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Hello!  Merry Christmas again!  Let's get to it...

~*~

10/15 - 21

The third week of October I had a script reading for a short film I worked on called "Replaced."  I'll get back to that…later.

The weekend was a sad one.  I mentioned during the summer that I lost my Pawpaw in July.  He was in all senses of the word, the patriarch of the Gayle family.  And we were finally having his memorial service.  The family gathered at Beulah park to say goodbye.

But with all of that sadness, I witnessed a miracle.  As I was riding home, thinking about my Pawpaw I saw this.

My Pawpaw had tons of peacocks at his farm.  When I think of Pawpaw, I think of peacocks.  And as I was driving home to Waco, I saw this and I knew my Pawpaw was there.

~*~

CRAFT TIME

So for Halloween this year, Nevada wanted to be America's first Avenger...

CAPTAIN AMERICA

Mom found him a costume at Wal*Mart, but the shields left were…pathetic.  Instead she bought this

All we really needed was the lid, but who doesn't need a metal trashcan lying about?

First we took the lid off and used pliers to bend the handle back on the inside, which allowed us to pull the handle clean off.

It wasn't off for long, though.  We inserted it back but on the inside.  And hammered it down.

Paint time!  I took some painter's tape and made a star on the center, letting the points of the stars hit 3 circles out from the edge.

Next we filled in a circle around the star in blue.

And circles of red, silver/white, and red.

~*~

10/22 - 28

So as I may or may not have mentioned, I took this wonderful class this year called Advanced Costume Construction.  Throughout the first part of the semester we learned the basic tools and tricks of creating/reconstructing women's clothing.

I mean we could do men's clothing but that's so boring.  :P

Anyways, after learning the basics, we had three projects.  And this was my first.

  

And here is the final product!

I recently bought some periwinkle blue pinstripe fabric to make this into a reality in the coming semester.  I'll keep you posted.

Eliza and I wear our projects…it's a thing.

Saturday was the unofficial departmental Halloween Party.  My besties and I have a tradition of dressing in a group as you may remember.

Well, we lost a couple but this year, we did not fail to deliver.

Sunday while everyone else was sleeping off their drunken Halloween endeavors, I was in Castellaw Communications filming another short film, "The Surgeon and the Professional."  Again, I'll get back to that later.

Detective Thompson, reporting for duty.

Well, th-th-th-that's all folks!

Until next time,

The FeltWoman

At the End of the Day...

Today the boy and I drove up to Bankston Ford one last time to get his new truck inspected. And as my reward for being such a patient girlfriend, we got In-N-Out!

Inaugural In-N-Out Experience

2x4 Animal Style with Fries Well Done, thank you!

(The Well Done fries weren't that great…)

According to the boy, nothing is better than Whataburger, but it beats Wendy's…

…thanks, babe.

Now we're back at his place.  It's Christmas Eve, a day to be lazy and thankful for family and anticipating the celebration of Jesus' birth. I have a lot of cards to sign and presents to wrap...  #procrastination

We'll be heading to the 7 o'clock candlelight service tonight.

AND THEN

TONIGHT at TEN O'CLOCK I'm seeing LES MISERABLES!!! I am so excited!!! This is the most powerful musical I have ever seen. It changed my life.

Lets watch a few clips to further prepare.

And let's listen to my favorite tear-jerker, One Day More.

And of course, as an aspiring costume designer, I had to watch this bit.  I must say his rendering style is interesting.

Only a few more hours!!!

~*~

10/1 - 7

The first week of October brought the second week of performances of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  It also brought my last week of rehearsals for Eastern Standard.

Let me explain.

I am in a class at Baylor known as Beginning Directing.  Members of the Junior class cast other students from the department in a scene from a play that they analyze and present to the department.  I was the first scene of the first group of this semester of Beginning Directing and I chose a scene from Richard Greenberg's "Eastern Standard."

Eastern Standard is the story of two sets of friends who meet in a restaurant fiasco and continue on to face the trials of work, life, and love.

It was such a fun experience.  As I had such wonderful actors to work with.

We had two weeks of rehearsals followed by our performance on October 5.  It went splendid.  The entire group of directors was super strong.

Here's my cast list - crafty cast lists are kinda a thing...

Final Dress

Friend Directors!

Me and my GORGEOUS Cast

 The more important part of the week was that my boy came in for his Fall Break and we got to go dancing just like the good ol' days.

I love him

~*~

10/8 - 14

Sadly on Tuesday morning I was once again alone.  But not for long!  It was finally

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY'S PARENTS WEEKEND!

My family was here!  (And this was the first Parents Weekend for my stepdad, Jay.)

Brother and Sister reunited.

The first night we went to After Dark, Baylor's annual talent show.  And that pretty much summed up the night.  Haha.  We were tired.

The next day we went to early morning Meet the Teacher blah-blah-blah.  Then we had to do some homework with the brother.

Nevada was doing a project on Indians (although for the life of me I can't remember the specific tribe…) and he needed to make a diorama.  We went to Hobby Lobby and got to work.

It's a family effort

Eventually we got to a stand-still and took time to go watch the BU vs. TCU game...

We're wet and we're losing, but we're okay!

Well, we lost, but I got to spend time with my family.  And we put together a pretty sweet diorama for Nevada.

Go, team!

~*~

CRAFT TIME

Of course, I'm a sucker for all things miniature.  So when we were buying Nevada little things for the diorama, I had to get some for myself.

I got these little pieces: a dress form, an antique singer, fabric, scissors, patterns, and a measuring tape.

I knew I'd need some sort of a table, so I bought some little squares and some pegs as well.

I'd also need some sort of a background... I figured a patterned piece of scrap booking paper that I like would work.

It was pretty much smooth sailing from there. I put it all in a 4x6 shadowbox and...

TAH-DAH!

I'm so very happy at how this turned out. It's a little reminder of my wonderful job and what I love.

~*~

Well guys, I've got to get pretty for tonight.

Until next time,
The FeltWoman 

Flowers for Algernon…no wait…those are mine.

Hallo!

After sleeping in until about 11 (whoops…), I rode to Arlington for the second day in a row.  In the past week, I have spent about 33 hours in the car.  Euck!  Anyway, today I was in Arlington watching the boy secure his new GMC truck.  AND I secured tickets for the Christmas Eve showing of LES MISERABLES!!!  AKA MY FAVORITE MUSICAL OH MY GOD I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE HUGH JACKMAN AS JEAN VALJEAN!!!  We were going to go see Kyle Park at Billy Bob's but instead we just got a nice small dinner, saw some Christmas lights, and hunkered down to watch the BU vs. BYU game on ESPN.

Time to continue on with

SEMESTER IN REVIEW:

8/13 - 19

The week before school brought Welcome Week activities for the incoming freshmen and a few theatre traditions for me.  Such as our wonderful Baylor Theatre Meet-n-greet where you're thrown into a room of people (3/4 of whom you actually know, thankfully) and you walk around trying to make sure you say hi to everyone.

Jason and Kyle were creepily smiling for my candid shot...

8/20 - 26

Classes started up again on the 20th.  Junior Year - waddup?  I was mostly excited to be back with these crazy, gorgeous girls.

Also, the boy sent me these:

I got me a keeper…he knows purple is my favorite.

And finally, after years of waiting, I became a GRANDBIG.  Look at our little family!

2 GrandBigs + 1 Big + 1 Little = 1 Happy BUT Family

But all good things must come to an end, and that end was my car dying on me…

Eponine finally bit the dust...

Two weeks after they had helped me move in, my mom and brother were back, helping me to find a cheap 2-year replacement.

This is the cleanest she's ever been...

Look at all the stickers…so many adventures.

And boy did we find it!  We found our deal!

Hello, gorgeous!

A red 2006 elantra with like 60,000 miles for like 9,000 (and that was before my trade in which knocked at least 1,500 more off).  

It was by no means my dream car, but it was fine for now.

The signing process was hard...

I'm gonna miss Ep-y.

But after, my brother and I had celebratory drinks.

Cheers to new cars and 10 bold flavors!

With my car ordeal good and done, my mother and brother left for home, leaving me to tackle...

8/27 - 9/2

The second week of school.  My friend Ryan's 21st birthday was Thursday! Which meant that Wednesday night a group of us went to Cricket's Bar and Grill and Ryan proceeded to get sch-wasted the night before our design presentation for the musical.  But that's another story.  Point is he was very happy that night.

Friday night was Ryan's rave birthday party.  Black lights, neon paint, white shirts, dubstep:  all of it was there.  It was AWESOME.  Until all of the randos showed up and the cops came.  By the end of the night I was covered in paint and sweat.

The next day I hosted a Harry Potter viewing party!  Just in time for the first day of school at Hogwarts.  Yes, I planned it for that day specifically…I don't care, I'm a dork.  The only problem is it was a day after a full-fledged night of paint, dancing, and drinking as aforementioned, and also half of the department was helping to build a set for a musical.  Still a few good friends showed up and we drank butterbeer and it was good fun.

Hannah and I with some addictive Butterbeer (courtesy of the Pinterest)

Okay, now...

CRAFT TIME

So back to those beautiful flowers that my boy sent me on August 20th.  I could not bring myself to throw them away.  Actually, I still haven't.  So first, I did what I always do to procrastinate.  I hung the bouquet up to dry.  Well after a couple of weeks, that wasn't an option anymore.  Then it hit me: potpourri!  Dried flowers can be stored with herbs on display or in mesh bags as a little thing called potpourri.  Well I had a spare glass bowl so i pulled the petals off of the stems, put them in the bowl and VOILA!  I think this is an awesome way to add shelf-life to floral arrangements you have a fond attachment to.  I've done it three times since.

Thanks for reading, whoever is out there doing so.  I hope I'm not too boring.

Until tomorrow!
The FeltWoman