Project Runway: Sew 70's Recap

OMG! Last night was so upsetting to me! I can't even believe what happened! I thought Anthony Ryan had the least offensive outfits last night but I guess the judges weren't on my side. BUT - I didn't want Joshua to go home either! Who should have? I don't know. Bert's were pretty boring, to me anyways, but the judges LOVED them (of course).

The challenge was to do a sophisticated 70's look (even though we ALL had enough of the 70's after last week's challenge...ugh...). Then they threw in the beloved second garment! So - two sophisticated 70's outfits to send down the runway. Let's see how they did.

Bert's first look:

I want to know how Bert manages to make this gal look like Taylor Dane EVERYTIME

Bert's second look:

This, to me, is SUPER BORING. Yeah, so the front is muted and the back is a contrasting colour but the guest judge (Miss Piperlime) kept saying how much she LOVED the metal detailing on the waist tie. Whoop-dee-doo. Wake me up when another look comes down the runway please.

Anthony Ryan's first look:


Honestly, this girl looks like any random hipster. I imagine her living in Seattle or Colorado. Maybe even New Mexico?

Anthony Ryan's second look:


Very granola-ish BUT still not offensive

Kimberly's first look:


This poor girls' boobs look like they're straining against that fabric! And too much of that fabric is very matronly, I think.  Eww!


Kimberly's second look:

I don't mean this in a bad way but the top reminds me of the pattern my Mom used to make tops for my nieces. My nieces who are under 10 years old. My nieces who are cute little girls. My nieces who are not adults and wearing these kinds of tops. Don't get me wrong - I like that style but it was a little much for me.

Viktor's first look:


Who's ready to go on an expedition to Africa?!  The snakeskin shirt says it's ready!  Of course the judges had boners for this look...

Viktor's second look:

The judges also had boners for this dress too.  Ummm...it was made well but I wasn't crazy about the snakeskin since it was in the first look already AND Viktor made a matching bow tie for himself AND he wore snakeskin shorts.  Overkill much?


Laura's first look:


I still stand by my drunken decision last night - I like this look!  I like the mitered chevrons on the top!  I don't think it looks prisony at all, judges.  AND I like the print on the bottom WAY better than Kimberly's pattern for the midriff top.  Just sayin'

Laura's second look:


This look was "meh" but I like the fabric she chose for the top!  I kinda want to see her use it again.

And now we arrive to Joshua.  Risk-taker.  Excuse-maker.  Outfit-justifier.  Tale-spinner.

Joshua's first look:


The tuxedo shirt was nice but it was very 80's.  The pants were all wrong and I'm not alone here.  MK let out that girlish scream for the backside of the pants and I did too.

Eww.  That's a crazy butt back there.  And the print is NOT helping.

Joshua's second look:


The judges hated the print (of course) but I liked it (of course I did).  And this look isn't very 70's either.  It reminds me of the early 90's for some reason.  Hmm.  Don't know why.

And now, Anya.  Let's take a moment to talk about her last night.  The budget was a slim $100.  Not a lot, right?  What happens?  Anya loses her money at Mood and one of the producers ran away with it they can't find it. Tim gives her the option of working with muslin and to ask her fellow designers if they have extra cash left over and none of them do - except Anthony Ryan. He was generous enough to give her $11 and some change he had left over and the other designers give her scrap fabric they might not be using. Except for Viktor: "What?  It's a competition. I'm not gonna help her".  I'm with him and against him one this one...Then, for the bombshell of the second look, they have a budget of $50.

Anya's first look:


Can you feel Heidi's lady boners?  Yeah, me too.

Anya's second look:


I'm not a fan of this one.  The proportions are off.  It's too large and it makes her bottom half look HUGE.  Eww.  Can you feel Heidi's lady boners for this one too?  Yeah, it's gross.

But guess what - surprise - Anya wins!  Please excuse my extreme excitement.  *Yawn*

Sadly, Anthony Ryan was sent home.  It was him and Joshua on the bottom and I didn't want either of them to go!  If it had been up to me, I would've sent Bert home with his disco roller girl hot shorts and silver-tipped rope tie on the biggest snooze dress since Olivier's clothes.  I was so upset!  How?!  Oh well.  What's done is done.  I have a feeling we're not done with Anthony Ryan.  He's too good!



Until next runway!
Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.

Project Runway: The Live-Blog: Sew 70's

Tonight's episode sounds like what happened last week: The 70's. Let's hope our designers get it together tonight!

DIY: Bokeh Kit

Since I've been spending most of my time uploading videos today, I decided to take a gander over at Photojojo for some new goodies (like this time lapse camera I'm checking out).  The one item I kept going back to was the Bokeh Kit. I've been keeping a close watch on it and I finally declared: "I can do that!"

So, with videos running in the background, I got a paper cup that fit perfectly over my lens and cut it to a decent size.



Next, I grabbed some scrap paper from our plotting printer, cut the circle the same size as the bottom of the cup and cut a shape on the paper.



Luckily the scrap paper was already a dark colour on one side!

Next, I cut the bottom out of the paper cup and inserted one of my sweet cutouts




(This doesn't look quite as cute as the Photojojo kit but it works!)

I had to experiment A LOT to get a good idea of what it was supposed to look like and an office setting isn't quite the best for this...



I kept wondering if there was some sort of light source I could shoot that would give me the desired bokeh effect and it turns out - it was right in front of me (as always). I have a glitter lamp at my desk that I love to shoot all the time. I turned my lens towards it, messed with the settings and behold - little stars were appearing!



Then I messed with the flash!



Then I tired my Space Invaders cut out!


FAIL. So I went back to the stars!



I have no problem entertaining myself when I have to stare at progress bars all day!  Don't get me wrong - I'm totally working but I'm multitasking :)

AND - I'm not saying to not get the bokeh kit, I just wanted to see if I could do it.  I still might end up buying the kit (or asking for it for Christmas) but at least I know I can make them too!

EDIT:
I made a heart template!




I could do this forever...

Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.

Star Slinger x Green Label Sound

My fave Tumblrer and music producer extraordinaire, Star Slinger, is the featured artist on Mountain Dew's Green Label Sound! Fuck yeah!!
 


I know you'll all download his track off the site AND check him out at Drunken Unicorn on October 19th! I know I'll be there!

Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.

Blink, My Chem and Matt and Kim rocked my face off!!

I'm not gonna lie - last night made me feel a little old.
As an early birthday present to myself, I went to see My Chemical Romance, Blink 182 and Matt and Kim at Lakewood Amphitheater.  What a show!!  I've seen MCR and Blink a few times but I had never seen Matt and Kim and it was AWESOME!!  They were so hyped up and got the crowd going - it was amazing!  I loved it!  I kind of wish I had seen them the last time they were here at a different venue.  Not that there's anything wrong with Lakewood...  I wish their set was longer!  It was so much fun!

MCR was amazing, as always.  It was nice to see the Blink Bros getting into Matt and Kim and MCR.  (I forgot how bro-ish Blink fans are.)

How did I forget that?  Oh yeah, the last time I saw Blink 182 was around 10+ years ago.  At the same venue too!  LOLZebras.  I will say this: Blink 182's visuals are insane!  I loved it!  I loved the whole thing!  The cartoonish cameras, the moving screens in the background - all of it was amazing!

And the best part about it: after they had played a decent sized set, Tom DeLonge said, "Okay, we're pretending to leave but we'll be back in about 5 minutes".  Then a huge drop cloth came down and they were gone.  Five minutes later, there was this DJ mix playing in the background and then we all heard Travis Barker's crazy drums.  Then, we all SAW Travis Barker at his drumset but it wasn't on stage, oh no, it was ABOVE IT.  WHAT THE WHAT??!?!?  That shit was crazy!!  His drumset was on a mechanical arm that came down from the ceiling and hovered over the crowd!  I had put my PowerShot away since I figured I was done getting blurry photos (damn that camera!) so I got my phone out.  After about 15 seconds with my phone I was like, "You idiot!  Get the other camera so you can zoom in!"  So, I grabbed my other camera and shot away.



I wish I had a better camera. All my MCR footage is blurry and this video does NOT do this performance justice. This was probably one of the better shows I've been to in a long time!  I had so much fun and I was sad when it was over.  Oh well.  All good things must come to an end.  Until next time, kids!  I hope all 3 bands come back to ATL really soon!

Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.

Project Runway Live-Blog: Image Is Everything

It's Almost Glee Day!

We've all been waiting for it and it's almost here: the return of Glee! I can't wait! I saw this cute article on their Facebook page - but it wasn't the article that drew me in, oh no. It was this dreamboat:

HNNNNNNGGGGGGG

And to make it worse (well, actually better), I went and looked for more of these school portraits and found these gems:





LOVES IT!! How great does Lea Michele look?!  How dreamy does Chris Colfer look?!
They're all great but these are my faves out of the bunch. Okay you caught me - I love all of them but I didn't want to over do it. If you want, check out the full gallery here!

I can already say this: I have MAJOR hair envy. Just look at how great Dianna Agron looks with pink hair!!

I can easily say that I'm supper jealous of her fierceness. Maybe I'll have to bring some pink back to my own hair - whether it's a track or if I get adventurous enough, I can try dyeing my hair again. I might not risk it since it's still on the mend.

Tomorrow is the day, my dears!  Get ready!
Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.

Sunday Funday: Arts & Crafts, Ancient Aliens & TC: Just Desserts

So far my weekends have been pretty chill and I ain't even mad. Today was even more chill - which has been good and bad.
The good: I've been really productive! I had a vision, of sorts, for my outfit for Wednesday's excursion and I jumped out of bed to make it. What is it? It's a hot pink shirt that I bought a while back to put a metallic Pegasus iron-on transfer. But alas, the transfer didn't make it. Why? Because I had bought an animal print dye kit that needed to be explored. The zebra stencil was calling my name so I accidentally mixed up some blue, got my shit together and mixed up some black and sprayed my little heart out to something horrifying: the spray nozzle was super splattery! I hadn't counted on that at all because I had left a lot of the fabric exposed - which made a clear line around the stencil. Oh well, too late to turn back right? Luckily I had started on the top right shoulder area and I worked my way down in a diagonal - ending on the bottom left. It actually looked pretty neat! Like a zebra printed tire track! Along the way, I added splatters and dye drops to add a little something to the design.

And that was only yesterday.

This morning, I jumped out of bed with a vision of stencils that lived in the middle of the zebra patterns. My first thought was to burn a screen but I didn't have the patience. I guess I wanted something more...instant. So I gathered my thoughts, cut a rather large piece of freezer paper and very carefully traced out 4 of the same stencil. While it took a toll on m y back, I was happy to do it this way because if I had done a silk scree, I would still be working on it now...
Anyways, I placed it very daintily on my shirt and ironed away. Then came the fun part: painting! Each stencil got its own color so I took my time and carefully colored each stencil with silver, blue, yellow and green. I let it sit for a couple of hours and realized something was missing: another stencil. Ugh...my back.
I sucked it up and cut out another stencil. While I was working on this fifth and final stencil, I happened to be watching Top Chef: Just Desserts. While I'm a fan of the Top Chef franchise, I wasn't too jazzed about Just Desserts until I heard about a contestant who has a very distinct name: MINE. This contestant is named Katzie. Granted, she has an "e" at the end of her name but still - that's my name !
And since I missed the first part of the show, I gathered that they had a Willy Wonka challenge and guess what? Katzie won! It was neat but really weird to hear my name on tv. I haven't heard it on tv since that one set of Sailor Moon episodes with the four sisters (and one of them was named Katsy). LOL. I did what I thought I should do: I ran around yelling, "I won! I won! Thanks Gail, Hubert, guest judge who I don't know and rockabilly host guy!" That's what people do when reality show contestants have their names and win, right?

After that, there was NOTHING on tv. Nothing. So what do I do? Turn on my trusty Nexflix Instant and watch a mini marathon of Ancient Aliens. that really made time fly by. Before I realized it, I had cut my shirt, stenciled one more thing with the cutout of the last stencil, splattered more dye and visualized what I would do once my shirt is done setting - which will be in about 4 more hours. Hopefully it will be everything I was thinking of and hopefully I'll be able to get it done by Wednesday morning!
Where am I going on Wednesday? It's a surprise. All I can say is that I wish my brother was joining me...Oh well. Maybe next time?

The bad thing about my chill weekends is that I'm antsy and all I want to do is dance! Obviously, a night out is in order. The other thing I want to do is sleep in. Not just on the weekends, I want to sleep in every day. If only...

Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.

Project Runway: What Woment Want - The Recap

He did it! Joshua edited his aesthetic, left the attitude at home and freakin' WON! I know he techincally won the New Balance challenge but in reality, Viktor was announced first and then Joshua's name was called but who cares - he has 2 wins now!! Good for you bb! Last night's challenge was fun! It was boyfriends/husbands describing looks for their girlfriends/wives to the designers. It was full of hilarousness, awkwardness and lots and lots of boob talk - which made Olivier a little upset because his client kept saying his wife had HUGE BOOBS but in actuality, they weren't that big. See?

I'll admit that the top does tone them down a bit but, believe me, they're not as huge as the guy made them out to be.

More after the jump!

Project Runway: The live-blog: What Women Want

Holiday in Jacksonville

My old man and I took some time for some serious R&R last week and all I want to do is live by the ocean forever. It was amazing! Jacksonville isn't exactly the touristy spot like, say, Disney or something but it has what we wanted: nothing. We wanted a nice, chill place to spend the last days of summer being lazy and Jacksonville was perfect.

Neptune Beach is the BEST. The water is fantastic and because of the tropical storms on the way, the surf was AMAZING. It made me want to learn how to surf. For serious, y'all.



Our other favourite place is Saint Augustine. I was so moved by the architecture of the Ponce de Leon Hotel (now known as Flagler College) that I spent quite a few hours researching the history of the oldest city in the U.S. NERD ALERT I know, but it's beautiful.

All I kept thinking about was: imagine Flagler College the way it was before - when it was a hotel. A super fancy monocle worthy hotel. According to our Ghost Host (on the super fun Ghosts and Gravestones tour), you didn't pay for a room a the Ponce de Leon by the day or week, you paid for the whole season!  When we go back, we're definitely going to take a tour and see if we can truly imagine what it was like as a hotel.

Another tour I'm glad we did was of the beautiful lighthouse.  Yeah, it was quite the climb but it was totally worth it!  On the Ghost and Gravestones tour, our host talked about my favourite Ghost Hunters episode involving the lighthouse while we were on the grounds right outside.  We couldn't go in because the lighthouse has a separate ghost hunt tour thing BUT just standing outside and hearing the stories was enough for me to get creeped out - especially after what TAPS found in that particular investigation.  I took lots of photos on the ghost tour but here are some shots during the day tour
 
It is as gorgeous at night as it is during the day.  What a beauty!  And it has such crazy history - just like the rest of Saint Augustine.

We spent some time at the Castillo de San Marcos as well.  I wanted to walk around the grounds this time since we didn't last time we were there (in 2008, I think).  There's a rich history of war all over and I'm glad they have managed to capture that and keep it for the rest of us to enjoy and appreciate

Sorry all the photos here are from my iPhone - I took TONS more on my other camera that I'll be posting to Flickr soon (including the ghost tour pics!) Keep an eye out for those!!

Until next time!
Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I

PS - Looks like TAPS co-founder Grant Wilson is looking extra dreamy for the Syfy banner ad for this season of Ghost Hunters.

Why have I stopped watching?! I need to get back on it!