BloodyMaryLand

EyeClops – Cheap toy night vision goggles.

They have a narrow depth and are mono-visual but for $50 they would be fun and cheap enough to be loose-able on the playa.

What better way to spend an evening than polishing the copper wings for my pith helmet. 

Ok, so I changed the sidebar a bit on this blog.  You can now see recent comments and I updated the Burning Blog RSS feed to be the current one.

Today, I scored a deal at Yesterday’s Rose, where there was a 1/2 off linens sale.  Got two sheets for $1, which Herb and I will be using to cover the mesh in our tent.  Our rainfly keeps rain out but allows ventilation through the screen mesh on the roof and two sides of the tent, which I’m sure would be swell in the rain, but seems a rather horrid idea for the playa.  Details and photos of the fix to come.   Oh yeah, this thrift store had bikes too.  3 or 4 kids bikes and one adult bike.

If any of you want to try to find deals in Northern Virginia, here is a map of thrift stores:


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I thought I would throw up pictures of the latest additions to our costume closet! This jacket is made out of fur scraps I had lying around. I didn’t know I was creating a 1992 fly girl jacket. Fresh! size large

mmmmmmm, furry sweater jacket! size L

Classy white Jordache jacket! size medium. Weaver this jacket will look fantastic with your pink dress! It fits Ryan W like a glove!

ahhhh, double knit! I picked up all these scary knit prints at a yardsale. This jacket looks like a cracked out suburban jogging suit! size small/medium

let me know what you guys think, or if you have any requests. I am happy to sew for you all, but we need to get on it asap!

Mindy and Eric will be pleased to learn that I have acquired the 2007 Halloween Special Edition of Make Magazine. Now, the magazine has fewer glow-in-the dark ideas than we were hoping for, but it did have some interesting articles that with a bit of creativity could be reused on the playa. (If recreating a haunted house on the playa was our thing, we could use the whole issue, but that’s neither here nor there).

The “Headless Marie Antoinette Costume” article has instructions on how to create lightweight foam shapes from plaster molds for use in costumes. Key ingredient I didn’t know about previously: FlexFoam-iT X liquid foam, which apparently dries into a nerf-like substance after it has been poured into a mold. Sounds not too different from the minimally-expanding foam you get at home-improvement stores, but probably easier to work with.

There is also a super-easy craft “Diabolical Horns.” Basically, you use air-dry craft clay, shape the horns, put toothpicks in them to make holes for an elastic string that will hold them onto your head, let them dry, then decorate. The article calls for glue and red glitter, but paint should work too. Mold the clay a different way, and you’ll get a different headpiece. I’m sure there are all kinds of air-dry clays, but here are two I came up with quickly with a search at Michael’s craft store website: Crayola Model Magic Fusion and Paperclay.

For light-up magic, there is a Cylon jack-o’-lantern project that incorporates LEDs into the eyepiece of the (old-school) cylon. The people that made this pumpkin have a fairly cool website of their own: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/
(pause while Alison gets distracted by looking at multiple LED projects)

There was one final project in the issue that caught my eye, though it will be too bulky for us to bring. The “Ultimate Fog Chiller” creates cool fog by taking a fog machine and passing the output through a trashcan filled with ice via an aluminum dryer hose. DIY air-conditioning! How cool would it be to get a blast of cool air on a hot desert day? Anyhow…

In the spirit of the 2007 Green Man, I was compelled to purchase this book, “Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt,” which outlines how to deconstruct an old T-shirt and modify it into something new. If you’re like me, you have a collection of old, too-big, too small, or dorky corporate t-shirts that are just sitting around and taking up space in your wardrobe. Why not recycle them into a playa-fabulous outfit? It’s cheap, and some of these costume ideas do not even require sewing. Sweet.