Camping List for Hot Weather

  Applicable to Payson in June, July, Aug, September

[Temperature ranges of 80s- low 90s in the day, to 70-60s at night]

Tips for success

The UV ranges from highs of 10 to 12.5

 This is brutal on polar-descended melanin-challenged progeny. Hats and sunscreen. Avoid dehydration 

• Water. Each kid carry 2 water bottles on hikes
• Water. Keep some spray bottles of water, and some rags you can dip into water and put on the back of your neck.
• Water. Try to have every hike access water at some point (e.g. Creeks or lakes. Somewhere you can get your feet wet)
• Apply sunscreen at 7am, and Reapply the sunscreen on at noon! One application is not enough. Keep sunscreen in my pack.
• Safety pin their hat straps to them! This is for Irene the Hat-Hurler, who despite mommy finding it once, managed to lose it on the 2nd time when mommy still ran back along the trail and couldn't find it...
• Keep mineral sunscreen lip balm in your pack, and reapply to kids faces a few times to kids lips on the hike. Otherwise everyone comes home with sunburnt lips. Just take lip balm, microwave, mix very well with 1/4 the weight with Zinc Oxide powder.
• Cookies/Trailmix/Sweets are a MUST for the hike. And only to be eaten on the hike. This is the bait that sweetens the deal for them.
• If it gets down to the 50s at night, throw one extra polarfleece blanket per kid into the car.[only an issue for May in AZ]
• !!Don't pack too much food for the weekend. I always end up packing about 3x as much food as we end up eating. Then bring sad squished lukewarm food home that no one wants to eat. So, don't pack like we're leaving for the Oregon Trail. If I somehow don't pack enough food, there's literally a Walmart 30 min away from the campsite in Payson.

Hot Camping List [days 91-82, nights 70]

• Hats, Sunglasses
• Sunscreen & jojoba oil & aloe vera gel
• DIY Mineral Sunscreen lip balm [MUST for the kids burned lips]
• Waterbottles on belts
• 2 empty gallon jugs, 5 gallon jug
• Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, Xylitol mints
• Hairbrush & hair ties
• Babywipes and Hand Sanitizer
• Bandaids, Ointment
• Allergy Meds, emergency benadryl
• Bugspray [and anti-itch cream]

• Clothes [doubled per days, because of the creek]
• 2x short sleeve shirts/tunic/dress x # of days
• 2x leggings/loose long pants x # of days
• 2 x underwear x # of days
• 2 x socks  x # of days
• long sleeves and a pair of leggings for jammies
• Cotton Hoodie Jacket 
• Polarfleece Jackets [wear over long sleeved cotton jammy shirt, at night if it gets chilly]
• Stow away some oversized VBS T-shirts and extra underwear and shorts for emergencies.
• Extra Sock Bag for emergencies

• Sleeping Bags and Pillows [if night is under 52, 1 polarfleece blanket per kid]
• Mattress Pad for Josh, and his pillows and knee pillows
• Tarps
• Tents
• Flashlights/Lanterns
• Firestarter/matches
• Foil
• Disposable table-cloths
• Paper plates and Paper towels 
• Trashbags
• Dutch oven [foil packets are a joke] for open fire OR cast iron pan for rocket-stove
• Pot for boiling water for tea
• Mugs for cocoa and cereal
• Forks, spoons, knives
• Cutting board
• dishpan
• Campstove with propane
• Branch cutter*  [not if fire restriction]
• Rocket stove*  [not if fire restriction]
• Garlic salt, pepper, salt, sugar, tea
• FOOD
• Cheese block
• Potatoes, onion, carrot, ketchup, mustard
• Hamburgers{frozen} and Buns
• Sausages/Hot dogs {frozen}
• Cereal & Milk & BOWLS/CUPS
• Marshemellows & marshamellow forks
• cocoa, coffee, sugar
• Shade Tent/Shade tarp with ties/Shade structure for hot camping
• chairs
• Duct tape
• LED string lights
• little broom & dustpan for breaking down camp
• Tubs for feet-water in hot camping
• Neck-rags for water in hot camping
• spray bottles for misting faces at noon for hot camping
• Sturdy rubber sandals with very good treads for hot camping and wet hiking, LOTS EXTRA SOCKS FOR HIKING
• 3 Old towels, for hot camping
• Books and art supplies for the "lay low" time of hot noontime/afternoon.

Camping Food

Day 1—lunch on the road	Left Overs
Day 1 dinner	Hamburgers/Hotdogs, bell peppers, carrot sticks
Day 2  Breakfast	apples & cheese & peanut butter BREAKFAST BARS, hard-boiled eggs Croissants & hard-boiled eggs, or cheese OR Cheesy Grits and hot tea
Day 2 Lunch	Cold cut sandwiches Cold Cereal and Milk Cold sausages from last night. Boiled eggs bell peppers, carrot sticks
Day 2 Dinner	Sausages & Potatoes and cheese [pre-cooked potatoes in Tupperware] Hot Cocoa  [[Ramen noodles + eggs]]
Day 3 Breakfast Day 3 Lunch	Apples and cheese & Breakfast Bars PBJ's. Cheese on potatoes. Precooked hot dogs

1. Buns
2. Bread
3. Marshamellows
4. Boiled eggs
5. ?Raw Eggs? [if outside temps cold enough, or if you bought ice]
6. CHEESE
7. Milk
8. Lunchmeat [freeze before]
9. Sausages [freeze before]
10. Onions
11. Carrot sticks
12. Bell Peppers
13. Apples
14. Cocoa mix, Tea
15. Salt, Sugar,Garlic Powder
16. Ramen noodles
17. Grits
18. Peanuts & minimarshamellows & craisins [trailmix]
19. Savory trailmix---peanuts, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), chex, cheddar powder

Rough Plan of events.

Arrive at 2:30 pm. Set up camp.

Big Hike #1 [either a lite hike and gather wood, or if you have the time BIG HIKE, to the SEE SPRING CANYON TRAIL] 

[Gather wood, Lite Hike]

Dinner and Fire.

-------SLEEP

Cold Breakfast, be leaving for the trail by 7am!!

Morning Hike BIG HIKE [Big Hike #2]

Rest at basecamp

Afternoon/Evening Lite Hike [Lite Hike #3] and Gather Wood for fire

Dinner and Fire

------SLEEP

Pack up Basecamp (Goal: 1hr, current 2 hr) AND make lunch sandwiches, put in tupperware.

 Check Out.

Early Morning Lite Hike [Lite Hike #4]

Church (Christopher Creek Community Bible Fellowship, 10:30)

Church (Catholic church, Philip the Apostle bilingual 11am, Holy Nativity 10am)

Afternoon hike [Big Hike #5]

Go home

Hiking with Children: Strategies for Success

Tip #1

Bring Candy, but only dispense it during the hike. Or it will not work. It doesn't have to be candy, but it has to be special. [dried cranberries, cookies, strawberries] It needs to be a triumphant snack to ceremoniously eat at landmarks (Keep marshmallows for general camping, roasted over the fire. We promise 3-4 marshmellows per kid, that can be revoked one at a time for bad behavior, and reinstated for good behavior)

Food helps everything. Trailmix, little sandwiches. You don't need to go crazy, someone needs to carry this stuff. Probably the 14 yr old boy, who will not complain about having to lug along extra calories

(These teens moods would have greatly benefitted from snacks.)

Tip #2

Everyone over 6 carries their own water. Buddies carry water for littles. Need comfortable water carrying.

Tip #3

Hats are a must. In addition to preventing toasted children, and skin cancer, they keep the head from heat headaches as well.

Tip #4

Buddies stick together

Tip #5

If near a creek, hike in rubber sandals and socks. Wool socks if cold. Bring extra socks. Rubber sandals dry off pretty instantaneously (unlike soggy sneakers), and the socks can be changed out with dry ones. If its cold, have them wear 2 layers of socks. The top layer being adult wool-blend socks.

Tip #6

Mom carries extra socks, toilet paper, small shovel, and pee funnel for the girls. 

Tip #7

Sing while you hike! Especially on the return, the downslope. The little ones love to sing "the road goes ever on and on." It lifted up my heart as we trudged back, and Irene and Ruhi and Ana were leading me in a rendition of it.

Tip #8 stop at the places they find fun. Sometimes we need to pause our adult "must complete this hike" mode, and remember, the whole reason we are doing this. It's for them to experience wonder. So when they have those moments, stop. Whether that's a creek, a pile of pebbles, or a big rock. 

Camping List for Cold Weather

 Applicable to Payson in October[65-70/45-41night], or the Rocky Mountains in July. Sedona in May [75day/52night]. Note: Oct 16 in Christopher Creek is 61/41. Need fleece hats for the night!!

[Temperature ranges of 70s-60s in the day, to 50s-40s at night]

Prepare yourself for complaints that this was a terrible idea, from the local child population, early in the morning, and in the cold evening.

The best antidote is hot chocolate milk, a working propane camp-stove [or even better, a rocket stove] is a must-have.

And wool socks. Adult size is fine, stuck indiscriminately onto children, pulled up like medieval hosen. And hats. They all need something keeping their ears warm. And those puffy winter coats for the mornings, and the nights.

Cold Camping List [days 61-70, nights 41-46]

Chuck Bag (Personal care) Put each category into a labeled gallon ziploc bag inside of the chuck bag. It makes it very easy to quickly find things, when the call for bandaids or hair ties goes up.

• Flashlights/Lanterns. Headlamps best for setting up camping the dark.
• Sunscreen & aloe vera gel
• Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, Xylitol mints
• Hairbrush & hair ties & hair oil
• Babywipes and Hand Sanitizer
• Bandaids, Ointment
• Allergy Meds, emergency benadryl
• Bugspray [and anti-itch cream]
• Duct tape (if the zipper gives out on a tent, a lifesaver)
• LED string lights
• Bible, Books for Daddy to read to us during the downtime in the camp
• car cell phone charger

Clothing & Kit

• Hats,  Sunglasses
• Waterbottles on belts [carabiners]
• Puffy Coats 
• Polarfleece Jackets//hoodie
• ADULT WOOL SOCKS FOR EVERYONE

• Clothes
• long sleeve shirts/tunic/dress & short sleeve shirts x # of days
• leggings x # of days
• 2 x underwear x # of days
• 2 x socks  x # of days
• 2 pairs of sweatpants or fleece pants [like over-pants, a MUST for night-time]
• !! Fleece Jacket [wear over long sleeved cotton jammy shirt]
• If there's a creek, double the clothes for little kids
• !!!If it gets down to 50s at night, polar fleece jacket and polar fleece pants for all the littles, to wear over their jammies
• Fleece hats to sleep!! (Or hoods)
• Rubber sandals
• BOOTS or sneakers

Camp

• Sleeping Bags and Pillows 
• !!!! if night gets under 52, you NEED polarfleece lining, like a sleep sack, inside of the sleeping bag PER KID. Wrap the little ones in polarfleece coats and pants inside of their sleeping bags
• Mattress Pad for Josh, and his pillows and knee pillows
• Tarps
• Tents [make sure you pack the rain flys!]
• Shade Tent
• chairs
• 2 fold up poly picnic blankets (lying down looking at the stars)
• little broom & dustpan for breaking down camp
• 2 empty gallon jugs, 5 gallon jug
• Campstove & Propane
• Branch cutter* [if no fire restriction]
• !!Rocket stove* [if no fire restriction]

Chuck Box

• Garlic salt, pepper, salt, sugar, tea
• Foil
• Ladle
• Wood flat spoon
• Metal cups for hot cocoa
• Disposable table-cloths
• Paper plates and Paper towels 
• Trashbags
• Canopener
• Firestarter and matches
• Dutch oven [foil packets are a joke] for open fire OR pan for rocket-stove
• Pot for boiling water for tea
• Mugs for cocoa and cereal
• Forks, spoons, knives
• Cutting board
• dishpan
• Shears
• parachute cord/string

Food

Day 1—lunch 1130am just before we hit the road	Left-overs
Day 1 dinner	Hamburgers/Hotdogs, bell peppers, carrot sticks
Day 2  Breakfast	Milk & cereal, apples & cheese OR Cheesy Grits,
Day 2 Lunch	Cold cut sandwiches Cold sausages from last night. Boiled eggs bell peppers, carrot sticks
Day 2 Dinner	Sausages & Potatoes and cheese [pre-cooked potatoes in Tupperware]  [[Ramen noodles + eggs]]
Day 3 Breakfast	Apples and cheese

Grocery Shopping List

1. 2 lb Cheese blocks x number of days
2. Butter or oil
3. Cooked Potatoes
4.  Onions, carrot, 
5. ketchup, mustard
6. Cereal & Milk & BOWLS/CUPS
7. !!!!cocoa
8. Tea & sugar
9. Buns
10. Bread!!
11. Cream cheese
12. Cereal
13. Marshamellows
14. Peanut Butter
15. Boiled eggs
16. Raw Eggs? [if outside temps cold enough]
17. Milk
18. Lunchmeat [freeze before]
19. !!Hot dogs & Sausages [freeze before]
20. Carrot sticks
21. Bell Peppers
22. Apples
23. Salt, Sugar,Garlic Powder
24. Ramen noodles
25. ?Grits
26. Peanuts & minimarshamellows & craisins [trailmix] OR Peanuts and cinnamon toast crunch cereal, makes a nice trailmix. Basically Peanuts + sweet thing. Half unsalted and half salted peanuts makes just the right amount of salt.
27. Savory trailmix---peanuts, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), savory chex, [garlic salt, parmesan]

Additional Tips

• First, make sure the van has enough gas! This loses 30/40 minutes "on the way" to get gas. [note: Mesa to Payson only takes 1/4 tank up. And Payson gas is cheaper]
• Group together things by type (e.g. first aid, teeth, skincare) in gallon zip lock bags inside the chuck bag. Kept all the essentials together for easy access

• Josh's very snug requirements
• 3 camping mats
• Egg crate 
• Mattress fragment
• 2 orange Coleman sleeping bags zipped together
• 2 low quality green Ozark trail sleeping bags unzipped used on top as blankets 
• Green fleece blanket
• Hat!
• H---for night clothing, loose large layers, better than tight layers!
• A night-cap [preferably a fleecy hat. Also can use a man's shirt as an improvised balaclava, face through the head-hole, arms tied around your head] It makes a world of difference.

Brunette Eowyns and Human Heras: Thoughts on Cosplaying

Cosplaying is fun. I admit, I spent a good chunk of the last 5 years, saving pictures of really cool cosplays to my computer. I like dressing up, and I like stories. (Full disclaimer, despite spending hours of my life saving & researching cosplays, I have never actually been to a conference, or even a midnight showing, alas)


However, something I realized, sorting out the cosplays I particularly liked, is there are 2 things I value if I did cosplay--to look like the character, but also, to also be kind of like the character---if they were me. Sort of like capturing the "ethos" of the character, translated into the modern day me.


For example: An hours worth of make up on Princess Leia? Totally. Princesses have to keep up appearances. Princesses need to be careful how they dress, how they walk, how they look. So a princess would totally spend a lot of time on make up. Yes, Princess Leia is cool and independent. So that means she puts on her own makeup, and doesn't drag along a make-up assistant before battles. She's still a princess, you know.

So if I was pretending to be Princess Leia, then yes, I'd put on make up.

More than a minute's worth of makeup on Mara Jade? Think about it. Her idea of looking presentable when Luke was coming, was to wash her face in an icy creek when she hadn't had a shower in 2 weeks. (Specter of the Past). If Mara used make-up at all, she probably wouldn't put on any more than took 60 seconds....unless she was impersonating a duchess or something like in Allegiance. But most of her work seemed to be of the hijacking pirate ships and leaping over roof-struts to rescue hostages type of things.

I like this picture of her I found on the internet. Red gold hair on a blazingly idealistic 18 yr old.

So if I were pretending to be Mara, I wouldn't bother with make-up. (And whomever illustrated the cover of Choices of One should have thought about that triple-applied mascara....)

So for portraying an alien (like Hera Syndulla), a human girl wearing a realistic & weathered aviator suit feels much more "authentic" to me, than one wearing hours worth of make-up and prosthetics to look like a Twilek. (Because a Twilek wouldn't need prosthetics.)

That said, I think when I do get round to making Josh a Grand Admiral Uniform, we will go the whole 9 yards with the blue skin and red eyes and all, because Josh basically is Thrawn already. (minus the superhuman IQ. And Josh is a Christian. And a sort of imperialist libertarian. So not the totalitarian part either.) But when we do give Josh blue skin, we will do it authentically. So I will feed him colloidal silver, to turn his skin bluish-grey naturally.

That was a joke.
We will use make-up.

Ok, back to my pointless ramble....

When trying to be like Tolkien's characters, I feel like it somehow isn't really the ethos of the Elves of Middle Earth to be wearing lots of make-up or wigs.
To me, Tolkien's world is about the natural beauty of things, the grain of the wood, the rustle of leaves, the tangle of rocks and trees and stars, elven maidens clad in simple dresses, water bubbling over rocks from a mountain brook. (As much as I love the complicated velvet gowns of the movies, they don't seem to really match the people in the book). When cosplaying Lord of the Rings characters, I like it when cosplayers just showcase the beauty of their natural hair (even forgoing their "usual" modern hair products, straighteners, curling irons, etc) go light on the make-up, and leave the artificial wigs alone.
To me, a brunette Eowyn or a blonde Arwen is so much more "authentic" than one with a wig. And an Arwen or an Eowyn climbing a tree or making breakfast feels more "authentic" to me than one at a convention playing dress up (which I imagine would be very very fun, hanging out with like-minded people, and I would love to do some day. However, it's not capturing the "ethos" of the elves).

this cosplayer "Mela"dress made by "Gen", captures more of the "ethos" of the elves for me than any of the elves in the movies did with their make up artists and fake trees.

Same for medieval looks. I feel more medieval by trying to capture the ethos of it in my everyday clothing. For me, that means having Isaiah wearing a medieval tunic with his jeans as he climbs a tree, and wearing cotton tunics & belts with my modern day pants, as I play with the kids in the back yard, make dinner, and pray. Also while learning how to shoot. But we haven't got there yet....

**********************************************************************************
-------A long ramble on the subject of hair, probably of interest to very few-------------------------------

I prefer dark haired Eowyns to Eowyns with yellow wigs. (Practically, because you have to drop a good bit of money into a blonde wig for it not to look fake.) But also, I don't think Middle Earthers wore wigs, at least, not the rough-and-tumble early-medieval-Saxon-esque people of Rohan, living in wattle & daub halls (maybe flax or hair extensions, but definitely not wigs. That would be Roman).


For Star Wars, their technology is obviously very advanced, so wigs definitely existed. Princess Leia would be following in a long line of royal tradition to be wearing hair extensions & hair rats/padding. (Also, hair extensions have been around for as long as women have been able to cut off and save their own braids.)

Cosplaying realistic red hair is an issue unto itself. Sadly, a good chunk of awesome women in fiction have red hair :(
Black Widow does obviously dye her hair all sorts of colors, so dyed red hair for her makes perfect sense. (But why she straightened it in Cap 2, when they were running for their lives and hiding at Falcon's house, no one knows. She probably used an actual iron though, because she's awesome like that.)
However, with Mara, I wouldn't use dye. Firstly, because for a dark brunette to pull of red-gold, it would take something far far beyond my skill (probably professional chemicals at a salon). Secondly, because Mara would never have bothered to dye her hair, even when it would have been practical for camouflage (When she gets caught flat footed by a bounty hunter in Dark Force Rising who recognizes her by her hair). She wears a hood, though (Choices of One),so I would be a brunette Mara with a hood. But if you have blonde hair, and can pull off natural-looking red-gold hair......

So that His blood could Un-Zerg Us

Reposting I think the best post I ever wrote.

http://makingrivendell.blogspot.com/2013/09/of-zerg-and-protoss-or-why-jesus-came.html

How to Make Eowyn's Medallion Belt from Recycling: Analysis and Ideas

 I'll update this post with links to the finished belts as I make them.

I've been trying to figure out how to make Eowyn's Medallion belts for a while. Here is my write up and analysis of how to make Eowyn's belt. There's a full analysis on the alleyscratch website, which all these pictures are from.

Medallion Belt worn with her Green Gown

Medallion belt  on her White Wool Dress (really just a silver version of the Green Gown one, sewn onto a gold trimmed fabric belt)

Alleyscratch has a very good analysis, with diagrams and breakdowns of the medallions' constructions.

link to full page here.

The medallion belts are made of 2 medallions, a bigger central one, and a smaller side one.

front of belt.

Here are some nice fan-made examples that I have analyzed.

Yvette's Costume Site Example---clay and wire
Yvette (check out her amazing Arwen dresses, especially this one, scroll to the bottom of the page...) made them from metal clay and silver wire (scroll down to the bottom of the page to see them).
Like so.

close-up of Yvette's finished medallion, LINK HERE

Yvette's finished belt. LINK HERE

I don't think its necessary to make them from metal clay or silver wire, since baking the clay seems to tarnish the wire. Also, if you are going to paint it anyway, there isn't a need to use metallic clay.

 In my past obsession with wire-work, I've found steel utility wire is a lot cheaper than craft wire, and can be bent well with 2 pairs of pliers.
But if you want something that is really easy to bend with your fingers, skip the copper and get aluminum wire (which is still cheaper copper).

Yvette's version is lovely, and I like how she spaces the medallions nicely, it really gives it a medallion feel. Things I would do differently, is I like the medallions to be bigger, giving a visually thicker belt (which I think is slenderizing on fuller figures). I also would use a gauge 16 wire at least, as I think gauge 18 and above are a little thin for my taste, I like the wire flower loops to have more "pop."

Kairi G Design's version---3D printed plastic
LINK AND PICTURE FROM HERE. I really like the size of her medallions, they're a lot larger than Yvette's belt (perhaps even larger than in the film?). They were 3D printed from plastic, so its not an option for me

 Print my Props version---3D printed plastic.
You can hire people to do it for you....picture below

link to etsy shop here.

Mia's costume Site Violyns.tripod.com---metal rings and wire.
LINK HERE. This captures so much of the feel of Eowyn's belt, using instead of medallions, metal rings which the wire then is strung into, and spray painted.

Quite well done. LINK HERE. I like especially how she translated the medallion shapes to wires. I also like how nice and plump she made the "petals" of wire.

The finished look is quite good. I think the openness of the rings works especially well in the white belt version, since it works more on a lace-like feel.

From HERE on Mia's Costume site, more pictures and a write up

You could also do it with plastic rings for cheaper...

Cation designs ----Eowyn Inspired Belt from filigrees and jump rings
LINK HERE. I think this captures the most of the spirit of Eowyn's belt without having absolute screen accuracy. She simply strung together filigrees with jump rings (and also painted it a bit).

Pictures of her dress are here, her write up of the making of here.

It's real metal, so feels more authentic, and looks awesome. Filigrees are very thin stamped metal, that looks kinda like lace. Etsy is full of various filigrees, Hobby Lobby also has a fair amount.
I think this one especially looks reminiscient of Eowyn's belt. I wish it were just a tad larger though.

Antique gold scalloped round filigrees

I am going to make one using these filigrees. You can either string them together with jump rings and a lobster clasp (like her Green Gown belt) or sew them onto a fabric belt with trim/beading (like Eowyn's white wool gown belt) which gives you the option of more visually thickening the belt, if you would like.


Ideas for making Eowyn's medallion belt from Plastic and aluminum wire.
If you are going to go the plastic route at home, I would think a good start is to look at the alleyscratch break down of the medallion, and cut out the base metal part from plastic sheeting with a utility knife (on a glass cutting mat!). You could use yogurt lids, or pretty much any rigid plastic in the recyclying bin. Or craft foam. I would like to do it with something a little more rigid than yogurt lid plastic, maybe the bottom of those big plastic icecream tubs??? If you have an idea, please let me know in the comments!

Then you'd sand the plastic pieces with sandpaper, to make them more textured (and hold paint).
The wire parts I'd make from gauge 16 or 14 aluminum wire (since the plastic is soft anyway), lightly hammered. I want to use thicker gauge wire, because to me, a lot of the beauty of the belt comes from the wire loops not looking spindly.
 
Then you'd stack the pieces together with rivets through the centers. (preferably the big sewology push on kinds? Or furniture tacks with the ends sanded off, and bent with pliers?)

Lastly, spray paint with a darker color, and rub progressively brighter layers of metallic gold acrylic paint on it ($2 for those little 4 oz bottles from Walmart or Hobby Lobby) to make it look like metal (you want to go from the most "antique" colors of gold, to the brightest color of gold last, to give it depth.)

Ideas for making Eowyn's medallion belt from metal...recycling & steel utility wire! Cold forging!!
If you want to go the all-metal route, I would use can lids (6 oz. tomato paste, and frozen juice concentrate lids) opened with a NO SHARP EDGES CAN OPENER. (I don't know the correct name, except that there are sharp edges, just on the can, and not the lid, it cuts from the side, like this one). You don't want the lid part to have sharp edges, it will snag on your dress and cut your fingers)

You would punch the hole through the center with a hammer and nail (scrap wood underneath). This hole will be for the rivet, to hold it all together.

Because this is a sturdier version than the plastic, I am going to use real steel utility wire gauge 16 (so cheap at Lowes! BlueHawk brand at Lowes 100 ft for 8 bucks)
I've found with thicker gauge steel wire, the best shaping I get is with careful measuring, and using 2 sturdy pairs of pliers. I'd hammer it (carefully) lightly afterward, to help it keep its shape. The "seam" where the wire ends meet, will be at the center, where they will be covered up with the rivet.

I'd use real sturdy Tandy type of rivets for this, since I'm not as afraid to bang it with a hammer since its all metal.

Painting it, I'd spray paint it with Rustoleum matte dark colored spray paint, then build up brighter layers of gold with acrylic metallic paints and a rag.

Lastly, I'd string it together with jump rings.

This belt will not be screen authentic as it won't have large decorative holes in the medallions (if you had a punch and die set, you could do this easily), but the trade off is worth it to me to have something all metal, versus metal and plastic.

Ideas for making Eowyn's medallion belt from filigrees and fabric trim.
This is inspired by the belt on her white wool gown. You can get a lot more "bang" visually, with fewer filigrees. I really like these versions from redrose-online.de,

Check out their galleries, they're beautiful.

Gorgeous dress MORE PICTURES HERE.

From redrose-online.de HERE,. This is under this gallery. I love how visually thick it is. The neckband is amazing too.

And the belt on this is just...wow.

From redrose-online.de HERE (this is under the historic gallery) I just love how they used the square medallions, matching the color perfectly with the trim on the dark red. I think I am going to try something like this, on a brown or black velveteen fabric. We'll see.

These ones from Fashionsintime are pretty good too. Although I think those are more medallions and not filigrees.

from HERE from fashions in time

So here are a few of my ideas. You would use trim or braid, sewn with thread onto the fabric (a techinque called "couching"). You would sew the filigrees on, and could even do rivets or beading if you were feeling up to it. One of the advantages of this method is you could control the visual "thickness" of the belt, even if your filigrees were small, by how you placed your trim or braid.

I'm even considering using my stencils and fabric paint for the central fabric part of the belt, with the filigrees sewn on in strategic places as accents. I'd border the whole thing with trim or braid.

I'll update this post with links to the finished belts as I make them.

Thoughts on Making a Mara Jade Outfit (Emporer's Hand) & Blaster Packs...

My awesome little sister has been kicking around the idea of dressing up as Mara Jade one day. Earlier this week I sketched out some ideas.

I love Mara Jade. She's just so...real.
 
I mean, you've got your stock sci-fi/fantasy women who run around with weapons & perfect makeup while doing cool things. Sometimes they don't make much sense.
The better written ones, the girls like too...
And then there's Mara.

She's so incredibly real. She thinks like a real girl. She acts like a real girl. She even picks fights (with Luke) like a real girl. I feel like I know her in real life. Actually, she constantly reminds me of my said younger sister...

Mara has self respect, is incredibly loyal but holds grudges more than she should, always keeps her word, can be a little bossy but knows how to take orders, outwardly seems unsentimental, has a thing about protecting families & babies, can be rather grumpy, and really really really cares about doing the right thing.
She's exactly who you want at your back in a firefight.


Anyways, I had some preliminary ideas for what her outfit would look like.
I looked up cosplayers versions and was underwhelmed. I don't think a lot of people understand her. They try to make her look kind of sexy & femme-fatal-ish, like Black Widow. Mara isn't Black Widow. (For one thing, she's a blazing idealist who crushes any feelings she has, and also whose version of letting a guy know she likes him is by listing all his faults and lecturing him on his character development...I love her)

And she doesn't have time to look sexy. She's too busy killing pirates. And she sure doesn't want them to think she looks sexy. She wants to be respected, and feared.

She does wear a tight-fitting black combat suit for practical reasons. But I didn't really like any of the cosplay versions I saw....they were all too busy trying to look hot, and didn't seem to think through the practical ramifications of it. I think the whole point of a leather combat outfit is to give minimal armour with maximal mobility.

But I thought this picture I thought was decent.

Mostly because it gets her face right, idealistic and not covered in make-up (seriously, who would Mara be trying to impress? I just can't see her pausing mid-mission to reapply lipstick. I mean, Princess Leia had to wear makeup because she was a Princess and all. But Mara was an judge & ninja & executioner. Its a different job description)


To maximize mobility, but still have some protection, I thought it would be a leather suit with padded leather panels in key places where they wouldn't hinder mobility as much. So that would be around her torso and thighs. (the calves would be protected by tall boots).

Because the removable sleeves did hinder mobility a bit (in Allegiance she keeps them in her backpack because of this, while taking out the pirate ship) I figured they would probably have more serious armor on them, like pauldrons and long bracers.

So here's my ideas

We'll see if I every manage to make something like this for my little sister. I know with all the leather, it will be hours of handstitching leather padding, etc. But it would be a labor of awesomeness, like the Imperial Grand Admiral uniform I hope to make for Josh one day....

I thought I'd start with the much more humble goal of working on a blaster pack/ thigh holster/ glorified non-dorky hip-pack.

Some thigh holsters from the star wars universe...

I loved the first season of this show so much. I really wasn't expecting too, but its so refreshingly heroic & idealistic, and the old-married-people vibe in it is priceless. A post will probably come soon.

The basic design is 2 straps from the belt, coming down at an angle to the holster/pack, which itself straps to the leg just above the knee.

on a person.

Han's holster, laid flat.

My idea, laid flat.

 So, off to find leather belts and learn how to sew and rivet leather....

I will probably spend a good amount of time on duck cloth mockups first. These are my (non-secret) Christmas Presents for my younger sisters, so I have a good bit of time to figure this out.

A Psalm for the Apocolypse

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.

Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Baby Elven Dress and Baby Tunic Writeup; Small Human Being Sewalong Wrap up.

So, the Small Human Being Sewalong is over, and I accomplished at least half of my goals.

I am going to do a write up on the Baby Elven Dress that I made (I had written scattered posts on it, which I link to in this article)

I drafted the patterns for all of these things, just tracing (generously!) off of onesies and dresses that fit. I just sort of freehanded the bell sleeves.

I cut it out of a green men's T shirt that I got at the thrift store for $1.

It was not very stretchy, a stable-ish knit. (there's a slit at the back neck for a button and loop closure).
The belt is from (surprise) a brown T shirt I cut up from the thrift store. I hand-cut all the stencils and used Tulip gold metallic fabric paint (sponged on with cosmetic wedges from dollar tree) to make the trim.

The dress is actually a 6 month size, for the yet-to-be-born baby girl residing beneath my heart right now. But because I couldn't wait, I crammed it onto her almost-13 month old sister, and took some pictures.

There are more glam shots of her in the dress (sans belt) here. After I did that photoshoot I sewed on the belt, which I think really makes it "pop" more, and did a 2nd photoshoot here.

For myself, I also made a Gondor-Ranger Inspired Mei Tai Carrier with the write up here.

 AND, because mass-production is my new motto in getting anything done, while I was sewing up the baby elven dress, I sewed up 2 toddler elven dresses too (Although being greater than 12 months, they do not techinically count as part of the SHBsewalong).

(The red one is 3-4T, dark green one is 6 months, purple is 12-18 months) All ready for the 3 sisters to have a photoshoot when the mulberry leaves are golden in January...

The construction for the toddler dresses was very similar to the baby layout, except that I just cut the bodice and the skirt as one piece (really just an A-line dress), and for the red one, I had to cut into a second shirt to add 6" of length to the bottom of the dress.

I also used heat-n-bond ultrahold to back the belts on the purple and red dresses. In retrospect (and a few dull/broken needles later) I realized I probably should just have used the heat-n-bond "lite" instead of the "ultrahold". (I did not interface the sleeve bands, which would have made the sleeves too hard to get into. I did not interface the neck yokes, which only seemed to end up being a problem for the 3-4T dress)

The purple and green dresses I was happy with, but the red dress turned up to be looser than I wanted, and I had to sort of scrunch up the dress and sew the belt tighter in the back. Also, the red dress kept sort of slipping off her shoulders when she's running around. (I had made the neck scoop wide enough that it didn't need a button loop closure). Part of it is she's only 2 1/2, and I made it bigger as she's really tall, and I wanted it to fit her next year.

see the neck is too big?

I don't know how much of this is just a problem of the dress (Arwen's version looks like its falling off too), but I think whats going on is that I traced off a neckline that was for wovens, and this knit (the red t shirt this was from was more stretchy) is not as stable, and the weight of the sleeves kind of pull it down.

Next time: I would interface the neck yoke,

OR, if I'm sewing things for greater than 2T, I would prefer to make this in a woven material (or a VERY stable knit), with better fitting in the bodice and a real back closure (zipper), so that the belt can be snug if its sewn to the dress.

OR, I would make the belt separately, out of canvas or something, with some sort of button closure in the back, so it could be snug and she could still get into it easily. Then I would merely tack it to the sides of the dress to keep it from falling down.


I also made a little baby tunic (size 6-9 months, traced from a onesie) pieces cut out here...

Sewn up here (on the left).

I left a little opening in the back neck as well, to accommodate a big baby head.
The pants I simply used the Little Leggings free pattern.
All of this is cut out of green and brown T shirts from the thrift store.

As my motto is mass production, there is a size 7T t shirt, really meant as a toddler tunic (for my very tall 3, almost 4 yr old boy, who refused to model it for me), to match.

I never finished my goals of the baby ranger boots or the baby jerkin, partly due to the flu, partly due to finding out this baby was a girl, and losing some steam for the ranger outfit, alas.
But thinking about it, the Dunedain (wandering rangers) had families, and so there were definitely girls and little kids wandering over Eriador in ranger clothing....so I am going to finish it at some point.

I never got to the baby elven cloaks, mostly because I got frustrated with being able to find the "perfect" materials....

I also never finished (or started) my goal of my nursing-accessible & maternity friendly Arwen dress, but that was due to the flu, and it will happen at some point in the future.

All in all, here are the SHBsewalong + toddler stuff that I sewed this month,

and I am really thankful to how the SHBsewalong (and especially the boards on flickr) encouraged me, gave me a sense of camaraderie, gave me the push to sew it all up.

Cost: 
$6 for the used T-shirts from the thrift store
$3 worth of sewing machine needles
$3 for the heat-n-bond (I only used a little bit of it though)
$4 for the gold tulip fabric paint (although I bought it 4 yrs ago, and just finished off half the bottle)
under $1 for utility knife blades use up.

So that comes out to roughly $17 for 3 elven dresses and 2 tunics.

The stencil blanks (Show-Offs from Hobby Lobby $7) Utility knife ($2 from Home Depot) and re-positionable spray stencil adhesive ($6 from Hobby Lobby, it worked for fabric!), I am not counting since I have over 90% of all of that left.

Time:
I don't have logs on all the projects, but I think from cutting out all the elven dresses/tunics and sewing them up it was probably around 12 hours total. The Mei Tai carrier was 8ish hours total.

I made time by sewing in 15-30 minute snatches of the kids snack times (the sewing machine is in view of the kids high chairs), and 20 minute chunks of quiet play when the baby was napping. I really only made use of only a few donutman videos (probably totally under 5 hours for the whole month, never more than 1 hour in a day, I think).
At first I would get up a little early and get half an hour of sewing in in the morning, but due to the almost 13 month old deciding she was now an early riser, I just switched to sometimes sewing a little when all the kids were asleep.

The key for me, to get sewing done, was being able to walk away from my project. If a kid started to cry, if they lost interest in the video or wanted a book or something, I just quit and covered the sewing machine, knowing I would get back to it later, be it the next day or next week.

 In the past, I have this drive-drive-drive to finish, and I would sew while the kids were screaming, "just finish this seam, just 10 more minutes...." resulting in bad feelings all around for me (guilt) and frustration (I made a lot more mistakes with a background of unhappy neglected children), and anger (the kids would be mad), which would then lead to me having subconscious negative feelings about it all, and I just wouldn't sew, and instead waste time on pinterest....

The second key for me, to get sewing done, was to intentionally cut out pinterest/blogs on "sewing days". I realized often in my 15 minute chunks of free time, I would just waste it on pinterest as I felt it wasn't "long enough" to really "do" anything. But those chunks add up. Or then after we put the kids down, I would browse pinterest/blogs, then get inspired, but be too tired and sleepy.
So I realized, if I wanted to sew that day, I had to choose not to connect my computer to the internet, or better yet, not turn on the computer at all. I would pick (depending on how I was feeling) some days as "no interent" days, and I would get sewing done in my snatches of free time instead. Then, being tired, I would spend the next day's free time on the internet. I think this month my sewing days to internet days (subtracting out the flu days, in which I didn't even have energy for the internet, just for praying not to throw up...), was probably around 2:1.
So, all in all, I found probably 20 hours of sewing time this month, broken up into smaller chunks, never more than 2 hours in a day total, probably closer to 1 hour a day.

As a mom I don't have the 8-hr sewing sprees (I can't stay up much past 10pm anymore, I need to wake up at 7), but I also find that this sewing-in-little-chunks method, of being able to walk away, also means I spend ALOT less time frustrated and undoing mistakes with a stitch ripper.


:)

And the things do get done, just in lots of little chunks, and perhaps a little slower, than my old ways of sewing-sprees followed by burnouts.

And nothing beats the emotional satisfaction of seeing the kids in things I made...

She insisted on carrying around the empty saltine bag which she filled from the wading pool. I think she was amazed she could 'bag' water. It is quite cool when you think about it....even if it did somewhat ruin the photoshoot...