Halloween 2012

This month has been crazy!! If I didn't have carpal tunnel, than I sure do now. Lots of face painting, hair dos, balloon twisting, crafting, young women award night, camping, childhood illnesses and ... oh my! Let's just say, there have been lots and lots of mountains of laundry and dishes, but at least we have been having some fun 'round here.

It is entirely possible you don't know what my costume is. But in person, I was surprised by how many people could figure it out within a few quizzical seconds of looking at my fascinator headband and my flashy, blingy diamond ring. Yep, a trophy wife. Which is seriously the best costume for me ever because it is so far from the truth!

My little bit, angel baby was a cheetah girl, and she was so adorable. She is almost 6 months old and is the sweetest (and fastest) baby in the world. I totally planned on coming up with some awesome homemade costumes for the kiddos, but business prevailed, reality set in, and I went the easy way out. I was thinking of everyone going as a different kind of cloud: tornado, rain cloud, thunder cloud, rainbow cloud... (inspired by this and this costume) but the boys didn't buy it. I was a little relieved not to do all the work. And well... every one was happy, and that is all that is important.

I did make my headband which took a total of 5 minutes and I made the baby's several months ago back when she was a wee, skinny lass.

Face painting at the salon for downtown's trick or treating night. Everyone wanted my face design, so I just came up with a super fast and cute spiderweb tiara type thingy for them since we had a really long line.

I convinced my boys to be ninjas, because they were easy and on super sale. Isaac protested a bit, he really wanted to be The Arrow or Spiderman, but oh well. And to add to my luck, the store sold out of his size in minutes. Caleb wanted to be the white ninja, but they only had the red in his size. The red one is super duper.

green noodle monster by Isaac, white noodle man by Caleb

I did my first magic show in like, a year. I was a little nervous but prepared some cute things and the party was a hit. Fortunately, my baby isn't too scared of my clowny look.

And of course, the balloons and face painting this season was insane, as usual! We premade lots of balloons to bring to events we knew would be daunting. It worked out quite well!

 5 loaded bags weren't enough for my son's school carnival! His class booth sold out of them quickly, and his classroom earned the most money for the school. Yeah! We couldn't make it b/c we went camping that night and the kids weren't feeling too well, so we dropped them off at the school before the carnival.

 I love the cute little Jack-o-Lantern balloon wands I came up with. So did the kids!

My first attempt at a Sugar Skull. She had a specific design in mind, I think it turned out pretty great!

I hope everyone's Halloween was a blast! Now it's time to hide some candy and do some major cleaning before the next holiday rush begins.

Personal Style: Clown to Beachy Waves in a Single Day

I changed about 100 times on Saturday. I had on a 'professional' outfit for a facepainting gig in the morning. Came home, changed to go to my son's soccer game. Came home, went through a billion steps to get into clown for another little party doing face painting and balloons. Came home. Got ready to go out to the movies with friends and the family. Came home. Put on my comfy work out clothes. Passed out after listening to The Gregory Brothers for like hours. (And I'm seeing them on my birthday this week... weee!)

I'm looking a little tired.

 
My hair was majorly kinky from pinning my hair up to wear under my wig. So, I decided to basically tease the junk out of it and loosely pin a small section back on one side. I suppose I could have put it in a bun or ponytail, but it feels like that's all I've been doing lately. So, for me, these beachy type waves worked in my schedule.

 

(No matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn't get all the redness off from around my mouth. And even though cooking oil is suggested for cleaning off pro clown make-up... I just can't bring myself to do it. So, I just embraced the hot pinkness. I'm looking a bit like a crazy person here.)

Yes, this is the back of my head... I'm including it to illustrate those semi- loose knotted twists can turn into somewhat pretty kinky waves after a few hours of setting in dry hair... especially if you have embraced the asymmetrical mismatched layers like I have.

To do them, just twist your hair into sections, being careful to maintain your natural part, like I did in the photos. Twist and twist until they form little twisty balls and pin them against your head, criss crossing bobby pins help them hold. I don't even have them that tight. I had them in for about 4--5 hours, and got fairly loose kinky waves. If you do them very tight and leave them in all day, you will get a more crazy and pronounced wave.

For more classic curls, be sure you tuck the ends in and you do a snail shell like and uniform pattern while twisting. Mine are more haphazardly done, some are much smaller and tighter, while others are larger and looser than others. This helps create more movement and texture in the end wave. Now, I could go on and on about doing wet styling or classic old Hollywood glamour finger waves, or pin curls but that's a little advanced for this messy look I'm doing. You can see plenty of video tutorials online however.

Sometimes, they are cute worn alone too. If you decide to try these twists, I'd love to see how they turn out!