Epic Post of Epicness - Dragoncon/AWA/SGMS/30th Birthday [She comes back from the dead XD]
September is Hell-Month. It's the time of year where I do 80-billionty things. And remember, in between all of this I'm filling orders and working on my book.
So in the beginning of September was Dragoncon. I wasn't able to go in the end, but I hwas able to send garments to the fashion show. I rushed to finish the five garments, but due to a huge USPS snafu, only two of my garments arrived and were shown in the show. I was PISSED that all of my hard work was for naught.
At least the things that were show looked cute on the girls wearing them.
So the Tuesday after Dragoncon Megan was able to go to the post office and retrieve the rest of my stuff. I spent the next week working on the rest of my collection so I would be ready for Anime Weekend Atlanta. As you may know I'm quitting conventions in a vendor capacity. Unless I'm a guest or contributing to programming I will not be selling at cons anymore. I have two that I will continue to sell at and they are Anime Weekend Atlanta and Teslacon, AWA because of the fashion show and Lolita boutique and Teslacon because I'm a guest. I'm just too tired to sell. I need to focus on growing my business and not wasting time making stuff inexpensive enough to sell at cons because people don't want to spend money. I'm doing fine with what I've been doing at home.
So I wasn't sure I'd be able to go to AWA, but my dad swooped in and saved the day by buying my plane ticket, thank goodness. So I went to Atlanta, my first time flying alone in fact, and had a great time with Megan and Austin. It makes me giggle that Austin's birthday is AWA weekend and mine is SGMS weekend. Nerd-birthdays! So that show went well, everyone looked gorgeous, and despite behind the scenes snafus, everything worked out fine.
The boutique was a fun experiment that turned out to be pretty great. What did we learn? Next year, get a credit card machine!
The tea party was great as usual. I got to spend time with more of the Atlanta girls who I adore (Brittany, Christina, etc). Megan and I both came up with some fun and ridiculous ideas, one of which elicited this reaction:
I love that the sweet Lolitas in Atlanta are actually sweet in personality :) I love them!!!!
Also all of this happened: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=233369&id=539795744
Just look at the pictures, they will tell the story.
So Monday I went home and was pleased to be on a pretty empty flight and had the chance to upgrade to first class. I've never flown first class and I only want to do so from now on XD It was so comfortable even with the guy next to me drinking at noon. Whatever, at least his arm wasn't touching mine! I slept, I read, I stretched out my feet. It was grand! That night I had a meeting for SGMS (yes, a meeting the night I got home) and we ironed out some stuff. The next few days I spent working on orders, a few show things (fixing zippers, etc) and cleaning up the basement a bit for Megan. She flew in on Thursday and we took her to Victory 44, our favorite local restaurant. Delicious! The next day we got ready, packed up the car and went to MCAD. Though we were supposed to meet at 10 for setup, no one was there :/ So we went to get bagels, then went back. We began setup and by noon, everyone...well almost everyone...was there for rehearsal. We didn't have music even though I was promised sound by noon on the dot. Everyone who has done shows with me knows I'm a stickler for timeliness so I was disappointed. Anyway, prep started after rehearsal and I realize an hour in that my second makeup artist never showed up. WTF!? I had no way of contacting her so I was pretty much boned. Luckily when Liz and her helper were done, they, as well as Sabra, took over foundation to help Holly and banged everyone out. We were ready on time, thank goodness. Drayke and his team got photos of everyone on time!!! Go scheduling! And the pictures are amazing. I love it.
I'm lucky to be surrounded by such professional, sweet and amazing people.
So the show was great except for a few fairly huge snafus. The music playlist was changed, despite me having OKed what was saved. So at least 3 of the designers had the wrong music. Then the MC said the bios in the wrong order. I gave her the old list, but at one point one of the DJ's assistants came to ask the order of designers and the next day I found that list, so I have no idea why they didn't use it. So yeah, we had to use our amazing MNFashion assistant to run back and forth between me and the MC. So frustrating. Luckily outside of the first snafu, no one in the audience gathered anything was wrong because the show was so great. Did I mention we were an official MNFashion Week event this year? Yeah, well we were so a ton of people showed up. It looks like we may have at least double our show attendance.
Seraphim Feather
Scoundrelle's Keep
KMK Designs
Tara Reich
Megan Maude
http://www.blaspheminascloset.com/
http://bionicunicorn.com/
http://apatico.net/
My entire collection
The after party which last year I named ANime Cafe (LOL) was a way bigger success. Last year people were confused and had to pay for food so they left. This year they stayed until at least 10:30-11pm. The music was great, networking abound, delicious treats, and people dressed up! So awesome. One of my favorite guests, Christopher Bolton, decided to dress like Neo from the Matrix and my other favorite, Marc Hairston, was Miyazaki! So cute!
In any event, despite the bullshit and something getting stolen, it was okay.
Then food.
The next day was class time. I did my Snarky Lolita's Guide and it was a lot of fun. Megan and Nikki got there late, but they brought me coffee so I love them.
Then lunch and the Otaku Bazaar. BTW you guys, if you ever want sweet deals and instant gratification, come to the Otaku Bazaar. You don't have to pay, you just need to show up during the lunch hour. Srsly. Megan, Heather, Meredith and many others were there.
After lunch was lectures. Marc's was on Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water (of course). Christopher's was on Akira (wut?) and I missed the one of Ghost in the Shell. I should have watched it :( I love GITS.
Then was the guest dinner. A frustrating affair with too many people (not that they didn't all belong there, they did, it was too many for my anxiety) and too little space. Megan is allergic to a bunch of things, most of which are found in Asian restaurants of all kinds, so she was stressed, itchy and having trouble breathing. Nikki had to sit at a separate table :( Ryan got antsy so he sat at the bar where he luckily found someone he knew. We left early, skipped Crispin's lecture on voice acting, went home and got ready for my totally sweet birthday party.
Anyway, so went to my party. it was great. Frenchy, Christopher, Barb and a few of the emerging scholars came out. My friend Dave from high school came out and ended up hitting it off with Sabra :) Ryan fielded a racist so he wouldn't ruin my party. I got a bunch of photobooth pics taken. A creepy bro hit of my a lot at the photobooth since it was by the pool table he was using (barf), but at least he said I looked 24. ROFL
< ahref="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs028.snc4/33782_1566437035109_1060902544_1608441_550553_n.jpg" width=600>
Then this happened. And I swear it wasn't from my crazy fire cake.
Apparently a speaker blew and caught fire prompting FOUR FIRE ENGINES TO SHOW UP! And they didn't even evacuate. LOLWUT?!
Anyway, everything was fine, we drank more, made jokes about fire-fighter strippers and had a fun time. Thanks to all of my friends who made 30 so memorable!
The next day I had more class. I forgot I had a class Sunday so I winged it and it went great XD Everyone asked really great questions. It was a lot of fun. Then Otaku Bazaar. Did I mention Megan and I managed to both wear green in a totally unplanned way? And that Nikki being the cute tourist she was, taking pictures of everything, got photo proof of it?
I made a lot of money so we were able to just barely pay the mortgage and electric bill (with late fees, boo) and do a little dinner that night. During lunch Crispin popped up and apologized for not saying hi, coming to my fashion show and skipping my birthday work work on his lecture. I gave him shit about being a bad friend and for going to Burning Man (HE'S TOO CLEAN TO GO TO BURNING MAN). It's what we do, it's how we work. After lunch we went to watch Crispin's Evangelion lecture which was really great. Way better than last year. And actually taught me some stuff. My brother and I like to considered ourselves pretty well versed in the workings of NGE, but they fact that I learned new stuff blew my mind. He wins thing round.
After that we were soooo tired and tried our best to stay awake through the next panel but it was damn near impossible. It was a tiny Japanese lady with a soft voice. The mic wasn't loud enough, the light were at twilight setting, swear, so even though we wanted to watch her lecture on Kabuki we were just too sleepy all of a sudden. I missed a lot of it, but what I saw was really interesting.
I may have switched the order of those two panels, but either way, after that we skipped the last panel because the guy was weird. He was the person who translated the Hagakure, a pretty great old text, but I really don't know what else he's done. Thing is, he is from Scotland and pretty much used that fact all weekend to flirt with girls. He actually went up to Megan and Kay on Friday and said, "-mumblemumblemumble- I'm from Scottland." WHAT?! Yeah, so he pretty much spent the weekend injecting himself in a lot of conversations girls were having. He seemed a little butthurt that Megan and I weren't having it. At one point he told me I had "the cutest sneeze" he'd ever heard, then proceeded to stare at me. I said, "I'm sorry?" and he says, "No, don't be sorry *wink*."
Barf.
Europeans are so weird. Anyway, Megan and I befriended a fun Irishman who spent a lot of the weekend joking with us about this guy. He wasn't necessarily a bad guy (that i know of), I just don't like being around guys who only have two settings: brooding and flirting.
LOL
After that was the Manga Panel, a finale guest panel. It was okay, but people didn't use the mic so we couldn't hear the majority of what was being said. You could see Crispin was getting visibly annoyed with the lack of using it. We couldn't really hear several of them. But Scottish guy kept making weird little digs at Crispin. It was super weird. I kinda thought I imagined it but Megan and Nikki noticed it, too. Super strange. The audience questions were kinda hit or miss. Meh.
Anyway, this was a fun year. A weird year, but a fun one. Here's to 10 more years of SGMS!
After the final panel we went to Kihndo. Yum! Then home to veg.
The next day we went to MOA. Nikki had never been to MN so we had to do the good tour guide thing and take her before dropping her at the airport. She vlogged and was so effing cute. I love that girl. I'm sure she'll post vids son.
After buying sparkly baubles at For Love 21, we met up with Frenchy and Christoper. They gave me a pretty cute Hello Kitty makeup bag which i promptly posted on Poupee Girl. I'm such a nerd. We walked around and went to some shops, then got yummy crepes!
After saying goodbye to the other two, we went to the Hello Kitty store, then left to take Nikki to the airport :( I hope she comes back soon!
After that we went to one of Ryan's properties and walked around that neighborhood. Then we went to a snooty liquor store where we each bought a bottle of wine (Ryan got Lambic actually). When we got home I made my delicious chicken pine nut white pizza, we drank tons of wine and laughed a lot. The next day Megan and I slept in while Ryan went to work. In the middle of the day Ryan and I got into a fight which was frustrating. Eventually he got home from work and Megan and I went to SR Harris so I could get fabric for Brian's commission. When we got home Ryan and I made up, Megan and I had girl time and we called it a night. The next day we had to take Megan to the airport, but we wanted to show her St. Paul since she hadn't been there for more than a little while prior. We took her to Sweets for macarons, Heather's studio, Axel's Bonfire Grill, Cafe Latte, the downtown courthouse, did some sightseeing from the 18th floor law library, then went to the Conservatory where she fell in love with their sloth.
After our adventure we took her to the airport. Sad-face! We'd spent pretty much 2 solid weeks hanging out so I got used to her. Meh, Teslacon is in a month.
So yeah, now I will pretty much be working on orders, big projects, a party for Skittish (save the date Oct 22nd), Teslacon and my book. I will continue to be super busy and will try my best to update like before September. Also, Lolitas, Eric (the chairman of Teslacon) is making the convention super Lolita friendly so you should come. Also, I'm running a ridiculous Victorian/Rococo gambling party with gorgeous prizes and pink champagne. Coooooooommmmee!
Love you guys!
More pics:
Photosynthetique SGMS
Photosynthetique My 30th
Fairshadow Photography SGMS
Janie Marie SGMS
Janie Marie My 30th
Rhea Pappas SGMS
Nikki SGMS/My 30th/MN Trip
My Mobile Uploads from SGMS Weekend
So in the beginning of September was Dragoncon. I wasn't able to go in the end, but I hwas able to send garments to the fashion show. I rushed to finish the five garments, but due to a huge USPS snafu, only two of my garments arrived and were shown in the show. I was PISSED that all of my hard work was for naught.
At least the things that were show looked cute on the girls wearing them.
So the Tuesday after Dragoncon Megan was able to go to the post office and retrieve the rest of my stuff. I spent the next week working on the rest of my collection so I would be ready for Anime Weekend Atlanta. As you may know I'm quitting conventions in a vendor capacity. Unless I'm a guest or contributing to programming I will not be selling at cons anymore. I have two that I will continue to sell at and they are Anime Weekend Atlanta and Teslacon, AWA because of the fashion show and Lolita boutique and Teslacon because I'm a guest. I'm just too tired to sell. I need to focus on growing my business and not wasting time making stuff inexpensive enough to sell at cons because people don't want to spend money. I'm doing fine with what I've been doing at home.
So I wasn't sure I'd be able to go to AWA, but my dad swooped in and saved the day by buying my plane ticket, thank goodness. So I went to Atlanta, my first time flying alone in fact, and had a great time with Megan and Austin. It makes me giggle that Austin's birthday is AWA weekend and mine is SGMS weekend. Nerd-birthdays! So that show went well, everyone looked gorgeous, and despite behind the scenes snafus, everything worked out fine.
The boutique was a fun experiment that turned out to be pretty great. What did we learn? Next year, get a credit card machine!
The tea party was great as usual. I got to spend time with more of the Atlanta girls who I adore (Brittany, Christina, etc). Megan and I both came up with some fun and ridiculous ideas, one of which elicited this reaction:
I love that the sweet Lolitas in Atlanta are actually sweet in personality :) I love them!!!!
Also all of this happened: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=233369&id=539795744
Just look at the pictures, they will tell the story.
So Monday I went home and was pleased to be on a pretty empty flight and had the chance to upgrade to first class. I've never flown first class and I only want to do so from now on XD It was so comfortable even with the guy next to me drinking at noon. Whatever, at least his arm wasn't touching mine! I slept, I read, I stretched out my feet. It was grand! That night I had a meeting for SGMS (yes, a meeting the night I got home) and we ironed out some stuff. The next few days I spent working on orders, a few show things (fixing zippers, etc) and cleaning up the basement a bit for Megan. She flew in on Thursday and we took her to Victory 44, our favorite local restaurant. Delicious! The next day we got ready, packed up the car and went to MCAD. Though we were supposed to meet at 10 for setup, no one was there :/ So we went to get bagels, then went back. We began setup and by noon, everyone...well almost everyone...was there for rehearsal. We didn't have music even though I was promised sound by noon on the dot. Everyone who has done shows with me knows I'm a stickler for timeliness so I was disappointed. Anyway, prep started after rehearsal and I realize an hour in that my second makeup artist never showed up. WTF!? I had no way of contacting her so I was pretty much boned. Luckily when Liz and her helper were done, they, as well as Sabra, took over foundation to help Holly and banged everyone out. We were ready on time, thank goodness. Drayke and his team got photos of everyone on time!!! Go scheduling! And the pictures are amazing. I love it.
I'm lucky to be surrounded by such professional, sweet and amazing people.
So the show was great except for a few fairly huge snafus. The music playlist was changed, despite me having OKed what was saved. So at least 3 of the designers had the wrong music. Then the MC said the bios in the wrong order. I gave her the old list, but at one point one of the DJ's assistants came to ask the order of designers and the next day I found that list, so I have no idea why they didn't use it. So yeah, we had to use our amazing MNFashion assistant to run back and forth between me and the MC. So frustrating. Luckily outside of the first snafu, no one in the audience gathered anything was wrong because the show was so great. Did I mention we were an official MNFashion Week event this year? Yeah, well we were so a ton of people showed up. It looks like we may have at least double our show attendance.
Seraphim Feather
Scoundrelle's Keep
KMK Designs
Tara Reich
Megan Maude
http://www.blaspheminascloset.com/
http://bionicunicorn.com/
http://apatico.net/
My entire collection
The after party which last year I named ANime Cafe (LOL) was a way bigger success. Last year people were confused and had to pay for food so they left. This year they stayed until at least 10:30-11pm. The music was great, networking abound, delicious treats, and people dressed up! So awesome. One of my favorite guests, Christopher Bolton, decided to dress like Neo from the Matrix and my other favorite, Marc Hairston, was Miyazaki! So cute!
In any event, despite the bullshit and something getting stolen, it was okay.
Then food.
The next day was class time. I did my Snarky Lolita's Guide and it was a lot of fun. Megan and Nikki got there late, but they brought me coffee so I love them.
Then lunch and the Otaku Bazaar. BTW you guys, if you ever want sweet deals and instant gratification, come to the Otaku Bazaar. You don't have to pay, you just need to show up during the lunch hour. Srsly. Megan, Heather, Meredith and many others were there.
After lunch was lectures. Marc's was on Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water (of course). Christopher's was on Akira (wut?) and I missed the one of Ghost in the Shell. I should have watched it :( I love GITS.
Then was the guest dinner. A frustrating affair with too many people (not that they didn't all belong there, they did, it was too many for my anxiety) and too little space. Megan is allergic to a bunch of things, most of which are found in Asian restaurants of all kinds, so she was stressed, itchy and having trouble breathing. Nikki had to sit at a separate table :( Ryan got antsy so he sat at the bar where he luckily found someone he knew. We left early, skipped Crispin's lecture on voice acting, went home and got ready for my totally sweet birthday party.
Anyway, so went to my party. it was great. Frenchy, Christopher, Barb and a few of the emerging scholars came out. My friend Dave from high school came out and ended up hitting it off with Sabra :) Ryan fielded a racist so he wouldn't ruin my party. I got a bunch of photobooth pics taken. A creepy bro hit of my a lot at the photobooth since it was by the pool table he was using (barf), but at least he said I looked 24. ROFL
< ahref="http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs028.snc4/33782_1566437035109_1060902544_1608441_550553_n.jpg" width=600>
Then this happened. And I swear it wasn't from my crazy fire cake.
Apparently a speaker blew and caught fire prompting FOUR FIRE ENGINES TO SHOW UP! And they didn't even evacuate. LOLWUT?!
Anyway, everything was fine, we drank more, made jokes about fire-fighter strippers and had a fun time. Thanks to all of my friends who made 30 so memorable!
The next day I had more class. I forgot I had a class Sunday so I winged it and it went great XD Everyone asked really great questions. It was a lot of fun. Then Otaku Bazaar. Did I mention Megan and I managed to both wear green in a totally unplanned way? And that Nikki being the cute tourist she was, taking pictures of everything, got photo proof of it?
I made a lot of money so we were able to just barely pay the mortgage and electric bill (with late fees, boo) and do a little dinner that night. During lunch Crispin popped up and apologized for not saying hi, coming to my fashion show and skipping my birthday work work on his lecture. I gave him shit about being a bad friend and for going to Burning Man (HE'S TOO CLEAN TO GO TO BURNING MAN). It's what we do, it's how we work. After lunch we went to watch Crispin's Evangelion lecture which was really great. Way better than last year. And actually taught me some stuff. My brother and I like to considered ourselves pretty well versed in the workings of NGE, but they fact that I learned new stuff blew my mind. He wins thing round.
After that we were soooo tired and tried our best to stay awake through the next panel but it was damn near impossible. It was a tiny Japanese lady with a soft voice. The mic wasn't loud enough, the light were at twilight setting, swear, so even though we wanted to watch her lecture on Kabuki we were just too sleepy all of a sudden. I missed a lot of it, but what I saw was really interesting.
I may have switched the order of those two panels, but either way, after that we skipped the last panel because the guy was weird. He was the person who translated the Hagakure, a pretty great old text, but I really don't know what else he's done. Thing is, he is from Scotland and pretty much used that fact all weekend to flirt with girls. He actually went up to Megan and Kay on Friday and said, "-mumblemumblemumble- I'm from Scottland." WHAT?! Yeah, so he pretty much spent the weekend injecting himself in a lot of conversations girls were having. He seemed a little butthurt that Megan and I weren't having it. At one point he told me I had "the cutest sneeze" he'd ever heard, then proceeded to stare at me. I said, "I'm sorry?" and he says, "No, don't be sorry *wink*."
Barf.
Europeans are so weird. Anyway, Megan and I befriended a fun Irishman who spent a lot of the weekend joking with us about this guy. He wasn't necessarily a bad guy (that i know of), I just don't like being around guys who only have two settings: brooding and flirting.
LOL
After that was the Manga Panel, a finale guest panel. It was okay, but people didn't use the mic so we couldn't hear the majority of what was being said. You could see Crispin was getting visibly annoyed with the lack of using it. We couldn't really hear several of them. But Scottish guy kept making weird little digs at Crispin. It was super weird. I kinda thought I imagined it but Megan and Nikki noticed it, too. Super strange. The audience questions were kinda hit or miss. Meh.
Anyway, this was a fun year. A weird year, but a fun one. Here's to 10 more years of SGMS!
After the final panel we went to Kihndo. Yum! Then home to veg.
The next day we went to MOA. Nikki had never been to MN so we had to do the good tour guide thing and take her before dropping her at the airport. She vlogged and was so effing cute. I love that girl. I'm sure she'll post vids son.
After buying sparkly baubles at For Love 21, we met up with Frenchy and Christoper. They gave me a pretty cute Hello Kitty makeup bag which i promptly posted on Poupee Girl. I'm such a nerd. We walked around and went to some shops, then got yummy crepes!
After saying goodbye to the other two, we went to the Hello Kitty store, then left to take Nikki to the airport :( I hope she comes back soon!
After that we went to one of Ryan's properties and walked around that neighborhood. Then we went to a snooty liquor store where we each bought a bottle of wine (Ryan got Lambic actually). When we got home I made my delicious chicken pine nut white pizza, we drank tons of wine and laughed a lot. The next day Megan and I slept in while Ryan went to work. In the middle of the day Ryan and I got into a fight which was frustrating. Eventually he got home from work and Megan and I went to SR Harris so I could get fabric for Brian's commission. When we got home Ryan and I made up, Megan and I had girl time and we called it a night. The next day we had to take Megan to the airport, but we wanted to show her St. Paul since she hadn't been there for more than a little while prior. We took her to Sweets for macarons, Heather's studio, Axel's Bonfire Grill, Cafe Latte, the downtown courthouse, did some sightseeing from the 18th floor law library, then went to the Conservatory where she fell in love with their sloth.
After our adventure we took her to the airport. Sad-face! We'd spent pretty much 2 solid weeks hanging out so I got used to her. Meh, Teslacon is in a month.
So yeah, now I will pretty much be working on orders, big projects, a party for Skittish (save the date Oct 22nd), Teslacon and my book. I will continue to be super busy and will try my best to update like before September. Also, Lolitas, Eric (the chairman of Teslacon) is making the convention super Lolita friendly so you should come. Also, I'm running a ridiculous Victorian/Rococo gambling party with gorgeous prizes and pink champagne. Coooooooommmmee!
Love you guys!
More pics:
Photosynthetique SGMS
Photosynthetique My 30th
Fairshadow Photography SGMS
Janie Marie SGMS
Janie Marie My 30th
Rhea Pappas SGMS
Nikki SGMS/My 30th/MN Trip
My Mobile Uploads from SGMS Weekend