How to have a steampunk high tea

My dearest Blog, I was privileged yesterday to be among the fortunate guests at a steampunk high tea. Meet (standing left to right) Julianne, Chuck, Henry, Layla, Anna, (yours truly), Greg, and (seated) our hosts, Laura and Paul.

How precisely ought one host a steampunk high tea? Why, I am glad you asked, Blog.

First of all, for those unfamiliar with the term "steampunk," it is a popular genre of fashion and fantasy that combines Victorian style with science fiction elements of the type found in the writings of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Think time travel, airships, machinery incorporating gears and steam engines, all expressed with the elegance of the Victorian period. And what better way to enjoy the company of fellow steampunk fans than at a high tea, a social event very much in vogue during the reign of Queen Victoria?

Like steampunk in general, such a gathering is certainly open to individual interpretation. But I will share with you some tips based upon the manner in which it was executed by our delightful hosts, Paul and Laura. Follow these guidelines and you too can travel back to a romantic time that never really quite existed....

1. Invite guests who will come attired in steampunk-themed garb. As you see, that is key. Outfits include top hats and vests, splendid coats, long skirts, high button shoes...and the more subtle steampunk elements just as goggles, jewelry fashioned of gears and cogs, and props such as the sextants at Greg's hip in the photo above. British accents such as were employed by Henry and Greg are optional, as are imaginary character back stories, but hope to have a few attendees who will amuse your guests with same! And a de rigueur activity for guests is admiring each other costumes. Henry's "spat shoes" received particular attention.

By the way, it's not hard or expensive to contrive your own steampunk costume. I outfitted myself for about $50 out of pocket. A better view of me:

Start in your own closet. I used a shirt and vest I already had, and high-button velvet boots from a prior costume. Supplement with items from thrift stores, online steampunk shops, Etsy and eBay. I got my bustled skirt on eBay from Moonlight Cove. Don't forget steampunk props and jewelry, like the steampunk heart pendant I made from polymer clay. You can achieve a lot by spending a little. I made my hat from supplies I bought at Michael's for under $10.

2. Prepare a romantic, old-fashioned table. Paul and Laura happen to own a variety of antique china perfectly suited to the occasion.  Combined with equally splendid goldware, glassware, tablecloth, napkins, and fresh flowers, the look is formal but charming.

Don't forget placecards and small gifts such as the net bags Laura made and filled with period-appropriate salt water taffy. Note the small gear sewn on the bag for that steampunk touch. 

3. Serve tea. We were offered three types of delicious teas with cream, sugar and honey. There's something so delightful about the ritual of pouring tea. The guests at your tea will also enjoy the option of alcoholic beverages; we had some cherry wine as well as both sweet and dry champagne.

4. Observe the traditions of high tea food. Laura informed me that high tea includes three courses: scones, sandwiches, and desserts. Our scone course included two offerings. Our sandwiches were both sweet and savory (strawberry, cucumber, and some wonderful chicken salad on cherry walnut bread).

And the desserts included both raspberry and lemon layer cakes, petit fours, and chocolate truffles from Harrod's.

5. Discuss the wonders of steampunk. Of course the meal can include any sort of discourse that arises, but it's definitely a good opportunity to talk about DIY steampunk projects and past steampunk gatherings like the TeslaCon that takes place in Wisconsin. Here Paul examines some nifty goggles that Henry fabricated out of leather, showerhead parts, etc.

6. Provide appropriate props for your guests to enjoy. Among the props at our party was my little creation Herbert G the stitchpunk doll. It was a thrill to share him with such an auspicious group! Our hosts had a nifty stereoscope on hand and plenty of antique photos for us to view in 3D; here you see Greg trying it out while Chuck awaits a turn.

Paul also brought out the old 3D camera he bought to create his own 3D pictures. Note: two lenses! It uses regular 35 mm film.

7. Don't mind the anachronisms. Paul's iPhone came in handy for steampunk related research. No reason not to take advantage of the tools of the current age. You can always account for the phenomenon by pretending to be time-travelers from the past, visiting the current year.

And that, Blog, is all you need to do to throw your own steampunk high tea. I made wonderful new friends and enjoyed a refreshing mental break from our Wisconsin winter and the trials and tribulations of real life.

Thank you, Paul and Laura! Bravo!

A cuppycake-lovin' critter

Blog, as you well know we have a new resident at Magic House. Yesterday (aka Valentine's Day) I brought into the world this little green guy and the cupcake he dearly loves. My money is on him being able to nom that entire cuppycake in one bite, how about you?

This is my response to the February creativity prompt from our pals at the A Creative Dream blog: "Love." The little green guy loves his fudge-frosting-topped treat, and I love him, because I modeled him after the little blue guy in the AT&T HTC phone commercials, with whom I am obsessed.  In case you aren't getting that reference, here you go:



But before we address little green guy and his most remarkable feature, let us first discuss the plush cupcake he is about to nom. I based this on ideas in Warm Fuzzies, the book I referenced in my crazy hat post. You too can easily make a plush cuppycake of your own.

I just took a strip of dark brown fleece and folded it in half lengthwise. Then I rolled it up to create the effect of swirled frosting. I stuffed the end with the cut edges inside a cuff cut from a pink sock, which stands in, of course, for the paper cupcake cup. A circle of pink felt whipped stitched to the bottom completes the cup, but before you sew it on, trim the fleece inside and/or add stuffing to make it nice and flat on the bottom. Festoon your cupcake with toppings made of puff balls, beads, buttons, etc. You can trim it with ribbon or rickrack too.

And as for the cupcake-ophile creature, Blog, let me call your attention to the one tricky feature about him of which I am truly proud: his mouth. When creating the pattern for green guy, I recognized immediately the big challenge: his mouth needs to be concave, and when you stuff something, it's impossible to give it a concave feature like that.

I had a eureka moment, though, Blog. I made a shape out of aluminum foil in the size and shape of the indentation I needed for greenie's mouth. I covered this mold with a sheet of polymer clay, trimmed it, and baked it. I popped the baked clay off the mold, then covered it with black felt, using fabric glue. I discovered I heart fabric glue!!

I cut an opening for the mouth in the fleece of the head front. I folded the edges of this opening inward, and sewed the felt-covered mouth piece inside. I cannot deny that this was tricky, since I didn't want any stitches to show. The bonus of having the clay piece inside the body was that it supported two wire armatures for the arms and legs, which I mounted there with electrical tape.

I hand sewed the front and back body pieces together, stuffing with fiberfill as I went. Then I simply had to sew on two black beady eyes, and my green guy was ready for dessert!

And, of course, to be loved....

Made a crazy hat, have a crazy cat

Blog, do you think this hat I sewed this weekend is just too crazy? Well, I'm going to wear it anyway.

I got a new book called Warm Fuzzies which includes some very cute patterns for misc. stuff made out of felted sweaters. I did not feel like felting sweaters, so I just used some fleece I found on sale at JoAnn. The supplies for my sewing project cost less than three bucks, so I'm happy. And I'm also prepared for the cold snap we're expecting tomorrow.

This hat has neat-o keen ear flaps that you can wear up like in that first picture, or down like in this one. The ear flaps are dorky but I really like the idea of warm ears.

I also really like the yarn I found, which you can see showcased in this rear shot of the hat.

Yes, it's a seriously crazy hat, Blog. The mittens are made to match but I guess a person can get away with wearing crazy stuff on her hands more easily than on her head.

So, that's the story of my crazy hat...now let's address my crazy cat. Actually, my cat is no crazier than the rest of his species. As cat owners generally know, if there is a flat object, such as a magazine, freshly folded laundry, or a piece of fabric you are using to make a crazy hat, it doesn't matter how many other more appropriate spots there are in the vicinity for your cat to sit. Your cat will sit on said object.

Your cat will not care what inconvenience this causes you. In fact, your cat will act really cute so that you feel that whatever you were planning on doing with said object, you should refrain if it will inconvenience your cat.

Well, I have dealt with Cody's cuteness long enough that I can, when pressed, actually resist it. I moved Fabric #1 out from under him and he moved on. That is, until I laid out Fabric #2.

The placement of Cody's paw on the pattern piece indicates that he is well aware of my activity and knows that this fabric was not spread out on the dining room table for his personal benefit. The expression on Cody's face indicates how much he cares about that.

In my final shot below, you see evidence of the extreme contempt that cats have for whatever it is their owners might be up to.

He seems to be thinking, "Keep cutting, lady, I double-cat-dare you." Of course I didn't. After more tries than are reasonable, I managed to move his paw out of the way and keep it there.

So that is the tale of my crazy hat and crazy cat, Blog.

Blizzards have gotten so much better

Hey Blog, I have to tell the story of a time long before you were born, before there were any blogs at all. The year was 1981, the place was Deer Creek Township, Iowa. Sound like the boonies? Well, this photo shows you where that is, Blog, and it was the Boonies with a capital B.

Just how boony was it? Well, here’s the view I saw of the road there, when I went to get the mail.

But I want to tell you about a time when it was almost impossible to get the mail, because it had snowed. And snowed, and snowed. The winter of 1981, my first winter as a pastor’s wife, was a time of blizzards. Blizzards that made our tiny parsonage howl from the wind, wind that knocked out our power for hours on end, cold hours that made us close off the bedrooms (on the north side) and drove the temp in those rooms below freezing. Blizzards that buried our house in drifts six feet high, which had to be tunneled through before I could get the mail.

There was a period when I didn’t see a living soul outside my family of three for ten days. But that was not the worst of it: the worst of it was, there was no Internet. My companions for that blizzard were the four channels on our TV. Yes, no cable, no VCR, Blog, but believe me, the worst of it was, there was no Internet. A person living in Deer Creek Township could have used the Internet every day of the year, but especially during the cold and lonely isolation of a blizzard.

Fast forward to the great blizzard of 2011, aka the Groundhog Day Snopacalypse. I will rush to say that it helped that the power stayed on, it helped to have cable TV and DVR and streaming Netflix. But more than anything, it helped to have the Internet. Sure, 60 mph winds howled around our house as if to take the roof off. Sure, we had snow piles reminiscent of the Alps. But the mood remained cheerful throughout…and why?

Because all during the storm and its clean up, I shared the experience with others. I watched videos and real time blogging on local news sites. I emailed with loved ones in various places. And most of all, I hung out on Facebook, where people I knew all over the country commiserated and reported and joked, and people I knew all over the world sympathized.

We kept abreast of each other’s locations. Even those without power updated via their smart phones. And everyone--including me, of course--posted photos and videos of their little slice of Winter Wondergeddon. Digging out a buried car wasn’t such a hardship when you could share it with friends and get their sympathy. Living in a world suddenly dominated by snow was kinda cool, since you could photograph it and impress friends living in Florida and California. For all of us, to one degree or other it was a pain, but we turned it into a party too.

My dad lives 15 miles away. We both knew we were fine and we didn’t feel cut off, because we could email and share links and photos and other cheery bits. Transfer the 2011 Blizzardathon to 1981 Iowa and we would hopefully have had the phone, intermittently.

So I say to the young folk out there, who can barely remember a world without texting and Skype and Twitter, be thankful for the Internet, especially in times of crisis. Sometimes it saves lives. Sometimes it spreads truth when cruel regimes want that truth stifled. And sometimes it simply makes hard times much, much happier.

Happy like our cat Cody was after Davie shoveled, and he could see out the patio doors again.

My new craft gallery revealed!

Well, Blog, I'm just as pleased as planter's punch to be able to announce the Sorta Secret Project I've been slaving over for a couple of weeks. It's my new, spiffy online craft gallery, and I am unveiling it officially today. It's a wonderful place for me to share my polymer clay, needlecraft, beadwork, and graphic arts projects.

www.dianasgallery.com is the nifty URL!

You see, since one of my Christmas presents was a professional photoshoot of my crafts by the inimitable Chris Robleski, I decided I needed a nice venue to properly display the resulting images. So I created this new gallery, and I think it turned out mighty nice.

What I was striving for with this gallery was:

• a clean look that would show off the stuff
• easy navigation
• a quick way to view the items in a decent size
• only enough text to provide key information
• just a little bit of whiz-bangi-ness

It's amazingly difficult to find a balance between all the elements that can make for a good art/craft gallery. For example, I wanted quick and easy viewing of decent-sized images, which kind of required the use of Flash. However, that means you can't view the gallery on smartphones. Oh well!

I wanted clear enough detail, but not huge images that would take a long time to load. That meant having to put high-resolution images of everything also on Flickr, with links there from the gallery for those who want to be able to see more detail.

On my old gallery, I provided lots of textual information, which also meant a fairly ugly layout and probably more text than most visitors would want to wade through. Now, of course, I don't tell as much...but hopefully the photos are worth a few thousand words.

The photos are of course what makes the gallery. Sadly, Blog, I don't personally have all the neat jazz required to take this quality of pictures. As you can see from this picture of the photoshoot, Chris and assistant Katie were working with some seriously fancy equipment (not to mention some seriously fancy talent). They have given me the light box you see here, so I can do better with my own photos going forward, but I still will fall a bit short. I have made some items that I wanted to share but I no longer have in my possession, and it's easy to tell which they are by my WAY less cool photos. Fortunately, going forward I may be able to have the occasional "catch-up" session, at least for any really primo stuff I make in the future.

So, for those wanting to know some of the details of the process, I designed this site using the tools on Wix. I upgraded to a "Combo" plan which is $9.90 per month and makes the site ads-free. I blew an additional $11.95 for a year of having my own domain (via GoDaddy). Wix has all the tools I needed to create and manage the site, with the exception of course of photo editing. For that I use Photoshop Elements. (Katie did the the photoshopping on the new shots, and she has the full version of Photoshop.)

I'd love to hear feedback from artists and non-artists out there. With the vagaries of web browsers and monitor settings, no two people will experience the gallery exactly the same (another drawback of the world of web sites!). I'd also love if you have an online gallery if you'd share the URL, or let me know any gallery sites you've found that really impress you.

Huge thanks again to Chris and Katie for making my gallery possible! Now I am inspired to MAKE MORE STUFF!!!

Saying goodnight to your cats

Blog, I seldom say goodnight to you (sorry), but I do very often say goodnight to my cats. Last night all three of them were in a rare mood to be curled up in adjacent areas, and as I made the rounds to give each a pet and a goodnight, I remarked upon the weird human custom of saying goodnight to our pets.

With cats in particular it has to be baffling. I can imagine them saying to themselves, "Geez, I've gone to sleep 35780 times in the past 24 hours, and I didn't feel obligated to say goodnight to anyone on any of those occasions. Not even the ones which actually occurred during the hours of darkness. What is it with these humans and their ridiculously simple sleep schedules and crazy customs?"

Selke did not say goodnight before conking out within the comforting confines of the wrought-iron side table legs.

Cody did not say goodnight before passing out on my computer keyboard.

Or underneath this patio chair.

This cat that I don't know probably didn't say goodnight either, before falling asleep under this squash.

I guess I have to admit, it would be bizarre if anytime a cat was ready to nod off, he or she felt obligated to say goodnight. That would be even more annoying than Selke's insistence on having a meowing fit during our favorite TV shows ("Selke, no talking during 'The Vanilla Ice Project'!")

Cats also don't seem to care about acknowledging that they are leaving the room for the night. Actually my husband Davie isn't always big on that either. At any rate, it's no slight when they slink off for parts unknown without so much as a fare-thee-well. Obviously they really don't get it.

Why then is it that I feel I ought not pad up the stairs to bed without a proper goodbye to at least those cats which I can locate? Honestly, my emotions tell me if I passed Pookie snoozing on the back of the couch without acknowledgment of some kind, she would be all "Sheesh, I guess I'm chopped liver! And oooh, that sounds good. Later maybe ...zzzzz."

In point of fact, saying goodnight to cats is not for the cats, it's for us humans. Well, it's for us humans who lock their cats out of the bedroom, anyway. No point in saying it if the door is open, because the feline(s) in question will most likely join you at some point while you are a-slumber. But for people like me, we feel like we are leaving the poor little furry creatures alone for the night, deprived of our companionship...practically shunning them with our closed door and our refusal to acknowledge (in the case of Pookers) their proud howling at having caught and exterminated that jingle ball.

Actually, I think it's a nice custom, foolish or no. Once each night we get to acknowledge by that little gesture our bond with our pets, and remind ourselves how much a part of our lives they are. And I'm just silly enough to think that maybe, in some corner of Cody, Selke, and Alice's little brains, they are glad about it. I like to think they really do miss me during the eight hours I spend so quietly behind the bedroom door.

My strange desire to be a cartoon

What does it say about me if I want to be a cartoon, Blog? Does it mean I envy cartoon characters their 2D lives, their linear plot lines? Or do I merely wish I could be rendered in fewer colors?

That paragraph sounded way more poetical than a subject this silly merits. Actually, I just have always loved cartoons, comic books, and animated movies, and would really like to see myself reinterpreted as a cartoon character because it would be fun. And cartoon characters are always cuter than I am in real life, Blog.

The other day I was seized with my periodic desperate urge to find the technology to really do a good job at turning my image into a cartoon character. I had made the image you see here maybe a year ago, and while it's okay, I wasn't crazy about it. The resemblance is decent, but I would never carry a bag that big and it surely wouldn't be pink. This "cartoon yourself" site just didn't provide quite enough options. In the interest of full disclosure I suppose I should also mention my calves are bigger than that.

So, I set out to see if there were any new sites around that might make me into a good cartoon. There are some to which you can upload a photo and they will make that transformation...but they don't do anything I can't do myself in Photoshop, and they don't make a person look very cartoony. Well, I just do it right now so you can see what I mean. That's it to the left. Rendering in fewer colors doesn't really do the whole job, Blog.

What I ended up finding was a site that you can use to design yourself in "Scott Pilgrim" style. I just saw the movie "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (and it's awesome), and during the film there are a few scenes with cartoon versions of the characters, drawn up in the style of the original comics upon which the movie is based. Now that's what I'm talkin' about, Blog. So I made a Scott Pilgrimized version of myself and you can see it here. Very, very cute, mostly because it doesn't look that much like me. I'd kill for that tiny chin.

There are sites where you can provide a photo and hire an actual cartoonist to do your cartoon self. This would certainly work, although you know me, Blog: too cheap for that sort of dealio. In point of fact, I did appear in an actual artist's cartoon once, this one right here that was created by my friend and illustrator, CC Rogers. That's me on the left and her on the right. As you might guess, I was really thrilled to get this. She even put an appropriate necklace on me.

So I probably shouldn't complain that I can't turn myself into a fancy, full-color cartoon under these circumstances, Blog. Actually, I suspect this may simply be another manifestation of my longing to be a better artist and able to do cartooning myself. Wouldn't that just be the swellest? Well, at least I can claim that I've done a self-portrait, (although it's far from a cartoon one), back during my drawing phase ten years ago. It's even partially nude on account of the fact that I wanted to have some human body work in the picture. (So shield the eyes of the kiddies, Blog! Just kidding.)

Well, we may just have to put this in the Unfulfilled Dreams file, along with "Ability to sculpt the human figure in polymer clay," "Singing backup to a rock band," and "Getting Oprah's endorsement for one of my books." And I guess, how would a person appreciate those of her dreams that are fulfilled, if she didn't have an Unfulfilled Dreams file?