New Millinery Makes!

Hello all!

I hope you are all well and are enjoying the sun which is just starting to some out! :p

The week just gone was 'Symposium week' at my university (I posted about symposium last year, but for those who don't know it's kind of like a mini festival that happens on campus where there are workshops for you to sign up to and shows to watch!  So basically a week of fun and excitement exploring new things really :)

I actually hosted my own workshop this year teaching people the basics of knitting which was very enjoyable- everyone picked it up pretty quickly as well too which was impressive! They seemed to enjoy my class so I was happy :p I will definitely be trying to think of what workshop I can host next year now after the fun I had hosting my own!

Haha but now- among many one workshop I did was making theatrical (basically showgirl) headresss!!! The lady who taught the class was the one who teaches the week of millinery as part of my course- she is very talented and very lovely so it was nice to be taught by her again.

We learnt how to have the wire headband and base and then how to build up all the decoration on top. It was cool as everyone's came out so different.  Here is my creation....

Hehe I am quite proud of it. It is very fun to wear I must say! But I was also super happy to learn the skills of making the wire headband shape as I had caught the millinery bug again and being able to make my own wire headband base allowed me to experiment and come up with my own new fascinator design.....

I made it as a gift for the birthday of someone special to me's sister that is coming up soon :)

I quite like the design- it is kind of flower and origami like- it was fun to see what I could create by just folding and pleating and sewing the sinamay in different ways. And then I added the feathers and metal flat back charms to decorate :)

Hehe that's way out it for this fascinator and feather filled post :p

Talk to you all again soon! 

Byeee and thank you for visiting :) xxxx

Symposium! (and stuff :)

Hi,

 

Last week was a really good week for me as it was 'Symposium week' at my college. What this means is basically a week off of timetabled lectures with loads of fun and interesting workshops, talks and performances going on instead :D

 

I booked myself onto loads of the workshops including zumba (which was really enjoyable), dream catcher making, sword fighting (super fun!!!!!) and I did quite a few costume related ones, including 3 morning workshops about Kimonos :0)

The lady was really nice and knowledgeable and bought in tons of the kimonos from her collection from martial arts related ones to bridal.

 

Here are a couple of her most extravagant kimono over-robes:

 

 

And here is me (from behind so you can see my freestyle- tied

 obi which hangs down) dressed as a Geisha :) It was cool being dressed up- I learnt a lot about how it actually feels to wear the kimono as well as how to put it on properly:

 

The obi is done up so much more tightly than I imagined it was and there is a lot more padding than I thought there was underneath too :P Brian who is next to me was dressed up like a shogun (military warrior). The lady who ran the workshops also rents out her kimonos etc... and has a website- where there are more pictures of all the kimonos we all tried on at symposium: here!

 

Another workshop I did was trauma makeup. Hahaha, a lot of fake blood was used! and some cornflakes mixed with coffee, golden syrup and red food colouring to make stuff that resembled blood clots.

 

I warn all those who are faint hearted to LOOK AWAY NOW!

 

As the following picture of my work I did in the workshop although FAKE (of course! :) is very gory:

 

 

I think I actually did get it quite realistic looking thanks to the techniques of the tutor :-)

 

Another thing that made my week really good apart from symposium was finding out that I was the special winner of a free Royal School of Needlework day course from the draw I entered at the creative stitches and Hobbycrafts show at the excel :D I am soo excited and have chosen to do a course on 17th century design inspired metal/gold work button brooches- It sounds so interesting- that is in November so kind of like a great early Christmas present!

 

And if all that wasn't enough for one week me and my mum went to the John Paul Gaultier fashion exhibition at the Barbican Arts centre/Theatre in London which was fabulous.

 

It was really different to other exhibitions I have been to as they gave some of the mannequins faces using digital projection- they even talked! I thought this really brought the whole exhibition and the clothes to life a bit more.

 

Look at the amazingness of these dresses!:

 

 

Another thing that was cool and different was that they actually had a moving catwalk! All these mannequins were dressed and on stands that moved around the catwalk, again this brought so much more life and excitement to the clothes making them look even more spectacular than they already are:

 

Well, that's just about it for the catch up of my week...

 

.....No.... Wait! I have one more fabulous thing to tell you about :P The Chocolate festival I went to on Sunday with a friend from college at the London Business and Design centre  (I really did have a crazy fun week :oD)

 

There were quite a few different samples of yummy chocolate to try and lots of baked goods on sale. As a treat I went for this brownie:

 

 

It was sooooo delicious, it was called a 'buckeye' brownie. It was a normal chocolate brownie topped with Oreo cookie frosting and a layer of milk chocolate ganache mmmm... I want another one!

 

My brownie was from Batch bakery: http://batchbakery.co.uk/

 

My friend had a peanut butter brownie which she said was amazing from the Brownie Bar: http://www.browniebar.co.uk/

 

They do a really good price online delivery of brownies so I think I may have to get some of those sent to me in the near future as they looked good too but I couldn't fit a second brownies in after my Oreo- sugar overload one :P

 

I hope you are all well, and now I promise my post is officially finished :)

 

Don't forget to enter my Spring/Easter giveaway if you haven't already as as I found out last week you never know your luck!

 

Speak to you all again very soon,

 

Bye XxXxXxX