Twisted Creativity

The weekend has been a medicinal one for me. It didn’t start out that way: I was tired and still quite grouchy as I crawled into bed Friday night. Sometime around 3AM, I woke up and never could fall back asleep. At 5, I stumbled out of bed to get ready for the day. I promised I would help crew on the hot air balloon and we were scheduled to start at 6.

That never happened: before we unfolded the balloon, there was the requisite burner test. One of the burners was leaking propane and the leak could not be mended. We put the balloon and basket back into the trailer as the other balloonist heated his balloon up and launched. While he floated over silent fields on a windless morning, our pilot took all of us to a drive up coffee place and bought coffee for all of us. I was home by 8:30.

And in a worse funk. I took my bad mood out on the floors of the house. I bought groceries. And I began work on a costume for the faerie festival next weekend. Any excuse to make a new mask for my series of funky masks! I pulled old dresses out of boxes and picked two I liked: a blue one and an orange one with lots of embroidery on the front. I went to the local Goodwill store to see if there was anything on the racks to inspire me and came out in possession of two silk tops, one bright orange and one bright yellow. Silk just happens to be the best fabric to work with when making my masks and I love to pick up old silk blouses to cut up. Recycle, recycle, recycle. And the colors clinched which dress I was going to wear: the funky orange one!

I gave the mask antenae made out of the sleeves of the yellow silk. The sunglasses were a last second inspiration: I snapped off the earpieces and hot-glued the glasses to my faerie mask. I added beads in the shape of stars to the mask and a pair of mismatched funky earrings. As I worked, I decided on a character for my faerie: she’s a bad fairy godmother (as in a bumbling one).

The wings are all orange silk and I may still add to them, but this is how they look as of this evening. A little fabric paint and glitter added a little glitz. I will tie them onto the costume in such a way that I can remove them as I need to. I’ll work on that another day, however.

The dress with the mask. I’ll wait to get pictures of me in the dress and mask on Saturday. I still have a few minor adjustments to make. And I need a name for my fairy godmother, something that fits a bumbling, interfering, twittering fairy godmother. I’m open to suggestions.

All that creativity helped alleviate my funk. I feel like I accomplished something tonight, something entirely creative and unusual. I love to see what I can twist out of items I have on hand!

I’ll post a picture of the complete outfit after the faerie festival (and a few pictures of the other festival participants as well)!