Kids have been going to the pool a lot this month

Steampunk Hat

What is "steampunk"?
Some describe it as if gothic people discovered the color brown. It mostly reminds me of time travel. It uses clothing from the turn of the century, mixed with images of technology from then & now. They integrate lots of references to cogs, gears, locomotives, air ships, flight/wings/aviation, and pipes with clothing similar to both Victorian dresses and military uniforms, BUT they also include lots of sci-fi elements.
EXAMPLES:

    

At the costume store I manage, we're putting up a steampunk-themed mannequin display. We have lots of options for rental costumes that can be used to look steampunk for a day, but since steampunk is a life-style (similar to people who are gothic, as a lifestyle), customers generally want to OWN their steampunk ensemble. With that said, we are super excited that next month we'll have in new steampunk accessories to purchase. We've dressed the mannequins in our rental clothing and next month will cover them with accessories that can be purchased (i.e. Gloves, top hats, bowler hats, scarves, skinny suspenders, monocles, glasses, goggles, jewelry, parasols, corsets, and etc.).

My project:
To make a mannequin wearing a fitted velvet coat look more steampunk, instead of vampire-like, I borrowed his top hat tonight to attack it with a cogs, gears & gizmos look.

I picked up a sheet of scrapbook paper covered in bright cogs. (Right shape, wrong colors/texture.) I also found a pack of little metal cogs in three shades of metal. (Perfect colors, but kinda small for size of the hat).

I cut the cog shapes out of the scrapbook paper, to get perfectly round cogs of varying sizes.

Then I flipped the paper over and painted the white-side with rust, black and silver paints, to match the colors of the metal mini-cogs.

I wrapped some wide brown ribbon around the top hat and tied a bow. Then I cut the ribbon to this length and removed it from the hat. Remember: I wanted to temporarily change this hat for a display, so all my decorating has to be on a removable ribbon, so the hat can still be sold in it's original condition if neccesary.

Next, I hot-glued on the hand-made cogs and the mini metal cogs to the ribbon & tied the ribbon back on to the hat. :)

Codi, Courtney and Jenna on Chick-fil-a's Cow Appreciation Day

On 'Cow Appreciation Day', if you wear a cow costume from "Head to Hoof" your entire entree is free at Chick-fil-a. The girls borrowed rental costumes from work and a bunch of their friends all ate for free.
Codi is the butt of the cow and Courtney is the front of the cow.  That's Courtney's boyfriend in front, holding her purse.

Right now they are 9th place in the national photo contest of the event, in their category (Herds).Click here to VOTE for their Photo to win

Early July

 

At church with my Mom, July 3rd.

We had a great visit. My Mom spent all week playing with the kiddos, while we worked. I was home for dinner each night, so we still got to spend a lot of time together watching 'Glee' and 'Ally McBeal' re-runs on Netflix. We all enjoyed me having this whole weekend off from working at the costume store. :)

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Codi and Sophie

(I made Codi's hair bow)

July 4th- After work, we all walked down to the closest playground with my Mom, Codi and Sophie (the dog Codi is dog-sitting). We didn't stay long, because of the heat. It's been around 102 some days this week.

Canvas project Elaine, her babysitter and I made recently:

1). Paint watercolor blobs in colors you like.
2). Cut out butterflies from the paper with the Cricut (I used the wings meant for the Angel paperdoll)
3) Paint an artist's canvas your favorite color
4) Fold paper butterflies down the center, so they are demensional.
4) Hot glue the butterflies to the canvas, making sure they are all right-side up *not flying upside down.