Middle Earth Weekend 2015

I've been horribly absent from Blogger again, and I'm really grateful to still have my faithful friends following me. 2015 has been another crazy busy year - and based on the number of notes scribbled in my diary for next year already... 2016 won't be any different! There's a few important images from this year I'd like to post though, I'm going to try to make at least one more post before the end of the year too because I don't have them all yet.

I have been meaning to post these since September though so without further ado, here is some of the fun I had working at Sarehole Mill during Middle Earth Weekend!

My face is super goofy here, but never mind! We were encouraged to dress-up and get into the spirit of the event... Well, I think what really happened is, me and Stephenie told out boss 'We are going to be elves' and he didn't seem to mind.... So this was my outfit for serving tea and running around like a mad thing for two days.

Posting this picture too because this is me and Jo - who is works with us sometimes when we are super busy and need a hand. Funny thing is, we are both cemetery researchers called Josephine. She used to work at my university too - and people got really confused about it when I started my PhD because she'd recently left, so we never actually met until this year. She's super lovely and has helped me so much with my research - thank you Jo!

Outfit breakdown:
It's almost the exact outfit I wore here, minus some of the jewellery and belt, I added my elf hoody too and a leaf brooch I found in a charity shop during August for £2.99.

I spent about two weeks beforehand in a panic making elf and hobbit cloaks, crowns, wizard hats and even feet for the kids dressing up. We put a donation box above the costume rack and suggested 50p towards the upkeep of the building (because it's a free event), we made about £15, so the costumes have pretty much paid for themselves, and I've already patched them up for next year (and hopefully the year after). It was a lot of fun, but very tiring. Sometimes I wish museums had some kind of budget for events... Here are some detail shots.

Gandalf and Radagast hats - of course for copyright reasons I labelled them 'brown wizard hat' and

'grey wizard hat'

A wood elf style cloak and crown of leaves.

A high elf style cloak with a wire crown. That took me so long to make. It's literally two strips of jewellery wire I made into wavy shapes, then tied together using silver thread wound all the way round and round. I then carefully glued a tiny blue star sequin over every joint. It held together really well! It did get very very bent a couple of times though - so I'll have to redesign for next year!

This is the 'brooch' I made for the hobbit cloaks. They are felt, stiffened with card and embroidered with silver thread. They attached on either side of the collar with press-studs, so there were no pins!

The Hobbit feet! I made them using adult sandals, covered in fabric and faux fur so that they would be big enough for the kids to slip their feet into with shoes on. I made the toes from felt (with embroidered toenails) and filled them with cushion stuffing. I thought they were funny but my uncle said 'hobbit feet are hairy, not furry!' and maybe he's right, however the children had fun so I don't mind =]

All the staff got into the spirit!

Stephanie made this amazing Gate to Moria design to cover one of the walls in the mill.

My boss created a full Orc camp in the woodlands next to the millpond - complete with recently abandoned fire, strewn weapons, and body parts. We were very lucky to have two real Orcs come to join in the fun and bring it to life! I kept telling small children to go see the camp, thinking it was empty. They mostly came back in tears... The Orcs stayed in character ALL WEEKEND! I offered one of them a cup of tea and he growled 'MANFLESH!' at me and left!

I'd been waiting to cut my hair for donation again, for the whole summer so that I could look more elfin! I feel this was somewhat above and beyond the call of duty! I've had long hair my whole life (with the exception of my last donation cut), but it got to a length that started to annoy even me! I should have had a trim to get rid of the split ends at least!

This is what it looked like just before Ash's sister cut it for me.

The bottom three inches were trash, so we trimmed them off. Then the next 12 inches of hair were cut off for donation, just like last time. I was really happy to be able to donate more hair this time! Last cut was only 8.5 inches =]

This is how it looked after the cut:

Sorry for the lack of makeup and sunburned face!

The last couple of months have been my own personal torture - in my enthusiasm for donating a whole foot of hair I cut my hair shorter than last time. So short in fact that I couldn't even plait it! Completely drove me up the wall until I worked out ways of getting it out of my face - especially during fieldwork. I'm rocking tiny messy 90's buns A LOT at the moment. I should really learn to do hair at some point - when it was long I could get away with just plaiting it everyday! I probably won't learn to do my hair for the foreseeable future though... I am 25 and I just finally got a 3 step skincare regime, THREE days ago. I'm just really busy all the time with my PhD and working 2 jobs, soon to be 3, possibly 4, plus teaching and more volunteering... Therefore I am not the best at looking after myself. That's also why I don't update here very often anymore - if I manage to wear one outfit that isn't jeans and a jumper in a month I'm doing well! I spent the entirety of the rest of September and October preparing for Halloween - I'll post pictures when my dad sends them to me...

How do you guys keep up self-care when you are busy?

MCM expo

I went to MCM Expo Comicon in London on Saturday, which was very exciting. There was some truly incredible cosplay and some truly horrendous queuing (2 and a 1/2 hours to get a wristband to get in!!). Although I must say the most entertaining queuing I've done in a long time; spotting costumes sure helps pass the time! As does everyone nearly fainting with cute-overload when the Kurt Kobain look-a-like walks past... And especially trying to do ninja fast photos in front of the TARDIS (and failing!). Next time I'll definitely buy an early entry ticket!

Some of my dear school friends had decided to go as Soul Eater characters. Enter Death the Kid and his weapons Liz and Patty:

Knowing I've dressed up as Blair Witch before, they suggested I re-use the costume. Which sounded great to me as I've had very little time to craft lately! Last time I dressed as Blair, I didn't have the right top (I found a suitable one a week later in a charity shop, and brought it anyway) so I had to compromise a bit, but I managed to dye my hair suitably purple. This time, I had a better costume but the Directions Violet dye I used didn't show up on my hair at all =[

How Blair should look:

My first attempt:

My costume for Expo:

I wore the purple on the tights to compensate for the lack of hair colour! These pictures are taken with some uni friends dressed as Poison Ivy, Sebastian from Black Butler and Rose Tyler (was going to be Sailor Moon, but wig didn't arrive in time =[)

The bell around my neck was pretty irritating for me, but funny for everyone else because it jingled whenever I got excited (which considering I saw a new cool costume every couple of minutes was pretty much all day!!!)

I didn't get many photos of other people's amazing costumes, because I had low camera battery (next year I'll charge them and take a spare!), but here are pictures of my 2 favourites:

Ryuk from Death Note:

And this amazing creation, the jaw of the skull even opened!

I'm already trying to think of a good costume idea for May; hard to find something which will look good and be within my skill to make!

Have any of you ever been to this kind of convention? Did you do cosplay?

Hair donation update

As I'm sure you know a couple of months ago I got 8.5 inches of my hair cut off and donated it to Little Princess Trust (Pictures in this post).

They just sent me this:

Yay! I'm going to frame it and put it on the wall with my degree certificate!

Life, Love, Hair and Hats

Heya, first let me apologise for not updating for a while- I've been extremely busy and all over the place physically and emotionally.

Hats:
I meant to upload these pictures over a week ago, because I want opinions.
I love top hats:

But I also resently brought this hat; its basically a slightly modern style bowler hat, from H&M. What do you guys think? Does it suit me? Please ignore how odd my feet look in this picture.

Some happy news:

I've cut my hair. I'm donating it to Little Princess Trust to make wigs for children with cancer.

Before:

After:

Please excuse the lack of makeup- I was worried that having 22cm of my hair cut off might cause me to weep...
So my hair is now shorter than it's been since I was 3 and I've dyed it dark auburn (pictures to follow when I get the dye off my neck...)

The Bad news:

I don't want to dwell on my personal shit, because that's not what this blog should be about, but I thought I should mention it anyway.

My boyfriend of 2 years broke up with me yesterday. It's a bit of a shock because we've been so happy, but just lately he's not been himself. A friend thinks he may be suffering from clinical depression. Whatever the cause, he doesn't want to spend time with people any more, and thinks it's unfair on me to have to wait around for him to be sociable again. He won't get help, he's content to live in his room and be a hermit outside of work. He's convinced that's the real him and he has to force himself to be sociable at all. I love him, he loves me. I always thought that would be enough, but it doesn't seem to be for him anymore. I can't help but feel it's my fault, that I've done something wrong (again; this isn't the first relationship I've had that disintegrated after 2 years due to mental health issues; maybe I send men insane? At least the last one let me help him through stuff for 18 months, this time my help is not wanted AT ALL)

I'm just mentioning this in case the heart-break, crying, feeling numb etc get it the way of me posting, or all my posts are mopey for the forseeable future.

At least it's sunny today, and I'm spending the evening with good friends.