I have a confession…
I feel it’s time to come clean. I am going to become a MAN!! I know what you’re thinking: “But you are so beautiful and womanly! You are a goddess! All other women are trolls compared to you!” And that’s all true. I would never do something so cruel as to remove myself from womanhood entirely. That would be a cruelty to all of humanity. So, here’s my method for temporary manhood:
Liquid eyeliner and/or mascara (this is perfect to use up something that’s drying, or almost out), and possibly some mustache stickers (they were about $3 for a 6 pack at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbook section). We had these laying around after the Western Party.
Put back your hair and wash and dry your face thoroughly so everything will adhere.
Place stickers strategically. You can see I split a mustache in half for sideburns. You can do the same for eyebrows if you want, but I didn’t want to peel my real eyebrows off at the end of the night.
Now simply fill in with the eyeliner or mascara. I found eyeliner easier to use, and I used liquid water-proof so it was more durable.
And fill in your eyebrows to a more masculine shape. I went with the “Martin Scorsese”.
See? (I’m disturbed by this).
I even make an astoundingly attractive dude. You guys are so lucky to get to see pictures of me all the time.
This whole thing came about because my friend Sara of the Long Red Hair, had a “The Thing” themed birthday party. Was I going to show up in a normal costume? You must be new here. Sara has made many amazing cakes over the years, and here’s this year’s:
I’m so repelled, yet drawn to it at the same time. The “snow” was a bed of coconut. Here we have a group shot of our Antartic outifts:
Just completely smoking hot, no matter what, right? I know. I’m sorry, I’ll try to quit hogging all the sexy, but I can’t promise anything.
Western Party
Hubby and I have a roommate who moved to Austin from Michigan. She is so enamoured of Texas and the West in general, that she decided she wanted a Western themed birthday party. I do love a theme party, so we went all out, of course.
We don’t really have a lot of “western” type stuff to decorate with around the house (shocking!), so we decided to make some cheap, but adorable decorations. Hubby drew things onto crafting foam, which we then cut out, and stuck to the walls with masking tape. It worked great, and there are no holes in the walls or damage to the paint. Here’s a little armadillo he drew, and there were some rattle snakes and lizards roaming around.
Another cheap and amazing decoration idea was these cardboard saloon doors leading into the kitchen. They are so cute I can’t even stand it.
We wanted to get a lot of decorating done cheaply and quickly, so we cut rock formations, inspired by Monument Valley in Arizona, out of that giant paper from a teacher supply store. It was (I think) 89 cents per yard. We also drew the rock formations on the paper interlocking, like puzzle pieces or Pangaea, so that we got a ton of them out of each yard. These were also attached to the walls using loops of masking tape. The tiny cacti are also cut from the foam used for the animals.
This is a real horse skull we’ve had for years, and it is surprisingly handy! It’s on the window sill outside the kitchen as though it’s looking in.
Cowprint balloons: a necessity.
And we found these mustache stickers at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbook sticker section. I think it was $3 for 6 stickers. Obviously, I got the picture after Hubby started having fun.
Back off ladies, that’s MY Hubby with the evil mustache!
People came in a variety of costumes, from an Old West bartender serving tiny bottles of whiskey, to a bandido, to a grimey old prospecter, to more traditional western wear. Since I was running around setting things up (and drinking), I opted for a straw cowboy hat, Wrangler shirt, and cowboy boots.
For food we had Texas beers, hot dogs roasted over the fire outside (as well as vegetable kabobs since we’re progressive, healthy westerners), corn bread, and “tumble weeds”. The “tumble weeds” were chocolate covered chow mein noodles made into little clumps. We also had hummus with veggies and fruit with angel food cake.
Some other ideas we had: give bandanas away as party favors, put a large jar lid in your back pocket to mimic a can of dipping tobacco, have a contest to shoot tin cans off of something with nerf guns, make “cowpies” which would be brownie or Nutella cookies, baked beans, s’mores, and try to lasso the dog.
It was a ton of fun, and everyone had a blast. Plus hot dogs cooked over fire? *Jazz Hands* Amazing! The costumes were epic, and I’m hoping to bum them off someone’s facebook page, since I was stupid and took no pictures. We played music by Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Willie Nelson. I never would have thought of this theme on my own, and it turned out great!
Cthulhu Party
So, as part of my Quest to Become More Interesting, I have started reaching out to people I might not otherwise. This is not due to my dislike of people, simply my laziness. You may remember Sarah, of the long red hair from the Cathedral of Junk benefit. She’s on the left in that second picture.
Sarah and her boyfriend, Travis, are intensely interesting, and unabashedly nerdtastic in ways I can only aspire to be. For Travis’ birthday, Sarah crafted a super awesome Cthulhu party. “What the sweet crap is Cthulhu?” You’re probably thinking, because you have no idea how to say “Cthulhu” out loud. It’s generally pronounced kah-THOO-loo, and he’s a monster written about by H.P. Lovecraft. I generally describe him as being similar to the Cracken, and fortunately wikipedia has a great article about him.
I will only post a couple pictures, as this was all Sarah’s doing, and I don’t want to take too much credit.
The mask there gives you an idea what Cthulhu looks like. The deviled eggs, I mean Cthulhued eggs, had some wasabi in the mix to make them green, and give them a tasty kick!
This was my favorite part. Sarah hand-made tentacles and hung them from the walls and ceiling. I am so jealous I didn’t think of this first, and I’m totally going to adapt this to my own evil uses somehow.
All the guests also dressed up in 1920’s style clothes, which was awesome! We were all looking sharp, and spoke in our own nerd language. I had such a blast, and I am totally going for themes for all our parties from now on. I tip my hat to Sarah, and her creative genius. If I get ahold of one of the pictures of all of us dressed up I’ll post it later. Clever Chick, out.
