Happy Beltane!

Outfit Details- Blouse: [My mom's, but I think from] #forever21, Belt: #forever21, Skirt: [Also my mom's, but I think from] Gap, Boots: #BetseyJohnson
Happy Beltane (May Day)!! Yeah, ok, it was on Wednesday (Is that right? Wednesday?), but I haven't gotten a chance to post my pictures. Well, I probably have had many chances, but then I watched Doctor Who, and then it was suddenly midnight. Wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey (Sorry if that's spelled wrong).... Yeah. That's my excuse.
Anyway, these are my pictures. The last one (in black and white) is possibly one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken/been in, hence the "extra-large" sizing. I kind of wish I was super good at editing because then I could have taken out the broken trampoline in the background, but I could always come up with some reason/excuse for it to go with the picture. I love it for a few main reasons:
-I'm twirling (I think you all can guess at my propensity for twirling pictures)
-The shadow (I love pictures of shadows. I don't know why, I just like the shapes...)
-The sun (Lens-flair!)
-The lace. The lacy collar-thing on the neck and back of my shirt billowed out unbeknownst to me while I was spinning, and with this shot, it reminds me of wings.
Obviously, I had some fun with the editing of these photos, because I was bored and felt like doing something different than usual. When I was playing with the second-to-last one, I accidentally made myself green. I don't know how, but I loved it. I figured I should do a normal one with the rest of the pictures, but I really wanted to include the green one. I don't know, I'm weird and being green seemed really cool.

 Oh, and if anyone was wondering, I always just use iPhoto for editing. I'm not really fancy enough to use anything else.
For my makeup, I took white eyeliner and drew sort of streaks running from below my eyes to my cheek bones, then did a sort of winged-eyeliner type of thing but with green eyeshadow. Then, I loaded a section of a blush brush with the same green and dotted it over the white lines. I thought it turned out kind of cool.
With my hair, I just put on the lavender flower crown that I made a while ago, then pinned a bunch of other flowers over that.
Lastly, I think every May Day needs some musical accompaniment, so here's a link to my chosen song of the day (or Wednesday): May Queen, by Kate Nash. My friend and I ran around our maypole to this, and then we made a May Day basket for one of our other friends, and left it on her door step.
I hope you had a glitterific May Day!
Love,
Chloe

Day of Silence and a DIY

Friday was the national Day of Silence, which is a student-fueled protest against the silencing of the LGBT community. To participate, you go the day without talking, which is surprisingly difficult. Most of my friends and I only did it through the school day, though, since we had the play that night, and some of them needed to say their lines, and some of us needed to be able to instruct people with their costumes or props.
To celebrate, my friend Rachel (with the help of the LGBT club at school) organized a "Silent Tea Party" in the small outside theater by the cafeteria. It was really cool, because we all got dressed up like we were going to a vintage, classic-style tea party (most girls in frilly, fancy dresses, and the boys in suits with bow-ties and top hats), then we sat on a picnic blanket that I brought, and drank tea and ate finger sandwiches, all without saying a word. We all got little cards to pin to our clothes that explained why we couldn't talk, so that we wouldn't get in trouble with our teachers. Most of the teachers were really supportive of it, and didn't call on us or anything, and whenever I needed to ask a question, I just wrote it down and signaled for someone near me to read it for me.
I  wanted to look nice a tea-party-y, so I finally altered one of my dresses the night before. I've actually been meaning to for more than a year, but I keep forgetting. This is what I wore, and I'll put a DIY for my dress after the pictures:

Outfit Details- Dress: DIY (Forever21), Belt and Tights: Forever21, Hat and Crinoline: Vintage, Shoes: Borrowed from my mom, Teacup: #Anthropology

I kept seeing all of these cool heart-cut-out dresses for a while, and then I saw a picture of this dress on Pinterest (from Ruche, but it's no longer in stock), and went "Wait. I have basically the same exact dress, just without the cut-out." Like, seriously. The same dress.

I got my dress on sale for a couple dollars at Forever 21 in 8th grade, because I fell in love with the fabric, but it was just really awkwardly fitted. The chest was always kind of tight, but the waist was completely loose, making me look kind of box-y, but I still wore it a lot with a belt for a while.
On Thursday, I took it in, then made the cut-out. You can probably find much better tutorials for heart-cut-outs, but here's how I made mine:
Before:

 I started out by taking my own measurements, and those of the dress. I found that the waist of the dress was about 5 inches too big, so I'd need to take in the 2 side seams and 2 front darts by about an inch each. I turned the dress inside out and folded it along the side seam. I pinned it in place, making sure that the lining was lined up with the outside.

 Then, I sewed a new side seam, with about half an inch to an inch seam allowance. Be careful to only do it following the existing seam if the dress is too big all over, because I realized I'd made the chest smaller than it needed to be, and had to rip out half of the seam to redo it. I didn't get a picture of it, but I also did the same to the front seams.

 I turned it right-side-out, and folded it along the zipper (zipped up), lining up the center-fronts. I pinned it in place (to make it easier for cutting, and also to keep the lining and outside lined up), then sketched out half of a heart in pencil.

 Still pinned, I cut out the heart

 One side at a time, I pinned the cut edges in, so that they were folded over two times (so as not to fray later, but you could use some of that anti-fray solution)

 I very carefully sewed along the pinned edges, using a small seam-allowance, but you could probably use a bigger one if you needed to

 After doing the same to the other side, I put the triangular-shaped fabric above the heart over each other, and sewed on buttons. For mine, I didn't even need button holes, because the neck-hole is big enough that I can put it over my head without unbuttoning it. You should check first, though, before you sew on the buttons, especially if you're using a high-neck dress.

I really love how my dress turned out, and for the show that night, I was supposed to wear dark colors, but I just switched the purple belt for a black one, took off the crinoline, put on over-the-knee charcoal socks, a gray plaid blazer, and my cat shoes. I really liked how that outfit looked, too, but I got home at like 10:30 or something so I didn't really want to take pictures.
I hope you're all having a glitterific day!
Love,
Chloe

A Call for Guest Posters

Hi! I just wanted to type up a super quick post since I didn't get a chance to do any outfit pictures again today. The school musical (In the Heights) is still running for the next two weekends, as I mentioned in my last post, and as I'm on the costume crew, I haven't and probably won't be able to do many posts until the play is done. So, just in case anyone might be interested but didn't see it in the last post, I'm asking if anyone wants to submit a guest post for me to use? If you have a cool outfit you've put together that you'd like to share, or a DIY, tutorial, or photo-shoot, I'd love to put it up! It doesn't matter if you have a blog yourself or not, I always just think it's always kind of fun to see guest post on blogs.
I know I've had times before when I didn't post for a while, but since I know about this one ahead of time, I figured it'd be fun to ask some other people to do some posts for me. It's always a cool way to find out about other blogs, and about some really cool people!
I do have one picture to share real quick, though. I just took a picture of my hair with my webcam, because it's been fading and it's all pastel and curly and pretty, and it looks like cotton-candy.

My expression looks kind of dead-pan, but my hair looks cool, so it works.
I wish you all a glitterific day!
Love,
Chloe

(Figurative) Rainbow Puke

Outfit Details- Dress: Vintage, Tights: Vintage (Mary Quant), Belts (Red, Turquoise, and Purple): Forever 21, Yellow Belt: From another dress, Shoes: Doc Martins

This was my outfit from last Monday, but I haven't had a chance to post anything all week, or even take pictures other than these. Our High School(Dos Pueblos)'s Spring Musical opened on Friday, and I'm on the costume crew. We've been at school until at least 6 (sometimes 8) almost every night this week, and on days we got out early, all I wanted to do was go to sleep. It's so incredibly fun, but by now I'm completely exhausted. (Un?)Luckily, we've still got something like 6 more shows left, for the next two weekends, after the 3 we did this weekend. Sorry, I just wanted to let you all know why I haven't posted all week, and why I will most likely not be posting anything this week. If anyone wants to do a guest post for me, that would be super incredibly awesome, so if you're interested, please leave me a comment, or email me at cirqueduquirk@gmail.com. Also, I took a few pictures of the costumes I worked most on, which I'll try and post soon.
For this outfit, I basically could not figure out what to wear, and then used absolutely all the time I had trying on outfit after outfit, then sat there on my bed for a few minutes and decided that I was just going to be the most freaking colorful person on the planet that day. I threw on a bunch of random stuff, trying to make it as colorful as possible, to a point that it was almost just ugly and hurt to look at. I threw on clashing patterns and colors, with four different belts and bright-ass green eyeshadow to complement my newly rainbow hair.
Oh yeah! My hair is rainbow now! A local salon, Napoleon Blonde, offered to do my hair rainbow (which I was planning to do anyway) for free, if they could use pictures of me. Last Sunday, I was working a childrens' circus-themed birthday party, where I dressed as a gypsy and read people's palms and tarot cards. We did a photo-shoot before the party, though, and I think there were some cool shots. I'll post them as soon as we get them and everything.
I wish you all a glitterific day!
Love,
Chloe

C Is For CHLOE Who Used the Wrong Bleach (Style Inspiration: Edward Gorey)

Outfit Details- Blouse, Dress (I cut the sleeves off), Belt, and Coat: #forever21; Tights: #Anthropology; Shoes: Zappos; Cameo: Etsy

I wore this outfit on Tuesday, and spent the day reading "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"and drawing a few of my friends and I as characters in it. At the top, I included my picture, which holds the caption "C is for CHLOE who used the wrong bleach" because I decided that if Edward Gorey were to kill me off, it would probably be through my own mix-up of hair bleach and cleaning bleach (which I know wouldn't necessarily kill you, but I'm sure it could).
In honor of Edward Gorey drawings everywhere, I had to wear some kind of light beige-and-black, uniform-style outfit, so I chose a light beige scotty dog-printed blouse (but they kind of remind me of bats) with a black peter pan collar, a black jumper-type of dress, black tights, beige-and-black oxfords, and a grey pea-coat. I safety pinned my skeleton cameo to my collar, which seemed very appropriate, and tied a big black bow in my hair. For my makeup, I used dark colors, but still kept them semi-light, with plum lipstick and lightly applied black eyeliner.
Edward Gorey is just the bomb diggity. I've kind of always known that, but I read this article about him on Rookie a while ago, and his bomb-diggity-ness was solidified.
While looking up a link for The Gashlycrumb Tinies, I stumbled upon this video on YouTube, and became kind of immediately obsessed. It's kind of weird but amazing. I just wanted/needed to share.

I hope you all have a glitterifically bomb diggity day!
Love,
Chloe (who used the wrong bleach)
P.S. I tried to recreate my Edward Gorey-inspired illustration, but I couldn't find any bleach anywhere, so I grabbed a laundry detergent tin. You can still get the idea.

Gothic-Little-Red-Riding-Hood-Fairy

Outfit Details- Shirt, bat clip, and tutu: DIY, Black tights: Target, Striped tights (modified): Leg Avenue, Cloak and modified spiderweb fabric: From my old costume box, Fishnets (modified): Forever21, Boots: (knock-off) Doc Martins

There were so many pieces to this outfit, I'm not even sure if I got them all. You can put a comment if there's anything you're curious about that I didn't put.
It's kind of cool, because I realized that almost every aspect of my outfit (from Monday) was either DIY, altered, or found in my old costume box. I wore my black cat shirt which I painted last weekend, along with the tutu I also made last weekend out of some vintage tulle I got at a sale for 10 dollars (there was a huge bag of it). I cut the seam on my spiderweb fabric (which is technically supposed to be worn as some sort of arm band thing), and tied it around my waist as a sash.
I was having issues with my striped tights for so long, because I love black and white striped tights, but they only ever come in "One size fits all" and in really cheapy fabric. Those do not go well together. It's not even like the tights are too small per say, just too short for my 5-9ish frame, so already that's an issue, but since the cheapy fabric doesn't stretch well, I end up with what I have dubbed "crotch-knee" every time I wear them (that's when the tights just immediately sag so that the crotch part ends up at your knees, making it very difficult and uncomfortable to walk), but you can't get a taller size, because of the stupid one-size-fits-all thing. If anyone happens to know of a place to buy black and white striped tights made from fabric with better stretch and preferably in multiple sizes, please comment and let me know. I've been searching to no result for a very long time.
So: My solution. At Christmas, I finally just got fed up with my too-short tights, and cut them up. Well, I just cut them into over-the-knee socks. But, as there is no stretch in them, they still just fall down, but (still better than crotch-knee), they just kind of bunch up around my ankles as soon as I walk. So, I wore another pair of tights underneath, and safety-pinned the striped ones to those. It worked pretty well, but you need to make sure your safety pins aren't broken or anything, because it would kind of hurt to get stabbed in the leg.
I kind of love this cloak. It's sort of super amazing. I wore it last week for my sewing lesson, along with a black crinoline, a black peplum shirt, purple tights, and my cat shoes. Oh, and my black cat-ear hat. My parents called me "Goth Kitty" for the rest of the day, although I pointed out that I wasn't even wearing black lipstick. Ok, I was wearing purple lipstick and quite a bit of eyeliner, but there was no black lipstick.
I hope you all have glitterific days!
Love,
Chloe