Kanzashi and She-Ra

Ohg. This weekend is one for being totally girly. I’m (of course) goobing out over the geisha costume now that I’ve made up my mind on what to do this year. It’s still almost two months away, but I’m such a dope. It turns out that after all that goobing over red kimonos on Ebay, I had one all that time. I got it as a birthday present about 7 years ago. It’s navy blue, and a bit too short, and not ornate, but… It’s a kimono that I don’t have to buy. I’ve been trying my hand at making my own Kanzashi out of some ribbon. I found a site full of authentic Japanese ones, so I’ve been making mush out of my artistic brain trying to figure out how to replicate them. It’s an ancient art form involving pinching small squares of silk into flower petals to make full head dresses. I SOOO want to have some real ones, but they’re so expensive. There are a few on ebay that I have my eye on, because I haven’t figured out how to make the little dangly flowers yet, and the Japanese ones look much better than mine anyway. This and this are the sets I want.

O Friday, I talked with Meggie on the phone from Scotland. We were being girly about my costume. Or rather, I was goobing and she was being tolerant. She says to me suddenly “You should be WonderWoman!”, to which I reply, “Meggie, the whole point of going as Arwen or a geisha is so that I DON’T freeze! Besides, WonderWoman only had that sissy whip. She-Ra was cooler.” Meggie laughs and says “You could wear my She-Ra costume!” (Some of you may remember last Halloween when she and I went out on the town, she as She-Ra.) “What?” I said. “I don’t think I can find it, much less fit into it!” She then yells at me “Heather! It’s in your closet! I put it there when I moved! You need to dig it out and try on the boots. I want to see you in that thing!” So, I went home and looked, and there it was. This was the beginning of a near-catastrophe. I pulled a boot out of the bag, and daintily put my foot in it. I didn’t want to tear it after all the work she’s put into them, and Meggie wears a size 8, while I’m a nice size 10. To my shock, the boots were a size 9, but I managed to fit into them both. Well, I couldn’t just put on the boots only, so I went all the way. It took me a bit to get into the tube dress, Megan is considerably smaller around than I am, and she made it to be tight on her. So, I fooled around and took some photos, and then decided to take it all off and go to bed. This is where the problem came in. Somehow, I’d gotten the dress on over my head, but like wearing pantyhose on your head, it doesn’t come off so easily. It took a cup of water, lying on the floor, and 30 (yes really 30) minutes of struggling on my back to get that stupid dress off of me. I almost cut it off, but Meggie would have murdered me. I got three bruises and some carpet burns out of the deal. Thanks a lot, Megan. You can see the rest of the pics in the Me album.