometimes at the scary theater. 

One night we decided to watch a ghost movie on my laptop...in the haunted theater...not a good idea.

This is our bed we would make out of various couch cushions, blankets, pillows etc. that we found lying around the theater. We slept on the stage, because we felt like it would be the safest place...and we were scared.

\

But I've spent so much time at this theater, on this stage, that once we turned the lights off and were just lying there, we just stared out into the dark theater, the faint outline of lights reflecting the green exit sign lights. The seats barely visible. etc. And you know what? It was quite peaceful. I will always remember the hours we spent in that theater. I know it isn't as much as some, but I also know it's a lot more than others. I've been in lots of productions there, spent many nights at late night rehearsals. I've been through every nook and scary cranny and room in that theater. I've seen bats and mice and I've seen new paint and old paint and new carpets and old carpets, etc etc, etc. And lying there with the theater dark and quiet, I realized how much Heritage has become a second home to me.

And my play turned out great. I loved my cast and I loved the experience. And I will definitely direct again. But it won't be for a bit. During this experience, and helping with Midsummer's (a  blog post yet to come.) I realized that I need to go back to school and I'm majoring in Theater Education. Yep. Gonna be a drama teacher. Oh brother. But here we go. right? Anywya, for those who took the time to support my cast, Thank you so much for coming to to show. For those who didn't, you really really missed out on an amazing show. Lots of people told the theater it was the best show they'd ever seen there. And I'd believe it. But not because of me, because of my cast. I received a letter from a lady telling me she'd been in the show twice, but she saw my production...and finally understood the show. She understood the characters. And that was quite the compliment. 

And it was all worth it. The pain, the late nights. The hundreds of gallons of mountain dews the hundreds of Arby's curly fries and chicken sandwiches consumed. The hours of sleep lost, the nights covered in paint with no showers. (I had rashes on my arms from the paint!) etc. it was all worth it. Next time? Think farther ahead so I'm not so tired opening night so I can enjoy it more. 

Pretty little flowers, all in a row

If you remember when I posted this blog entry about how does your garden grow? I talked about how I planted lots of bulbs, etc. Well when I got home from New York, all the flowers that Shawn and I worked so hard to plant were in full bloom. I promise these pics don't do justice to how beautiful they all looked! But here are some pics I got of my beautiful tulips and such! 

No wonder I can't lose weight.

I've been weighing myself wrong these 25 years!

Finally! The correct way to weight myself!

Hi, My name is Mandee, and i have an addiction

As most of you know, I love photography. I love it. so much. But recently, about the last year, I've started to get bored with photography. Digital cameras are amazing. We can take a million pictures and not waste any film, just memory space. We can delete what we don't want. Only get printed what we do. Color correct the ones that we believe are slightly "off." We can photoshop the heck out of them, and post them anywhere we want: blogs, flickr, facebook, etc. Digital cameras have turned the art of photography into an art for everyone. Like a color by number for those who don't know how to paint. I see some people who never would have been able to show their true talent if they hadn't been exposed to digital photography. I've also seen people who pick up a camera and point and shoot, not understanding white balance or ISO or aperture or lenses and call themselves photographers and charge poor seniors hundreds of dollars.


I was getting bored with my photography. I was getting bored, because everyone else was doing what I was doing. Even better. Plus, I knew I was one of those mediocre photographers who were allowed to have a digital camera who made their lack of talent come off looking a lot better than it should. I see my sisters' photography and I hang my head in shame, even on some occasions cry.


One of my problems was I never felt that I could accomplish what I wanted my pictures to look like. I couldn't show off the world how I saw it. I wanted to break through and show that part of the world that was dream like. That life really is a passing us by, that this moments are impressionable. Much how I imagine Monet and Van Gogh and Renoir and Seurat felt as they broke through with their painting. We live in an imperfect world and 20 megapixel, perfectly framed, focused and color-corrected photos don't really represent most of our lives. 


Enter the Holga into my life.


Finally. 




The Holga takes pictures exactly what I see the world as. Dreamlike.  Passing momments. Sometimes blurry. Sometimes weird. Sometimes Dark. Sometimes light. Most of the time: imperfect. 
And finally. I found a form of photography where I didn't care. I don't sit and focus my settings and my aperture etc etc etc hoping i get the right picture and lose focusing on what's really happening. I barely look through the eye lens. I just point it at something, set it at my hip, set it above my head, etc, and just click the trigger. Boom. A picture was taken. And then...the anticipation. I get to wait for my film to be developed and delivered. And you know what? It's like waiting for Chrsitmas. Every time. 


Analog Cameras, my holga, have come to save me from the world of being stuck in megapixels and jpegs and raw files. We're numbed to photography, you can't deny it. But my cheap, chunky, almost made all of plastic, camera has been put on this Earth to save me. It opens my eyes, helps me "see the light" so to speak. It spurs my vision and my inspiration. Seeing it fills me with joy. When I thought photography had disappeared forever from my life, it brought me sunshine in a cloudy day of my life. When life took away my perfect digital camera (which i haven't abandoned, because it still gets great shots that only are achieved with technology) and replaced it with my holga, it was like seeing beauty as i always imagined it. 

Live dangerously - go analog. 


And as this obsession with my holga came about, I have also been obsessed with other Analog cameras. And here are the two I am currrently saving up for:

The Fujifilm Instamax Mini 7s

A small polaroid type camera that takes small credit card size pictures.

I love it.

I want it. 

Why? Because although it doesn't take the vintagey, dreamlikepictures of a holga or diana camera...It's a polaroid. Perfect for roadtrips, vacations, hanging out with friends. Want it. Must have it.

And the Lomo Fisheye lens camera.

Exactly what the name entails. A camera that uses 35 mm film to take fisheye lens pictures! Just a camera for lots of fun. I plan on getting this one as well!

Anyway. So this is my new addiction.  And I love it.