An Overdue Update...

One of my favorite months of the year has already come and gone (and so has half of November), but there's so much I want to share with you all! October has kept me pretty busy doing crafts and projects and getting ready for Halloween, but I'm (finally) here to write down what I've been up to.

Starting last October, I began a new tradition of spending a little time every day devoted to either crafts/sewing/projects/art or anything Halloween related. More often than not it had something to do with both...

This was only my second year into this tradition, but it's so fun! I did have a couple set backs, the main one being that I got my wisdom teeth out in the middle of the month, which prevented me from doing much for a while. But I worked around it and did the best I could!

So now I want to pretty much just go through everything I did this month! I spent most of my time making Halloween decorations and my Halloween costume.

I had a shopping trip so I could get a bunch of stuff at once, and I went a little crazy at Michael's...but it was worth it!

I decorated this super cute chalkboard sign with a fun October drawing...

I also had a fun coloring party with lots of friends and food and I colored this picture!

One of my favorite things from the month was a trip to the pumpkin patch with my friends. We went to Mother Nature's Farm and walked around the boutique, took a hay ride, and picked out a pumpkin! I bought an adorable sign and some super yummy apple butter.

I didn't do nearly as much face painting as I would have liked to. It's harder now since I can't wear the face paint to work like I could to school. But I did one design and actually did one face painting. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the actual face painting I did, but it was just a simple spider web.

The designs I did (to the right) were gonna be used at the coloring party, which kinda had a Disney theme since we were going to watch Fantasia. Hence the Mickey Mouse heads. But I ran out of time since I was setting up for the party so that didn't happen.




Most of my month was spent working on my own Halloween costume, which I think turned out pretty awesome! I put a LOT of time into it. It definitely has many flaws and many things that need to be redone or improved. But for the time I had I was pretty happy with it.

I will be working on improving it as well as finishing a couple pieces that I didn't have time to do. I will also be writing a separate blog post (eventually) solely dedicated to the making of this costume.

My month of crafts and sewing ended on a high note for sure! I had a blast throwing a party for my friends. We had yummy food (a must at parties) and played some fun Halloween games. I wish I had gotten more pictures but here are just a couple!

It was a crazy month for sure, but I had fun working on the projects I was able to do. I'm definitely going to plan better next time and not stress myself out so much. Which means planning an easier costume, or starting my costume MUCH earlier than I did.

October is not the end of my crafting adventures for the year, however! Most certainly not. I already have many projects in mind, some of which have already been started. The catch will be how long it takes me to blog about them 😂

Step 2: Shopping!

Hey friends! It's been a while! This post won't be very long but I wanted to make an update since it's been so long since my last one. My last post was about my planning process for costumes, but I've been so busy with my new job and such that I haven't gotten much past the first step. Well. Now I have! I finally have some room in my schedule to breathe, so I decided to take my Halloween costume to step two: shopping!

Before I could go anywhere, I made a list of all the materials I'll need for this costume. This is a little different than the list on my planner template. On that, I simply list each individual piece of the costume. For step two, I need something a little more detailed. So I take each piece, figure out what materials I'll need to construct it, and compile all the information together. Here's the one I did for this costume:

As a reminder, I'm making a costume of Zelda from Breath of the Wild. There are quite a few pieces and a lot of work to do, but I managed to get my materials list down to a decent size. I found my foam at Michael's and all my fabric at Joann's. And with the help of sales and coupons, I spent WAY less than I expected to spend. It was definitely a worthwhile trip.

The haul:

Step 1: Costume Planning

I can't believe it's almost August! Time flies when you're doing nothing, right? Just kidding. I've been keeping busy with some painting and sewing projects and taking a couple trips with family. I'm currently working on sewing a dress, but that will come in a later post. The topic for today's post is all about costumes!! One of my favorite holidays is coming up (sorta) and I'm already planning for it. This post will be dedicated to how I go about planning my costumes for various events, as well as a sneak peak into my next couple projects!

So. Yes, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I tend to go all out. The past couple years, I've participated in Halloweek, dressing up every day the week leading up to Halloween. And last year I did 31 days of Halloween, where I did something Halloween related every day of October. This included things like face painting, working on my costume, and dressing up. If you'd like to see some of those pictures, check out my instagram @hever_hush #31days.

That being said, I have to start making my plans way in advance. Hence, this post! I've spent the last two days figuring out what costume I want to make this year. My process for making this decision includes a few steps and draws from several resources. I keep a list of "characters to cosplay" on my phone (since I usually get ideas at the most random times), so my first step is to look through that. If that doesn't work, I look through my Pinterest boards. I have boards for cosplaying and anime that usually give me ideas. My last resort is to look through all of the movies I own for character ideas. I try to keep in mind how much time I have to prepare, how complex a costume I want to take on, and also whether or not I want to wear a wig... Once something peaks my interest, it's off to the drawing board!

At the beginning of the year, I got a really fancy planner that I keep way more than just a calendar in. One of those things is my costuming planning pages. I created a template for planning costumes that includes the following information:

1. Name of character or title of costume
2. A sketch of how I want the costume to look
3. List of pieces/items required to complete the costume
4. How each item will be acquired (bought or made from scratch)
5. The date I started making the costume
6. The date I by which the costume needs to be completed
7. The event for which the costume is being made
8. My budget/How much I spend on items and materials
9. Notes

This has been SO NICE. I'm the kind of person who needs everything written down and organized, and this is so helpful. I put the pages in order of what needs to get done first, so I can prioritize everything.

Here are some examples of costumes I've planned in the past.

Sometimes I use the notes section to list out things I need to do (i.e. "cut tights into gloves" or "make chain")

Or I use it to record my thoughts: "This outfit is gonna be hecka hot to wear..." 😂

And now....

My Halloween costume for this year IS..........







Zelda from Breath of the Wild!!!

I'm really excited about this costume. It was a hard choice, as I had several other good options from which to decide. But I've been playing this game a lot more recently and I'm IN LOVE with the artwork and the story line and the game play and pretty much everything else. This is by far my favorite portrayal of Princess Zelda in the Zelda franchise. And most importantly, this costume will be a challenge. It's beautifully designed and very creative and I can't wait to get started!

While I was doing this design, I decided to put a little bit of thought into my costume for the Arizona Renaissance Festival, which I attend every spring. This one wasn't too difficult, as I've had something in mind for a while. Here it is! (Some of the details got a little blurry with the black pencil. Sorry...)

My RenFest costumes tend to be a bit more generic and aren't one character in particular. In the past I've done elf princesses as well an assassin/rogue style costume. I'm going a little simpler this year, and I think it will be cooler and more comfortable to wear while walking around. I most likely won't get to any of it until after Halloween, but I like to at least know what's coming up! RenFest will be here before we know it...

Finding Something I Had Lost

Sometimes, it only takes something simple to bring a little joy into my life. I recently attended a service project at my church; it had already been a long day and I only planned to stay for a little bit so I could go home and sleep. but things don't always go as planned.

Now, let me give a little of my painting history before I continue. I've been interested in art since elementary school, and I took some art classes in junior high. I mostly did colored pencil drawings, and I hated when we did a painting project because I was awful at them. I got through them, but stuck to my colored pencil stuff. When I got to high school, I chose to do music as my main elective and couldn't fit art classes into my schedule. I still did art stuff on my own as a hobby, but nothing extensive. The closest I got to painting was this silhouette drawing I did as a wedding gift for my brother. Everything is in colored pencil except for the silhouette parts.

Fast forward to the summer after high school graduation. I don't really know why, but as I was sitting at home one day I suddenly got the urge to paint something. So I did. I got a canvas and some paint and just kinda went for it. This was the result:


I thought it turned out pretty ok, and it was fun! That's when my painting journey began. Super cheesy, I know...

I started painting more, and this eventually led to a fun project I took on my sophomore year of college. My roommate and I hated the boring, white cabinets we had in our apartment kitchen, so we decided to change it up and paint them all with fun pictures! Here are just a few of my favorites.

Harry Potter. Because obviously.

EXO is a K-pop group I like, and I got my roommate into it so...

Howl's Moving Castle!

We both love the Mesa temple and it's so beautiful! This was fun to paint.

Our favorite super heroes.

My roommate's favorite Disney princess.

This project led to a couple of commissions from one of my mom's coworkers.

Once I got to my junior year of college, I kinda stopped painting. The only painting I did was for the mural on my bedroom wall (see previous post). There were several reasons this happened, some of which I'm only now realizing. For one, college got really busy. I was a music major, and a TA for one of my classes, so I was busy with tons of classes, grading papers, choir rehearsals, and concerts left and right. It wasn't a priority, since it was just a hobby, and I chose to focus my time on school and music stuff. Another reason, one that I hate to admit, was that I kinda got sick of it. Sometimes it got tedious. Art was supposed to be my stress reliever, and it got to the point where it was doing the opposite, so I decided to take a break. Looking back, I also realized two things: one, that I was usually painting for someone else, not for myself; and second, that I never gave my paintings my own flare. I know that sounds weird but it will make sense later in the story.

I still did art things for last two years of college, but it was mostly sketching here and there for costume and dress ideas. My main crafty hobby those two years was sewing, which is for another post entirely.

So. It's 2018, I've graduated from college, and I'm without a job. Look at all that free time I have!! 😅

And now! We're finally back to the service project! The service project was to make crafts for foster children, and one of the projects was painting kindness rocks. Like I mentioned, I didn't plan to stay for very long. But once I started painting I completely lost track of time. I felt like I found something I had lost. I was happy.

 That was my starting push. I pulled out all my blank canvases that I had stored away. I pulled out my easel that I hadn't touched in two years. And I started painting. I started small and without any plans. I just wanted to paint. That was also something I had learned. I always tried to take on ideas that were too big, paintings that had so much detail that I got tired of it before I finished. So I just painted. I let whatever I had in my head come out on the canvas. Here are the results. I'm pretty happy about it.

In light of my renewed excitement, I pulled out a painting I had left unfinished two years ago. This painting fell into the "too detailed" category. Well, I decided it was time to finish it. So I did. I know now that if I take on an idea like that again, it will be something to come back to little by little over a long period of time. I still really enjoyed it. I just have to avoid burnout by taking breaks from it. This is where I realized that I needed to add my own flare or style to my paintings. Landscapes are fun, but just doing regular, real life landscapes doesn't feel right. Don't get me wrong, I'm obsessed with gardens (which is what most of my landscape paintings tend to be). But they need creativity. Something...improbable, if that makes any sense. Anyway, here's that painting I finished:

You're probably thinking, "What is she talking about? That really isn't all that detailed..." But I'm also not Bob Ross who gets exactly what he wants the first time he puts it on canvas. I have to redo every detail I paint about twelve times until I get it just the way I want it. I'm still not 100% happy with this one, but I decided I just needed to let it go.

My goal now is to build up a decent portfolio and a good stock of paintings. Perhaps I'll try to sell them...

For now, here are some pictures of my current set up. It's nice to leave it out so I can just paint whenever I want. My mom probably isn't too happy about it though. I'm pretty messy 😂😂

The Wall So Far...

Most of the time, I really, really try to finish projects I start. But sometimes, there are just some projects that take way longer to get done than I expect. The project in question happens to be my bedroom wall. Painting a mural on my bedroom wall has been one of my dreams since I was very little. But I didn't actually decide to do it until last summer. I had just gotten home from my tour to Sweden, Estonia, and Latvia with Shrine of the Ages choir and I was looking for a project to do when I noticed the framed photos that I'd had on my wall since junior high. I figured it was time to change them out, but I wanted to do it a little differently. After picking new photos (most of which came from the tour) I drew up a design for the new layout:

The color scheme of my room is green (the walls), brown (the carpet), and white (pretty much all the furniture). So this was my design. The rectangles are where I would place the picture frames; I was kinda going for the "family tree" concept.

However, this concept has changed drastically since its beginnings. This was the time when I also developed my...mild...obsession with fairies, so I modified the design to be a sort of fairy haven. Here's a series of sketches and concepts that grew out of the original.

My hope is to put a bunch of fairies in after everything else is finished. I don't know how many I want yet though...

So with these ideas, I began! I worked throughout the summer, usually for a couple hours at a time. I just wasn't very consistent, so I didn't get that far.

 I began by marking where I wanted the picture frames to go by taping pieces of paper to the wall.

Then I marked the outline of the first tree with some tape.

I marked the second tree and kinda improvised with this one, since I didn't do too much planning with it.

Here's the first tree painted!! I really like the way it turned out. I decided to make the trunk skinnier and forego the door and windows I drew into my second set of designs. But I might put them back in after everything else is done. We'll see.

After the trees came the flowers and mushrooms. I kept everything in the green/brown/white scheme.











I don't have any more in between photos. And the project is still in the works. It's been a nice project because I don't feel pressured to get it done and I can fall back on it when I want a break from things. And so, here's one last picture. This is the current state of the project. I still have to finish the tree roots, touch up the blossoms, and add all the fairies. But that'll be simple! Right?.....