[Self-Promotional Blog Post Title Goes Here]

Oh look, here's me on It's My Darlin' from last winter!  I just remembered this on the bus this morning, so I thought I'd do a little personal pimping and share it here. 

It's a serious winter outfit, replete with wool coat and wide-brimmed hat, but the pièce de résistance is obviously that insane quilted polyester skirt I'm wearing.  I made it in high school out of a positively glorious queen-sized '70s quilt I found at a thrift store near my folks' place.  Honestly, I have about a yard and a half of this quilt left-over, which is currently adorning my ugliest armchair.  I swear every time I look at it I regret having unceremoniously chopped it to bits to make a few insane looking skirts.  But at least it got me some props, some eight years on, right?

Cribbed my glamor shot from It's My Darlin'.  Credit is due, natch.

Swimmingly Cute New Looks for the Modern Mermaid

  We hosted an epic house party for my dear Friend of the Animal's birthday this past March, where some local talent played the house down, and when the cops showed up, they said "party on."  A night of epic proportions, as well as epic costumes.

  We like any excuse to wear a costume, and birthdays are by and large one of the best occasions - especially when you get to choose the theme.  Tonight's theme?  Under the Sea.  The birthday girl had a dream... a dream of being a mermaid.  Could I, armed with a serger and three yards of pink satin spandex, rise to the challenge?

  Oh it took trails, it took tears.  I realized late in the game that you can't beat the serger, so you may as well join it.  You want the machines on your side.  Anyway, I'm still learning the ins and outs of my new overlock machine, so what better way to practice than sewing slippery spandex to thick ruched lace?  Excellent idea.

  The pattern for these skirts was so simple - I just used my favorite American Apparel high-waisted pencil skirt as a pattern!  AA garments are SO easy to reconstruct, never buy something in two colors when you can just get one and then make as many as you want! Seriously, this skirt is made up of a mere three separate panels. My only alteration was to lengthen it slightly. The 'fins' are made from two layers of lace cut into a right-angled triangle and gathered along the hypotenuse (hey, algebra, never thought I'd meet you here in costume-making 101) which was stitched to the hem of the skirt.  The gathering rounded off the edges of the fins nicely, giving them the oh-so-Ariel shape that I wanted. 

Me and the Birthday Girl pose for a photo

In lieu of a clam-shell bra, I made us each a cute little pair of sequined Starfish pasties.  (The dancing eventually compromised the integrity of my pastie glue. I recommend packing a bikini top whenever you wear pasties, just in caseties.) The look is topped off with some seahorse necklaces and mermaid crowns.  Birthday girl bought a packet of plastic sea creatures at the dollar store, which we spray-painted gold and and pink to match!

  I'm also wearing the perfect mermaid lippy from Swagger Cosmetics by the incomparable Blake Karamazov.  Scope it out at http://swaggerco.bigcartel.com/ !

Starfish pasties!

   Here's a front-n-back view of the pasties where you can see how they're made - vinyl backing cut and shaped into a little cone, and decorated with chained sequins (way easier to use than applying single sequins one-by-one.  That would be maddening.)

Not the best photos, but you get the idea.

  And of course, no look is complete without a coordinating manicure.  Here's a pretty simple half-moon with a shimmery teal over hot pink, with a few selective touches of glitter - just a couple of the moons and tips have a glittery topcoat.

  **Bonus!  The mermaid skirt doubles as a sexy nightclub dress!  I'm all about turning a long skirt I love into a strapless dress - just throw a belt on if it's a loose skirt and viola!  New dress.