I know what you did last April...

...and I'll show you in this Halloween themed post! My plan is to show four Game of Thrones inspired costumes to whomever happens to view my blog this month. That's four posts by the end of the month. Let's see if I meet my goal--or take until Christmas!
I don't mean to bury the lede here, but here's the short version: back in April, Chris and I did a month long stint back in WAW. As mentioned previously, we returned with a Game of Thrones gimmick. Medieval style costumes! I waited so long to post about it for several reasons, all of which are probably valid excuses.
For the first week, I chose a look I call "Moody Starr-k." If anyone needs help with that, "Moody Starr" is my long time performance alias, and "Stark" is one of the main family names on GoT. (Get it? Starr-k?) My inspiration is the dark look of Sansa Stark at the end of Season 4.

I call this "heel Sansa." ('heel" being the bad guy in wrestling.) In this final episode of the season, Sansa accepts her fate as out of her control and attempts to play along. The once red haired maiden enters the room in a goth-y style dress, badass necklace, and darkened hair.
Keep in mind, my attire isn't cosplay. My aim was not to make an exact replica of Sansa's attire, but to make my own that is clearly inspired by that one. Here's where I would be showing you the "before" pic of the dress I used. But I can't. Most of the pictures where taken on my phone and then not uploaded. They were lost during the sad phone death back in May.
Here's what I looked like!

The dress is a black velvet one that I got at Hot Topic when I was in my late teens. (And that is why you don't throw anything out!) I updated it by making it sexier. I lowered the neckline and made a slit up the side. I also created bell sleeves by slitting them a few inches.

 I added a waist cinching belt because that's just how I do. That furry piece is an old collar that I snagged out of a bin at Goodwill. It came from an old coat and it's a piece I made long ago for another GoT inspired look! Fur collar from 2013.  That's a nod to the direwolf fur worn by those in The North
That necklace.

Pretty damn easy to replicate. See that round thing? Doesn't it look like one of those plastic belt rings?

Materials:
2 medium jump rings
one black plastic belt buckle
one long black chain
some kind of long, black, weighted pendant

By the way, people make much nicer versions of these and they're available for purchase in the handmade section of Etsy. So, there's the cheapy belt buckle that I took off a belt that I never wore. As you see, I attached one jump ring to the top of the plastic piece, then another to that.

Attach the chain to the second jump ring. Then you put it around your neck and loop the other end through the plastic ring.

Ideally, there should be something on the end of that dangling chain to weight it down. I didn't have anything that I thought would work.
I put this costume on just to get pics for this post. After the photo shoot, I  realized I was missing my

gray rope belt: 

There it is. It's a spool of something from Joann's. I forgot to put my fur detail on for this one. More pics?

Chris wore his wrestling attire, because one needs proper attire to wrestle well. For his entrance, we bought a yard or two of fake furry fabric from Joann's. I have here, a picture from Instagram taken on that very night.

Furry cape is attached with one of those mitten clips with a brooch on it. Crowd reacted with much applause for the wolf pelt cape, chanting "King of the north!" and such.
Come back soon and see my Lady Catelyn Stark cape!

Update: I meant to include something else in this post. See that gentleman in the picture with me up there? He happens to collect these toys known as Funko Pops (I guess that's what they're called. I've been calling them rubber dolls.) They're large-headed, vinyl figures of various characters. He sometimes "refashions" them into one of a kind pieces! For instance, here is the Sansa Stark figure:

Here is the figure that I received for my birthday this past August:

That's me in my outfit! He added fur, painted the hair magenta, and even gave me rosy cheeks! He then placed it on a platform of clay snow with a picture of Sansa's home Winterfell as a background. Awesome!

Blinded by the Light

This is a post about lamps. You love lamp? I got mad lamps, right here.
By the way, I hope you all sang the blog's title as it's a pretty famous hit from the 70s. I also hope you're giggling on the line that sounds like, "revved up like a douche."
How long has it been since I've shown off some great thrift finds? Forever? Let's catch up.

Look at that mid century beauty. It's brown, so not the most fun color, but still retro fabulous. It's kind of a small-medium size and was found in a Goodwill. One of those things that I grab and cart as soon as it's in my field of vision. I'm like, "Don't even try and check out my mod lamp, suckers. I found it and I got it. $4. In your face, Goodwill-ers."
I don't always get so mean over my thrifts, I swear. Let's look at something that doesn't make me sound like a freak.

Aww, look at that one. It's a lamb lamp. It was in that same Goodwill for $2. It's one of those plaster mold dealies and someone made that. I stuck a shade on it and gave it a reasonable price. No need for ewe to overpay. I would feel baaaad about ripping someone off for a baby lamp. Good god, I'm sorry.
Also for your children's room, I present these things:

Oooh, wishing well lamps! In brown. Why. This isn't the best picture, either. Also, they cost me a fortune of 5 bucks each at Savers. I just really like things in pairs. Hey, did I ever share these beautiful Art Deco jade green partners?

Oh wow, I staged them exactly the same way with the same books. Here's their story: this one day I saw a jade green lamp with an Art Deco style for a mere $3 at the G dubs. (Does that work? G dubs=Goodwill?) I was surprised, because it looked just like a lamp that I already bought and listed it in my shop. "A pair!" I cried with joy as I brought it home to unite the two. I went to look up the listing for the single lamp only to find that there wasn't one. I searched in confusion for a while before concluding that I just never got around to listing lamp number one. They have been sold as a team and hope they are living a good life.
Hey, fancypants, take a load of this big-ass piece of lighting:

Gaze upon its mid c mod glory with its unusual shape and large size. This baby was in the entrance way at a Goodwill that one of the gals that works there always uses for such nice displays. Yup, I grabbed up this thing. I think it had a nice low price, too.
Not as low as this next piece! Although, at the condition this poor lamp was in they should've have been giving me the dollar to haul it away. You know how you go to the flea market and there's always at least one dealer's lot that basically looks like they just sped onto the grounds in a pick-up before slamming on the breaks thus dumping the truck bed's content onto the ground so they end up with a big pile of junk and boxes?
Well, if you know about that, than you know that since they put about zero effort into presentation, they practically give the stuff away. It was a warm summer day at the Londonderry flea where my eyes scanned the large pile of old stuff. There, I found this;

What was once probably a glorious piece of big, mod lamp stood this beat down, faded piece of plaster. "I can rebuild it," I thought as I handed over a dolla bill. See where this is going? It's a DIY!
Oh, never mind. I guess I didn't bother taking photos of the "process." Not that I really needed to. I put paint on it. I covered it in turquoise, off-white, and chocolate paint. Here's your step by step...
Step 1- paint an old lamp.
Step 2- ????
Step 3- profit
Here is what my crappy lamp looks like now!

I'm trying to sell it with the question, "Do you want a large, mid century lamp, but don't want to spend a lot of money? Buy this one; the chipped part is in the back!"
Here's another:

Grrr...that's not its original gold. When I brought it home from Outfitters ($4 I think?) the first thing I did was use soapy water and a towel to clean years of grime off--and the gold color! Seriously, the rings of gold around this lamp mostly rubbed off. I got something called gold leaf paint and dabbed some on there.  
Stay tuned for my next lamp do-overs, where I hopefully show off the finished results from these damn things:

LOL. It has a doll attached. Cool plastic lamp shade and a nice blue base.
Oh, and these guys. I forgot to get a picture of them as a team, and I'm certainly not about to get up and do it now. Just imagine that I have two of these:

So, there's a shot of one laying on a blanket at my parents' house. Guess I didn't want to get off the couch that day either. You see, when I found these cute little lamps they had this layer of dull gold paint. I used water and a little sand paper to remove most of it and repainted one of them with my gold leaf paint. I brought both home one Sunday to get my sister's opinion. Her response was something like,  "A: the gold painted one sucks, leave them shabby. And B: what is moving around inside the unpainted one?"
As you see, the felt and cardboard bottom had been removed before I took that pic. Here's what was found inside:

A baggy of powder wrapped inside some aluminum foil. "Is it drugs!?" my mom exclaimed. "If it's drugs, we can sell it for...how much do drugs cost?' continued my mom with her joke about drugs.
Nope just a bag of beach sand wrapped in foil.

As usual, most lamps seen here are available for purchase in my Etsy shop. Ahem...Sweet Scores on Etsy.
The end.

Let's Review

Since school starts tomorrow (and I've been losing sleep with anxiety about it) I declare that today is officially my last day of summer. Here are some of the things you missed. Because I didn't share a blog post about them. I was busy, that's why.
Many of my items are refashions, but here are a few items that were just great thrift scores with no need for alteration.

This gorgeous aqua with white piping, sleeveless shirt dress. I love it. I took in the bodice a little.

Got it at Outfitters awhile back, put it away for winter, then kinda forgot about it. It was $5. I added the belt because I can't resist waist accentuating,
Check this out: it's a whale skirt.

Thar she blows! I paid full price for it at Goodwill; $5. It's vintage! Well worth it! Look at the whales!

I paired it with an anchor print crop top which totally goes with it. It's such a childlike garment, and I really wasn't sure what to match it with.

I said I was showing you a "few" things, which usually means more than two. The third thing was these:

There, I zoomed in. They are cute, black, wedge sandals and they're made by Dansko which I'm told is an expensive working lady shoe. Sticking with the theme, these were $4.99 at Savers.
For the fixer uppers, we have this:

This thing...it's so cute and summer-y. I bought it last summer and maybe wore it once. I hate being hot and this seersucker thing is perfect for staying cool and looking great. What's wrong here?

LOL, I censored it. It's a halter style and it's backless. I can't wear that to summer school. I DO NOT WANT TO LAYER! I probably did take pictures of the process, but let's just cut to the chase. I cut up a stretchy tank top and sewed it to the dress so that it looks like I've got it on underneath.

I went with black because I like it. I wish I had a black background. Do you see the fabric? The tiny white and light aqua stripes?

Here it is from the back:

There is more to show, but I was just over it that day, just like I am now. It's the night before school and I'm stressin' hardcore. I'm going to prepare now.

Grandma's bathing suit

Everyone laughed when I said I bought a one piece bathing suit. No, they didn't. I just have a complex. Yup, I'm so vintage that I sought out a 1940s style suit. Like this one that I found at Savers for $2.99.

They must have marked it so low, thinking "who's cheap enough to by a used bathing suit?" I'll tell you who is; I am. Actually, it was in great condition (and it was washed in a hot water cycle.) Of course there were a couple issues that I wanted to fix.

It's very low in the back. I feel like it would fit better without that big gap. Also I have back moles. (So embarrassed.)
The other area of concern was one that is affected by cold water. If you need a hint:

It's perfectly sunny; no need to flash the high beams.

Lucky for me, I found this piece at the Goodwill for $1.50.

The bust area is a big bow-like thing! And it has little bra cups in it that I can use! Shut up and take my $1 fitty!
So, yeah, I took what I needed from there and added it to my vintage pin-up suit.

That's the back of the thing and then that's a pic of me standing in the corner in shame. The bow did not hide my back and I employed photo editing to hide any birthmarks.
Ugh...the after pics. I got a few and I'm reluctant to share. But I can't just leave this post hanging.

There's my old timey swimwear! The end.

Year old dress, finally done and not actually a dress any more

So, I'm mad busy with this project. I thought it would really cut stress out of my life if I finally started clearing some of the mass amounts of stuff I have in my apartment. Of course, that sort of thing can be stressful as hell. Here's a horrifying picture:

Notice I didn't say "this is what it looked like before"? That's the mess I created while trying to move things out of a different room. At that point, I took a look at my living room and said, "I need a break."
So, this process of de-hoarding is not a one day thing. Baby steps, people. The hardest part is going to be parting with my knick knacks. How am I going to look at a pile of cute owls (many that I painted myself) and decide who stays and goes?
Moving on, I want to share one of my fun refashions. Although I haven't been posting, I've been sewing all summer. I have many things to show, so little time to blog. So here's one that I just finished after starting it last summer. One year ago...

This is one of those "before" pics where the item doesn't look that terrible and should be easy to fix. This picture just doesn't accurately portray how large and wide the top half was.

As you see here, I have a lovely example of the 80s does 40s look which is basically a garment made in the 1980s with a 1940s style. The green and black rose print is awesome.
I like a little 40s style, but I had to do something about that 80s rule which said all top halves of dresses should be roughly the size of a tent. It was summer at the time, and I was a little inspired by these things called "playsuits" that I saw in Etsy. Like these shown on this old pattern:

Cute, right? Except what I ended up with looks nothing like that. I do that a lot. The reason I actually had that idea to make it a two-piece was because I knew I would have to take apart the top of the dress to make it smaller, thus detaching it from the skirt part. It's so hard reconnecting them.
Last summer I guess I did some work, before tossing it aside:

 There's the top with the huge-ass sleeves removed. What you can't tell from this picture is the cool thing I did. It was originally kind of a wrap style. I took it apart and kind of sewed it in the middle...can't explain, but it looks nice, k?
The skirt part...ugh. I recall that I somehow sewed down the raw edges of the shirred waistline. It's elasticized so that should hold it up.

Nope. Technically, the skirt stayed up, but not high on the waist, like I do and I just prefer a good strong elastic. I had an idea.

I sewed a think strip of elastic to the inside of the waist band. It actually worked. Also the skirt had these weird vents at the bottom that I didn't like.

See? I sewed those up.
Of course, the damn top was giving me a problem, now. Since it's a pull over, it has to be big enough to pull over my head and shoulders (no stretch to this fabric) but even after I took it in from the front it was still huge. A back elastic that I tried failed so I employed this sash thing:

See? I sewed that sash to the back of the top, so that I could tie it tighter after putting it on.

I definitely should not have double knotted it like that. Live and learn. This post has been a little more comprehensive than is necessary. Let's just see the big finish.

Ta da, Oh yeah, I couldn't resist adding a belt. It just looked unusual without it, like I needed to break up all that green.

I like it. Can't wait to wear it outdoors somewhere. By the way, I just finished fixing up an old style bathing suit. I'll share that next. On a hanger or something.