Happy Things #13

Hap·pi·ness – state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy

Here are the latest things that made me happy 🙂

I found Etsy seller Silver Owl Creations on Pinterest and really fell in love with her designs! I was looking for a necklace to wear with my Renaissance costume and this one was so beautiful I just had to order it!

For Valentine’s Day, my Mom gave me this LoTR Lego set. I had a lot of fun putting it together with her. And I was glad I had the help because these things aren’t easy! Lots of pieces and this was a small set!!

I was at Barnes and Noble the other day looking for Easter cards when I spotted a whole section of LoTR cards! I wanted to buy the Legolas, Arwen, and Aragorn for myself but I resisted ..hehe

I got this dress at Target the other day for $25. I went back and bought it in other colors, too, because it fit so well! I can’t wait until it’s warmer so I can wear more sundresses.

A silly thing about me is that I love finding rainbows. This one was reflected off a mosaic candle holder on my shelf. I just squealed when I spotted it!

Photographer Eli Luna sent me another Ramona Flowers shot from our photoshoot. I really like this one! Can’t wait to go through the whole set soon.

I found this amazing shot while clicking around on Flickr for Arwen cosplays. This was taken by Lynn (DigiNik13) when I was at Sci Fi Expo. She has some great pictures on her Flickr so definitely check her out!

And a Happy Things post wouldn’t be complete without a picture of Pixie. Here I was getting ready to work on my Fiona costume when Pixie decided the fabric made a better bed for her.

Pixie had another visit to the vet for her check up and the news is good! Her foot healed up nicely and as long as she doesn’t chew another hole in it she should be fine. She started sitting in my laundry hamper recently, but I needed to take it back to my salon so I replaced it with this box.. She doesn’t seem to mind! Happy kitty 🙂

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What has made you happy lately?

All-Con 2013

 All-Con is a convention that covers many different genres of nerd culture. It’s located in Addison, Tx and started in 2005! This was my first time to go to All-Con. I was impressed with the diverse feel.. Although there was a lot of Star Wars and Steam Punk themes going on. Both of which I am happy with! 🙂 I am more of a fantasy/comic girl and this convention had plenty of that. On a different spectrum – it had quite a bit of anime/manga, too. It reminded me of my visits to AKon and Anime Fest with panels and fandoms found in different rooms of the hotel. I only went Friday and Saturday evening so I am sure I missed a lot. Friday I was dressed as Ramona Flowers and Saturday I was in street clothes so I could enjoy watching my friends in the costume contest!

To see all of my pictures from All-Con check out my Flickr album

This is one of my best friends Payton dressed as Queen Amidala. I enjoy seeing her and her dad at all the conventions and hanging out with them!

These are my other best friends Courtney (above) and Scotty (below). She was a Magnaguard and Scotty was General Grievous. 

My three friends got picked for second and third in the costume contest! 1st place went to a giant wookie (not pictured because he didn’t fit on stage lol).. But Courtney and Scotty were still given a cash prize because they were one vote away from a tie with the wookie. Grats to all of you!

I saw so many friends at All-Con! This was Kevin as Link and his girlfriend Courtney

I was also so impressed with this Mega Man! He won first place in his category.

Here is CookieCup Cakes as Princess Peach. Isn’t she the cutest?  These pics were taken Friday when I dressed as Ramona.

Had to get a pic with Payton as Dark Zelda. So cool!

This was an awesome Steam Punk/Comic cross over group. Me and Harley compared our hammers, lol. (I think hers would win)

My good friend Erica was there with many other awesome Star Trek cosplayers.

This is my blogging buddy James from A Galaxy Called Dallas. I look for him at every convention and we finally found each other at All-Con!

Here’s a peek at my “street clothes” outfit for Saturday.

I wore a Bazinga! shirt is from Kohl’s – you can get it here and receive 10% off with the code BLOGS10 until May 10, 2013 🙂

My blue jeans are from Express, Zelda earrings from Ragin’ Gauges, and my Ramona Flowers purse from Amazon.

Photo by Jack Teague (who is another great friend and awesome photographer!)

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I had a wonderful time at All-Con! I am looking forward to next year already. Tickets for registration are available on their website.

What is your favorite genre to see at conventions?

Do you go to meet celebs, buy stuff, hear panels, or see cosplay?

Or all of the above like me? 😀

Ramona Flowers Hammer Tutorial

My very first cosplay was Ramona Flowers at Dallas Comic Con in 2012. She's one of my favorite characters and holds a special place in my cosplay heart! I recently went to All-Con (blog post for that coming soon) and wanted to wear something comfy. Ramona is so fun because I already owned most of these clothes and dress similarly! I did have to buy a wig this time (last time my real hair was blue, and another time pink). I also decided to spice this up a bit by adding the hammer! I had a photo shoot with Eli Luna that same weekend and thought the hammer would be a great prop! So after the cut is a tutorial for how I made a last minute Ramona Flowers hammer. Enjoy!

Oh! And I posted this picture (taken by my mom and edited by me) on Twitter and got a retweet from the creator of Scott Pilgrim, Bryan Lee O'Malley! I about fell out of my chair when I saw this.. I was so excited!!! That's straight up cosplay approval right there. omg!

  

Here's a shot that Eli Luna took at the photo shoot. He did an amazing job editing this, too! Check out his photography at http://www.eliluna.com

On to the Hammer Tutorial! >>>>>

Pixie Visits the Vet

If you've been following my Facebook and Instagram then you know that Pixie recently had to visit the vet. I wanted to share her story with any readers that might not know all the details.

Let me backtrack a little here: Pixie was already declawed on all four paws before I adopted her 3 years ago. However, when I first got her, I noticed a single claw on her back foot. So I took her to the vet and she told me that it looked like one of her claws had grown back. It looked healthy and as long as Pixie didn't show any signs of pain then it was probably fine to leave alone. Well a couple of weeks ago Pixie had some dried blood on her front paw, and I was worried something was wrong. Pixie was due for an annual check up and a respiratory shot so I figured it was good to bring her in anyway. After the check up the vet found a big hole in Pixie's paw where a claw was growing in. Pixie had been chewing on it so the vet cleaned it really good, gave her an antibiotic shot and a cone to wear so she won't be able to lick it. The vet also suggested Pixie get a dental cleaning because she had really red gums and signs of some bad teeth. So I scheduled another appointment and took my poor cone-head kitty home.

Warning: Possibly squeamish photo after the break.

February Outings

This year one of my New Year’s resolutions was to see more of Dallas. My goal was to do at least one event a month. Well I was off to a bad start because I didn’t do anything in January lol … But February I more than made up for it! 

For Valentine’s Day I went to eat at the Olive Garden. It’s one of my favorites! I always order spaghetti and pig out on breadsticks.

That night I went to see the movie Beautiful Creatures. I read the book and was really excited for the movie. It was a bit of a letdown, though. The storyline was changed quite a bit, and I felt very confused. I didn’t enjoy it 🙁

My next outing was to the Dallas Museum of Art. I was invited to “Late Night at the Museum” … Every third Friday the museum is open until midnight. It’s free admission and you can watch performances and see panels in different rooms. My favorite was the Steampunk room.

I was also amazed to see “Water Lilies” by Claude Monet. We had a print of this in my home growing up so I recognized it right away. I just can’t believe I saw the real thing! 

Next up is going to the Wyly Theater for a play. This was my outfit for my night.

I got to watch the play King Lear by Shakespeare. It was unique because they modernized it. Think of the new Romeo + Juliet movie with Leo. Still said the play word by word but used guns and wore suits. Very cool! 

Next was my night at the House of Blues. This is what I wore to see Lindsey Stirling perform. She is a beautiful violinist. She was on America’s Got Talent and made it to the top 5. Her music is beautiful. 

After purchasing her album on iTunes, I find myself replaying Song of the Caged Bird the most. I also love Crystallize, Elements, and of course her cover of Zelda songs.

I also want to add this photo to show a wonderful client I had in February. She donated over 10 inches of her hair. Isn’t that great?? I thought her style came out lovely! You can follow more photos of my clients on my salon’s Facebook page.

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So far I think I’ve done a good job with my New Year’s resolution! Last weekend I went to AllCon, and this weekend is the MLG Winter Championships. But I still want to do more “Dallas-like” things. When the weather warms up I want to go to Six Flags!

What special events have you been to this year so far?

Anything planned for the spring?

My Next Cosplay is…

Fiona! I am doing the version from Shrek Forever After. This appealed to me because I think it will stand out in the crowd! I love characters that require some unique makeup. (I had a blast being Asajj Ventress.) So the bright green skin will surely get noticed! I also wanted to do a completely handmade costume. This is a great way for me to learn how to make armor and a weapon.

This outfit including the armor (but not the sword)

I will be attempting to make this battle axe!

Princess of the Nerds: My Room, Art, and EQ2 Loot

(click to see larger version)

A few weekends ago I had a lot of energy and decided to finish decorating my computer area. I had a few things up but knew there were a lot of posters still under my bed. I also have been meaning to showcase my new monitor that I got for my laptop. I play EverQuest 2 on a Sony Vaio F Series and purchased a Samsung 23″LED monitor along with a Logitech keyboard. I originally bought a nice Razer gaming keyboard but the keys were so loud so I went with a simple Logitech for now. I also use a Razer Kraken headset (seen in my previous post) to go with my Razer Naga mouse. My other computer is a 21″ Mac desktop and my iPhone and iPad can be seen in the middle. 

Do you think I leveled up my computer nerd status?

If you follow my Facebook page then you saw this pic of my Warm Bodies t shirt. I got this in the freebie room at Sci Fi Expo and forgot to include it in that post!

This is the photo I sent in for the King of the Nerds casting call! I included a pretty cool (I think I sounded cool) bio and a link to my blog. The show is very entertaining, and I think it looks fun! One big thing on my bucket list (I should post that someday) is to be on a reality show. Amazing Race would be my first choice, but I think I’d have a pretty good shot at the $100,000 prize on King of the Nerds! I hope I get picked for the second season!

These photos have gone a bit viral lately, and I just had to give it a try. The app is imadeface and it lets you pick from a variety of facial features to mimic your own. I’m not sure mine looks like me, but I’ve seen some that look just like the person! Pretty fun and it’s free.

For Christmas I received some amazing new art supplies. I would love to get better at drawing and painting so I picked up some ‘manga for beginners’ books. This is literally my first try at it so I realize there’s a lot of room for improvement. But it was the first page of the book so it was a good place to start. I hope to post more of my progress as an artist soon.

This was a gnarly robe upgrade for my necromancer on EQ2 the other day. About 5 or 6 of us from my guild (Carpe Diem) raid with a group called Brimstone Alliance three nights a week. Lately I haven’t won too many new items so I was pretty excited when I won this new robe. It dropped off Drinal in Harrow’s End after doing two soulwells! I’d like to add that we killed him flawlessly! That means no one in our raid died the whole fight! Woot!

And here’s a picture of my character Audeley. You get to wear appearance gear in this game so you can keep your stats from your fighting gear but change up how it looks. I change my outfits a lot.. I’m a glitzy geek remember? Usually I’m some shade of pink or purple, but for now I am green and cloverly to celebrate Brew Day (or St. Patrick’s Day.)

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I’ve done some other cool stuff lately that I am excited to put into another blog post so come back soon for that update. This was a pretty geeky post that I’m super proud of! I love my room and computer area and of course you know I love to play EverQuest 2. It will be cool to see if I hear back from King of the Nerds when they start casting. And maybe when I get better at drawing I can create my own manga. I feel like a “Princess of the Nerds” now!

What kind of computer do you use?
Which reality show would you want to be on?

Is there any talent or hobby you’d like to get better at?