Halloween 2014 Costume Reveal!

Friday, 31 October 2014Wednesday, 20 April 2016 Starr4 Comments

Happy Halloween!!!

As I’ve mentioned before, most of why I love Halloween as a holiday so much — despite how much I hate being scared — is that I love dressing up! I think that might even be why I have always been so drawn to acting and, in a past life, modeling. Getting into character is a lot of fun.

For those of you who don’t know, I work with Yelp, and one of my favorite things to do for my job is to dress up for themed events.

At DC’s recent Jet Set Fete, I was a flight attendant / stewardess / air hostess / what have you:

It was an easy look to put together once I had the dress and my manager provided the hat. The neckerchief is from my cousin, who works for Princess Cruises, and I thought that the travel-themed silk scarf was perfect.

Last weekend, we had our regional Halloween party. My actual Halloween outfit wasn’t quite ready yet, so I took some inspiration from Britney Spears and was a ringmaster:

Britney Spears inspires many of my life choices

I saw a ringmaster costume on my roommate’s Pinterest as she was looking for costumes of her own. I knew that I had a red blazer and that all I needed was a hat. I found the perfect one at Party City and it stays on my head via the headband it’s attached to. Perfect.

Now it took me some time to arrive on my Halloween costume. As I told you all before, I had to give up on some costume ideas that I was really set on this year. Since I have been doing Disney outfits the past 2 years, I thought it only right to do another one. After all, who doesn’t love a good Disneybound? This time around, I decided to go for a villain rather than a princess:

I went with this Ursula look and I’m so pleased with how it came out, especially given how I felt like I did this all at the last minute! (I like to start planning in July, so relatively speaking, it was very rushed.) Excuse the hair chalk that got on my dress; it is really unwieldy and mostly just makes me look old. XD

Anyhow, that’s how I will be showing my face in public today! The makeup scares me quite a lot so I’m just avoiding mirrors for a bit. ^^;

What’s your Halloween costume this year?

Quick schedule change

Tuesday, 28 October 2014 StarrLeave a comment

I’ve been keeping up with this Tuesday/Friday scheduling a lot longer than I thought I could and that makes me so happy!

BUT today I must delay a proper post to tomorrow (will probably delete this post after posting tomorrow) because I’m potentially doing fun things today that I’d love to share with you all. 😀

I do get conflicted about waiting until Tuesday or Friday to share things if they happen on a Sunday or a Wednesday or something. But if I deviate from my schedule, I will still try to have at least 2 posts every week up here 😀

Avengers: Age of Ultron [teaser trailer]

Friday, 24 October 2014Friday, 24 October 2014 StarrLeave a comment

Duh.

In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of the first Avengers film and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole.
Also in case you didn’t hear, this teaser trailer was leaked 2 days ago and Marvel had the greatest response to the incident.

If you don’t understand the reference, check out Captain America, Captain America: Winter Soldier, or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Marvel fandom has been in absolute uproar. I mean, you thought we were excited about Guardians of the Galaxy?

Okay, yes, we were excited for GotG. But that was for a comic franchise that most movies-only fans like myself weren’t familiar with at all.

This is the AVENGERS. Everyone fell in love with them 2 years ago. (I may have seen the movie 3 times in theaters.) (Not on purpose, but just because people kept spontaneously deciding to see it and I wasn’t going to be that spoilsport who went “No no no we can’t I saw it already”.) (But I digress.) We love the characters and we love the cast. OH how we love the cast.

So. The new trailer is out. Release date is May 1, 2015. Here is a quick list of things that got me SUPER excited in this trailer:

The deliciously dark cover of “I’ve Got No Strings” from Pinocchio. Disney, as a movie powerhouse, knows that their audience looooves these dark and somber covers of songs in trailers. (See: Maleficent with “Once Upon a Dream” ) In fact, all of Hollywood knows this. (See: The Social Network with “Creep” or, heck, even Fifty Shades of Grey uses an intense version of “Crazy in Love”).
James Spader’s voicework as our new villain, Ultron, is flippin’ fantastic
Marvel Studios’ take on Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver. If you watched the sting scene at the end of the credits for Captain America: Winter Soldier, you would’ve seen that Hydra has the twins. It’s also interesting because we’ve seen Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but these are two different studios, so… the joke in the fandom is that AOU (Age of Ultron) won’t be able to talk about mutants. Which is what they are. But… Marvel Studios doesn’t have the rights to “mutant” because Fox does? (In the sting scene, they’re referred to as “miracles”.)
- By the way, I am liking what I see with Elizabeth Olsen? I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen any of her work before.
Hulkbuster! The Hulk is a fairly important in the first film but it seems like he’ll be important in this one as well with how often he features in this trailer.
- Also, one of the best things about the first film I think we’ll be seeing here: the Avengers clashing and having to work together
- With all the talk of Civil War, the fandom is definitely abuzz about the clashing of the Avengers and the conflicts that will be exposed in this film that the previous films have been building up to. (I’m not familiar with the comics, but essentially, the Civil War arc sets Avengers against each other on the debate as to whether superheroes/mutants/whatever need to be registered.)
- Doubly also, a Hulk + Iron Man fight means that the Science Bros fandom will go bananas.
Hoping that Hawkeye gets more screentime in this one! Although he wasn’t featured much in the trailer.
Also hoping for some Black Widow story here, since Marvel keeps hedging on her own independent movie…
Some folks think this will be a Natasha Romanoff backstory sequence?
Possible Steve Rogers flashback?
Y’all know I love me some Cap.
SHIRTLESS THOR?
Because in the midst of half the world getting wrecked, we still need some at least one shirtless Chris to appease the fans
Andy Serkis as not-Gollum!
Rumored by comic fans to be playing Ulysses Klaw?
MUCH MUCH MORE

Sorry, guys. I started getting sucked into all the great information out here about this teaser trailer, all courtesy of the wonderful Marvel comics universe fans out there.

Are you excited for this movie?
Were you excited when you saw this teaser trailer?
How many times did you watch it??? I watched it no fewer than 10 times. No fewer than 3 times in a row.

Costume Wishlist

Tuesday, 21 October 2014Wednesday, 20 April 2016 Starr3 Comments

With 10 days left until Halloween, I find myself really wishing that I could sew or drop mad cash for the costumes of my dreams. I always start thinking about my costume in July because, as I’ve said before, I love dressing up. It’s so much fun for me to be someone else for just a short while. (This is probably why I’ve always been so drawn to theater and acting.)

Here are some ideas I toyed with but, ultimately, decided not to do this year (rediscovering Etsy made it difficult to say no, but re-examining myCostume Wishlist3 budget made it even more difficult to say yes):

Sailor Mars, Sailor Moon

This has been a dream costume for years now. I’ve always wanted to be Sailor Mars for Halloween, ever since I was given VHS tapes of Sailor Moon back in elementary school. I came really close to purchasing this costume, but I got scared off by:

Having to measure myself for a custom-fitted costume, and
The cost of the costume, custom fitting, and shipping

I’m really hoping I can buckle down and get this for next year though, especially considering I’d like to at some point attend a convention in costume. This has been my DREAM Halloween outfit for a long, long time.

Elizabeth, Bioshock Infinite

New Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth Cosplay Dress Costume

I recently finished Bioshock Infinite (yes, very late) and I really enjoyed the game. Of course, I had already started thinking about an Elizabeth cosplay, especially given that her look from the beginning of the game is very Belle-esque (from Beauty and the Beast) and could be adapted that way if I wanted to be lazier/more casual with the costume.

I wasn’t really considering the other outfit, despite my love of corsets, but I don’t think it’s as suited for me. People have amazing cosplays of that Elizabeth, but I really thought the first outfit was more charming.

Ultimately, it was proving really difficult for me to piece together the costume (getting a long enough blue skirt was basically the main struggle) and I decided not this year. Maybe next year, I’ll become better at thrifting or dropping a lot of money on a costume.

(I might still buy myself a bird/cage necklace or choker for funsies. I have a few options sitting in my Etsy favorites and wishlists.)

Ariel’s “Kiss the Girl”/sightseeing dress, The Little Mermaid

You may recall that I absolutely love The Little Mermaid. 2 years ago, I was Hipster Ariel for Halloween.

With a last-minute and unwilling (on both our parts, really) Eric

This year, I played with the idea of doing Ariel’s blue dress, because it’s actually my favorite of her outfits (I don’t like green) and I really wanted to dye my hair red again.

There is no reason her costume should cost so much more than any of the other ones I’ve been looking at?? And yet I could not find this for less than $100 without getting a really cheap fabric. It looks really easy to construct on my own, but again, I ran into problems finding the pieces I wanted, namely a plain black (read: not sexed up) corset and the dang long blue skirt that was vexing me with the Elizabeth outfit!

Also, not only were the costumes I found online expensive, but they were also just… I don’t know, they didn’t look very nice! I was really hoping I could pull this one together on my own, but the skirt and corset issues are still plaguing me. I’ll keep looking.

Alas, none of these visions will be coming true this Halloween. I’m left trying to piece together something that will still get me really excited to dress up but I don’t know if I will be excited, having hinged my Halloween dreams on these 3 costumes all year long. Giving up on dreams is hard, ya know?

I did have a successful run as a flight attendant for a Yelp event recently, but I don’t know if I want to do that for Halloween. I am playing with some Disney villain looks, so we’ll see if any of those pan out.

What are you being for Halloween?
Do you have any dream costumes that you might one day put in the time/effort to get?

Helsinki

Friday, 17 October 2014Friday, 17 October 2014 StarrLeave a comment

I left St. Petersburg feeling sad, to be quite honest. I was leaving my motherland (let me hold onto this possible lie my mother told me about my ancestry) and going to Finland, a country I really didn’t know anything about.

I am so glad I was proven wrong.

In short, I simply loved the feeling of Helsinki. I’m so fond of the city now. You know how every city has its own vibe, its own energy? Whatever that feeling was in Helsinki, I drank it up and reveled in it, despite the drizzly weather. (If it wasn’t so drizzly, we would have seen the sun rise at 4:30 AM and set at 10:30 PM. WHAT.)

Helsinki is where we started getting real with hop-on/hop-off buses, aka ho-ho buses. We got off our cruise ship and were greeted with this fun pink butterfly campaign for tourists, which I thought was SO cute.

Little pink butterflies were painted onto the asphalt. Helsinki certainly is welcoming to tourists!

Being greeted with this view of the sea helped boost my first impression of Helsinki as well. It was such a perfect day. I just remember… loving the feeling of Helsinki. The energy of the people, the personality of the city. I loved it much more than I thought I would, and I came away so pleasantly surprised by how wonderful Helsinki is. Maybe it was the result of having such loooooong daylight hours in the Scandinavian summer. The day we were in Helsinki, the sun rose at 4:30 AM and set at 10:30 PM. Imagine going outside at 10 PM and the sun hasn’t even begun to set. I remember thinking that the people were incredibly friendly but kept the thought in the back of my mind that they might be a lot grouchier in the winter, when the sun comes up around after 9 and is down before 4. But on this magnificent day, everyone smiled and was extremely friendly.

A lady making giant bubbles in the park for the beautiful little Finnish children? YEP, I love this city.

We visited the 1952 Helsinki Olympic stadium, and got to go up to the very top of the very tall tower.

The stadium tower stands at 72.71 metres (238.5 ft), which is the distance that Finnish javelin gold medalist Matti Järvinen threw in the 1932 Olympics.

Definitely can’t complain about the view…

We also spotted people waiting in line for audition for Finnish Idol? Or Finland's Got Talent? — We also spotted people waiting in line for audition for Finnish Idol? Or Finland’s Got Talent?

After a trip to the weirdly fancy and nice bathroom (can’t quite describe how it was fancy but… it was), we got to go into the stadium and it was awesome.

After proving the theory that a delayed bus only comes after a) I have walked away b) far enough that I have to run back to catch it (this theory has been proven right every time so far), we explored some of the sites that we saw on our first loop of the ho/ho bus.

Climbed allllllll these steps to enjoy a peaceful moment in Helsinki Cathedral while it sprinkled just the barest bit of rain outside.

We walked the quiet but still lively streets of Helsinki and grabbed some lunch at an open-air market. It seemed to be catering mostly to tourists but eh, I didn’t mind at all and was more than happy to be a tourist.

Grabbed myself a mad yummy lunch of little fried fish, veggies, and potatoes. MAN I still remember how this hit the spot on one of our few dreary days.

Also, I saw maybe one of my FAVORITE churches of the whole trip, and as you recall, I saw a lot lot of churches. I mean, I already saw the Helsinki Cathedral.

This, my dear friends, is Temppeliaukio Church, aka Church of the Rock. It was carved out of solid rock. It feels like you’re in a cave, except there’s daylight pouring in from all sides. The roof is copper coiled around itself thousands of times.

Easily one of the most unique churches I’ve ever seen in my life. Also, the acoustics are amazing in here because of the rock walls.

DEFINITELY visit if you are in Helsinki. While you’re there, you should also visit the Sibelius Monument, dedicated to composer Jean Sibelius.

Also, random thing, but I noticed a lot of cafes where you could eat al fresco had all the chairs facing the road? I saw this a few other times in Europe but it was definitely super apparent in Helsinki.