Costuming the Crazies Craftage Challenge

Super Ultra Craftage Challenge!

Last night, I came into the responsibility of costuming the prosecutors of the Tom Robinson trial from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

Because of my recent, long hiatus, I thought HAY! I OUGHTA BLOG ABOUT THIS because I check it almost every day in case someone has posted. For me. Alas. But anyways.

That will be the only mention of the awfully long hiatus, because I'm awfully embarrassed by that.

So. TKAM, as I will abbreviate it, is a lovely novel. It contains a trial about a black man raping a white-trash young woman. It is obvious that he didn't. However, my English teacher thought it would be a fantastic idea to recreate the trial. And make everyone go exactly by the book. So us prosecuters were stuck between a rock and a courtroom.

I was/am Mayella Ewell, the victim of the "rape". My best friend, happily (?), played Horace Gilmer, the prosecuting attorney. One of my other best friends, sadly (?) played Atticus Finch, the defending attorney.

As I said, I was stuck with costuming five people within the course of one evening:

• Mayella Ewell
  
• Horace Gilmer
  
• A Cartographer (by the name of Meriwether Butler)
  
• Sheriff Heck Tate
• Bob Ewell

I needed quick, easy-to-change-into outfits for these five characters.

I rose to my challenge, not unlike Mulan. These helpful hints and tips should help you if you ever need to costume Mayella Ewell, Horace Gilmer, a cartographer named Meriwether, Sheriff Heck Tate, or Bob Ewell.

One: Heck Tate!
Heck Tate is the sheriff of Maycomb, Alabama, where our story takes place.

What do sheriffs wear? Hmm.

• Stylish vest
• Badge, of course
• Hat
• Belt with gun holster

The vest was easy. I could simply take my old vest from Banana Republic and force our sheriff to wear it. He was cool with it (after enough prodding and begging) and ended up wearing it around all day.

The hat was also easy. Any type of fedora will do, but if you have a police hat and can write Maycomb on it, that would be awesome as well.

The badge would be easy if I could find my Junior Rangers National Park Service badge. Alas, it is long lost (or in my dog's stomach). To make a badge, you will need:

• A manilla folder (any color)
• Scissors
• Construction paper (preferrably yellow)
• Sharpie marker or something similar
• Glue of some sort
• Tape (optional)
  
• A safety pin or some sort of quick adhesive
  

1. Cut out the shape of a badge from a sheet of paper. The badge should be at least as large as a hotel room key, and no bigger than a Nintendo DS.

2. Glue it upon one side of the folder.

3. Cut that out in a badge like shape.

4. Write some sheriff-like message upon your badge. I wrote "TO PROTECT AND Sheriff Heck Tate, Maycomb Alabama SERVE". TO PROTECT AND was on the tippy top, SERVE was on the bottomy bottom.

5. Adhese the safety pin using tape or glue. I reccomend tape if you are not a Glue Goddess. I am not a Glue Goddess and therefore used tape. I did not use a safety pin because there were none handy. I used the clip from the tail of an old cat costume. If the vest is going to be a permanent Heck Tate vest, you can sew it on.



The utility belt was the biggest- but most rewarding- challenge.

You'll be needing...

• A belt of any sort.
• Two ankle socks.
• Scissors.
• Ribbon.

1. Take your socks and cut along the heel so you are left with a little sleeping-bag sort of shape.

2. This is the hardest part. Flatten out the sock and fold it.

3. Cut as small of a hole as you can along the fold.

4. Unfold- and voila! A sock holster!

5. Repeat process for as many socks as you would like.

6. Take a strand of ribbon as long as you can make it and string the socks through the holes in the belt. Haha! A lovely utility belt for Mr. Tate!


Twoo: Miss Mayella Ewell
Mayella Ewell was simple enough to create.

Alls you need is...

• A spiffy hat.
• Lots and lots of beads.
• A spiffy belt.
• A shirt and undershirt.
• A fan (totally optional.)

There is no real crafting involved in this.

Mayella is comparable to what we consider "trailer trash" and she is gussied up for this occasion. Dress your Mayella in something simple, like jeans, on the bottom.

Take your overshirt and roll it up to your Mayella's bust. Take the spiffy belt and tie it where you have rolled up the shirt and boom! a lovely-trashy top.

Find a plain hat and snazz it up! Or take a pre-snazzed up hat. I made this one at an Earth Day Festival last year.



The beads can come from Mardi Gras Past or Mardi Gras Present or any sort of parade. Especially good beads are those fake pearls that come really long and you can absolutely tell right away that they aren't pearls. Mardi Gras Past is the best place to get your beads from, so they look all un-shiny and trashy.

The fan is good because it makes you look innocent and naive. It is also useful so that when your compadres put on their Southern accents, you won't get yelled at for laughing*.

*Meriwether Butler let out a girlish shriek when his friend- playing Bob Ewell- got up and said "yeb'm". The boy playing Bob Ewell is a respectable one and was very angry about his hat (see below.)

3. Bob Ewell
Bob Ewell, like his daughter, is trailer trash. He is an alcoholic and is just a grody man. So we made him a fancy hat.

To make you a Bob Ewell hat, gather from the woods/your home...

• Construction paper (lots, and preferrably those large sheets)
• Staples (lots!)
• Some sort of lace (optional!)

1. Take your construction paper and cut a strip from the bottom that fits comfortably and a little snugly around your Bob Ewell's head. Do not use anyone but your Bob Ewell for this. Even if you can find someone with the same size head as he/she has, your Bob may have a weirdly shaped head or extra-puffy hair!

2. Staple the two ends together.

3. Place that on your construction paper. Draw a circle a little larger than the band and cut that out.

4. This is the most interesting part. Staple the circle to form the top of the hat. This hat is not intended to be beautiful. It is supposed to look like something a bear might have dragged in.

5. Staple on your frills/lace. BEWARE! This may make your Bob Ewell hat look more like a French maid hat. As you can see below, it was awfully difficult for the prosecution/jury to stop giggling when Mr. Ewell was called to the stand...

"Mais oui, Atticus."

Fore! Horace Gilmer.
To make a prosecutingly awesome Horace Gilmer outfit, all you need is love and a few other items.

• A spiffy hat
• A fancy tie
• A lovely collared shirt

Gilmer has a simple look. But an awesome one!

The spiffy hat should not be the same one as Mayella's. Gilmer is an attorney by profession, he is a spick and span man.

All three of these things can be borrowed from anyone's father's/husband's/son's/pool boy's closet. The tie should be tied properly, and the shirt should be tucked into your pants. Look lovely... for a man.

And finally... creating a cartographer.

How do you create a daring cartographer from a schoolboy with no real skills in the mapmaking department? Well, you'll need...

• A quill pen
• A bow tie
• Lovely glasses

If your cartographer does not wear glasses and you cannot find any that you can punch the lenses out of, follow the following methods to make your own spiffy glasses.

Collect

• Black construction paper
• Two bendy straws
• Staples

1. Cut a figure eight out of your construction paper.

2. Fold one half of your eight in half. Cut out a half moon from this.

3. Repeat with the other side.

4. Optional: Cut your bendy straws down to a more reasonable length, but DO NOT CUT THE END PAST THE BENDY PART OR THE BENDY PART!

5. Staple one bendy straw on each end.

Now you have a smart pair of glasses!

I, as you can see, look ultra-spiff-tacular in these glasses. The iPhone, however, doesn't take pictures that show off enough of my ultra-spunk.


So. We lost our trial today, but if the verdict had been based on costuming we would have kicked some serious toosh.

This is Emma @ TIBC saying have a happay December, and I'll try with all my might to post more regularly.

...dog pictures?

So, I should hope that everyone has seen our polls.

I would also love to know who voted for dog pictures. Alas, I don't, but I do think that dog pictures are so much easier to get than real crafts and recipes. So, since I haven't been posting as regularly, here are a couple dog pictures, and other pictures of crafts that I have done.

Bed dog

Dog with slinky

"Hmmm" dog.

Sunglasses dog

Pirate dog

So, that was your prize for today. Could you find the secret monkey and cat pictures?

Do you like pictures? Tell me, oh, please, tell me.

Should I splice more pictures of dogs into my blogging? Or should I just keep dog and blog separate?

ice cream wars!

Part One: Teh Vocabulary.

Ice Cream Wars: Ice cream wars is an idea of mine. As you can tell by our poorly Painted logo, it's a pun on popular movie series Star Wars. {if you can't tell, one of my biggest talents is removing all humor from jokes. It comes with being a craftastic.} It's simply a comprehensive review of ice creams. And I super hope that it isn't quite as boring as it sounds.

Crème brûlée: Creme brulee (as we will spell it, as I do not own an international keyboard) is French for burnt cream. It is a dessert served in ramekins consisting of a thick, delicious cream base topped with burnt sugar. It is very delicious, and the best creme brulee I have ever had was at a resturant called Fire and Ice in the Springfield hotel called The Oasis. Fire and Ice, consider yourself ENDORSED.
John Lennon: A former member of popular band The Beatles, John Lennon is equally as famous for his music as he is for his peace activism. He wrote and recorded songs "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine".



Part 2: The Contenders
Ben and Jerry's produces an ice cream called Creme Brulee. It is "sweet custard ice cream with a carmelized sugar swirl" (thanks, Wikipedia!). I love it; it's like creme brulee without ramekins, which I do not own (once this blog gets off the ground and I start selling t-shirts at art fairs, the first thing I will buy will be a set of colorful ramekins.) The ice cream is sweet and great. Even my dog loves it. I like it because it's light and sweet.


B and J's also produces an ice cream called Imagine Whirled Peace. It is sweet cream ice cream with swirls of toffee and fudge peace signs. I like this one better than Phish Phood, my old favorite Ben and Jerry's (chocolate ice cream with swirls of marshmallows and nuts, I think, and fudge phish and, in the special Surf&Turf edition, fudge cows.) because, while it employs one of my phavorite aspects of Phish Phood, the fudge shapes, it doesn't overpower with chocolate.

Part 4: Fin.

So, this is where I say my adieus.

Did you like ICW, or was it too long? Feedback = appreciated. And also, ideas = SUPER APPRECIATED! Like, if there's something you want to see crafted/cooked, I'm totally prepped to do it. Because if I can't think of anything, this is what you get.

<3.

so, um, like, yeah;

So, rather than a craft, I'm going to be running around and doing little site updates.
If you'll notice, the "crafty!" playlist is updated with Spice Girls and more song repeats ("Ces Soirees La", anyone?). Expect links to other amayzing sites that I use as funspiration, sanity-holder-in-placers, or simply procrastinating.

I suppose that sitely changes could be considered a craft... right?

pathetick.

So today we're gonna make collar art. These are not only fantabulous gifts, but work as great headbands, necklaces, or bracelets.

You will need...

-Diet soda

-Glue
-Collars
-Stickers
-Fun markers
-Pompons

You can start small, just with one little sticker.

And a pompon...

Or two.

And some more stickers, then flip it over and...

Customize it even more, with your name, more stickers, or whatever you'd like.

And voila! You now have fantastick headband, choker, door marker (hang it on a doorknob to let your housemates know that THERE IS YOUR ROOM AND IT IS YOURS), or simple gift to give and regift!!

P.S. Shout-out to Monsieur Akira for reminding me that I ought to start crafting again. <3

how to properly wear a hat.

see more pwn and owned pictures

An actual craft or recipie will show up soon. Promise.

making a mister mitchie drawing.

Mister Mitchie is especially great for margin doodles and painting. I paint a lot of Mister Mitchie, although he usually has different names (such as Carlisle, Blue Boy, etc.)

1. Make a U.


2. Give him a fun little mouth. It can be a simple line...

3. Or a big happy smile! Give him a zigzag line for hair. Or for a Miss Mitchie, give your U a big poofy 'do, a Hairspray-esque big hair.

4. He needs eyes.

5. And I usually put him in a muumuu. You can do whatever you want for his outfit. And here we are!