The Madness Which Comes Before Midnight

(you can't tell he had it wadded up in his pack all day, right...)

The #MidnightMadness tradition at GCU gets bigger & better & wilder & crazier every year.

(These tickets were a precious commodity --
many were turned away at the door!)

(They start planning the event more than a year ahead!) Last year was our family's first glimpse of the impressive spectacle.

My drummer's costume from a year ago was mostly thrift-store items with a little sewing/crafting added on. This year, however, we decided to complicate things by only having a children's-sized costume pattern! We'll get to that after the videos:
This is GCU's take on the whole evening. (Can you tell why they call it MADNESS?) There's a split-second glimpse of the drumline's show at about :31. I don't think my pirate got in the frame...


And this is our view from the other side of the arena. What fun!

But before all the fun, there was much hard labor in assembling the drummer's costume:

(Duncan is an excellent snoopervisor...)

Drafting an enlarged vest wasn't near as difficult at getting those boot covers big enough to disguise size 14 marching shoes!

I found these tools to be invaluable when sewing vinyl!

I used upholstery thread in the needle because I knew tugging these on & off would put a lot of tension on the stitches.

I saved a little time by using the embroidery machine set-up to stitch all 17!!! buttonholes. I covered the buttons with yellow fabric and then brushed them with gold metallic craft paints.

The welted pockets are not something I'm going to try again anywhere in the near future!!!

The sash was split in sections & stitched to wide Velcro® so it was quicker to don than winding/unwinding yards of fabric. I used my Silhouette® to cut the gold antelope logos. The belt I made from some leather yardage. I was going to embellish a large buckle with the 'Lope's logo, but since the drummer was wearing his drum all night, it would've been a waste of time...

The grey pants came from a thrift shop and got 2 cans of paint sprayed into stripes.

It was my plan to find stage make-up gold pirate teeth & to fill the drummer's fingers with rings. I got an emphatic "no" on the teeth & a "Mom, you know I won't be able to perform stick tricks with that junk on my hands, right?" I did talk him in to wearing a plastic gold (touched up with a little of my metalic paints) pirate earring.

What I was not expecting was his vision of a handful of shrunken skulls attached to a rubber knife. The skulls would have the logos from GCU's seven division rivals.

We found the plastic skulls at Michael's. A little bit of tan and cream paints gave a nice weathered touch...

I used glow-in-the-dark paint for the eye sockets. Originally I printed the logos on Silhouette® sticker paper, but they didn't stick!

We ended up using computer paper & tacky glue 'cause we were running out of time.

~ June Celebrations ~

June was jam-packed, as usual...

From the time of my MIL's birthday on the 2nd until my birthday 3 weeks later, we kept busy crafting & baking & celebrating. (3 birthdays, 2 anniversaries & Father's Day...)

(from a shirt for my mom's 58th anniversary)

(lil' somethin' for my man to carry around -- I ordered it here)

(we might or might not've eaten our way across town during our anniversary weekend...)

(a raggy banner I made for the headboard)

(fudgy cookies for my chocolate-addicted f.i.l's b-day... ☺)

(don't mind these -- they were just gf tart cherry bittersweet chocolate chip...)

My sis made a big party @ her house to celebrated Father's Day + my birthday.

The very best part of my birthday was having all my fellas together at the same table!

Another monogrammed hankie...

This weekend I had to use a hankie I stitched for the hubs years ago...

It was not for a sad occasion, but for a joyful one!

I've embroidered 3 handkerchiefs for my friend -- the first one was for the day her beautiful d.i.l. became part of her family:

The second one I made for the day of her husband's memorial service:

...but for this day, I needed to use "something old" & "something blue" so I figured this delicious old crocheted-edge linen would do!

Her new monogram:

posted from Bloggeroid

#costumingagain

Long, long time ago, when my baby boys were born, I had hopes and dreams of nurturing three members of a boys’ choir…
or even a concert pianist.
The good Lord knew I would’ve been so puffed up with pride thinking my musical genes created this wünderkind trio…He instead gave me the usual reluctant students who refused to practice unless threatened with dire video-game grounding.
…that is, until the two younger ones discovered competition percussion!Now our middle child is a student at Grand Canyon University.He is a member of the Thundering Heard Pep Band.
So Friday night was the school’s annual Midnight Madness (which celebrates the NCAA rule on first open basketball practice) The theme this year was the “APOCALOPES” (refering to the fourth & last year of D-1 probation!)

My son asked me way back during band camp if I would come up with a Mad Max-ish/Steam Punk-ish costume for the night. So, over the next few months I shopped Goodwill, and came up with a plan which included a steam punk-ished up rubberband bazooka:a steam punk-ished up pair of welding goggles from Harbor Freight:a Silhouette-cut ‘Lopes Rising temporary tribal tattoo:and his big brother’s work boots…All in all it was a good look for him “LOPES UP”

But this is what we saw of him from the parents’ section…

…except for the many times the cameras caught him on the big screens!He’s the one playing First Bass (smallest upright drum) at the end of his row.

Hopefully you can catch a glimpse of him in this video of their show:

Parent-view of drumline during Midnight Madness Apocalopes 2016 - YouTube https://t.co/nTnQOtQ0Ym

— MelodyS ن (@ElisaBJean) October 9, 2016