Oh yes!

*rubs hands together in glee*

Today I used my 50% off Joann's coupon to buy 3.5 yards of gold dupioni silk. Gold pantaloons, the ones I have been dreaming of, here I come!




Yes, I could use the gold for something more glamorous, but I have been wanting gold 'loons for over a year, a good neutral for stage wear that's a little glam but not too much so.

One More Thing

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking some workshops with Paulette of Gypsy Caravan Dance Company. I'll talk about them in a later post but I will say that damn! I wish I'd done that sooner!

At the end of the workshop she talked about a project that came out of discussions with the Collective Soul dancers. Maybe project is not the correct work. Mission? Challenge? Action, maybe that's it. It's called One More Thing, and here is the idea from Paulette:

**But one of the things that came up in our many discussions about dance and about life, is the state of the world, a common topic of conversation in my life these days. With frustration at how many people still do not pay attention to recycling, reusing, and taking care of the earth, I try to do my part on a daily basis. WE can all do a little to help, and every little bit does help, but it is not enough.

I thought, One more thing.

We can all do one more thing. Whether it be helping our neighbor recycle, or not using weed killer on our lawn, or…..

So the Collective Soul dancers and I decided to start here, on this blog, every Monday to write in with what one more thing the can do or have done that week to help educate the public or what they have done in their own world. And I want you to participate!

Beautiful Rima suggests never buying a plastic bottle of water again. Get your refillable bottle and use it, or go thirsty that moment. I think that is a brilliant way to start!

Let’s hear it, starting this Monday…What one more thing can you do?

Bring it on, and remember, it all counts.

This reminds me of my friends who run the Tiny Choices blog, which is all about the tiny choices we can make to creating a cleaner, greener world. I particularly love Jenn's series of posts about finding a new water bottle. Sometimes I think water bottle choice is the gateway drug to figuring out the one more thing or tiny choices we can make to create a healthier world.

Here are some water bottles I have known and loved:
* A 32oz. wide mouth Nalgene in hot screaming pink. This was my first water bottle and it served me well. Unfortunately it ended up with this permanent weird smell inside and I had to get rid of it, though I'm not too sad because I always splashed water on myself even when I used the no-splash insert for the top.
* The SIGG Maharadsha in ruby. I call this the belly dance bottle. At Sunday's workshop there was my red one, Flissy's (purple) and another dancer's (blue). It's pretty awesome though it is a little tougher to screw on the top since it's so narrow.
* My everyday bottle is the 20 oz. Earthlust peacock. Or it was, the design rubbed off on mine. I may try another one day, maybe the 20 oz. dragonfly. These bottles are stainless steel, so no worries about what the liner may be leaching into your water. Also, I might get the sport top to add to mine because again, the narrow top can make it hard to close.
* I don't own one, but there is always the classic Kleen Kanteen if you want a simple stainless steel bottle.

Want to get in on the action? Paulette wants to hear from other people about their "One More Thing", so give her some feedback at her blog. I mentioned over there, and now here, that Tiny Choices runs a weekly survey where they profile one person and talk about that person's tiny choices; you should take the survey!

For my One More Thing I am going to recommit to using cloth napkins and I'm going to find the time this week to sew some out of my scrap fabric so I have extras to put in my car and with our camping gear. Here are some tutorials:
* Make napkins with pretty corners. Here are two other options.
* Fancier sets with bias tape binding. I'm sure you could buy bias tape for this project if you don't want to make it.
* The easiest option out there!. I'm not sure how much they will fray, though, I've cut fabric with pinking shears and still get some loose threads when it's washed.
* My quick and dirty version: Cut cotton fabric (I use quilting cotton) into squares as large or small as you like. Sew a zig zag or overlock stitch along the edge to prevent fraying. Use. Change the size to a rectangle and you have a thin kitchen towel.

The bonus is you can use your clean napkins as a convenient and stylish way to mop your brow when you're in the middle of an intense, sweaty dance workshop.

The fruits of my labor

So, after all the talk about make up I was dumping on you I figured you all might want to see it in action.

First, though, I'm going to start with a picture of my oldest tribal belt. This is not the first one I made, which was crafted from a Pier One place mat, upholstery tassel trim and home made yarn tassels. I do still have that one. This belt is made from a base I bought from The Red Camel (shop there, she rocks). I cut a piece of flannel to line the belt, then sewed two ties to the lining then hand stitched the lining to the belt, so when I tie it on (tight) I'm not stressing the fabric of the belt but am instead pulling against the lining. I added embroidered shisha mirrors to the ties, as well as some metal beads. The lower edge of the lining has one half of a row of snap tape sewn on so I can sew an arrangement of tassels to the corresponding side and swap out different "looks". No, I did not come up with that but I'm glad I read about it somewhere!



Anyway, I had been wanting to do a bunch of pom poms instead of tassels for the belt, so I spent the last week wrapping yarn and making poms. I'm really happy with how they turned out, because when you get moving the poms really dance. I also added two darts to the top back of the belt so it will hopefully mold to my back end a little better. They are hiding under the blue tassels. Here is a pic of the finished product, hanging on my front steps.

Next up is a Myspace style close up in my bathroom mirror. This was taken about 8:15 p.m. Saturday as I finished getting ready for our show that night. Here you can see my first homemade bindi (small but sparkly), my eyeshadow that is FIRMLY held on with Two Faced Shadow Insurance, the results of my new bottle of Lorac Oil Free foundation, and my awesome new red Make Up Forever lipliner and stick. Except for the lipstick, which I eventually wiped off while eating pizza after performing, the rest of the make up was going strong when I got home at 2:30 a.m. As was my hair, of which most of what you see is fake and let me say that was SO much easier to deal with than fighting with my own hair.

Here is a picture of me ready to head out the door. I have the pom belt on, and see that lovely red sequined skirt? It got tangled with the skirt of another dancer mid-set so I had to twirl myself free. I bought the choli from a local dance vendor and then added some sequins to the edges. I may add more. That extra shiny is addictive.



Here's the aftermath. First, the pile of metal is my bindi, barrettes and the bobby pins used to keep my hair together. I pulled them out last night and left them on the edge of the sink. There's a point as I'm taking everything off where I just want to start ripping and pulling at my hair and costume, like a little kid who pulls on a shirt they find uncomfortable. The adult side of me always makes sure I am more careful then that, but when you're really tired and you just want to go to bed it can take a lot of self control.

And here is the pile of costume, which Noralita calls "dancer droppings". The pantaloons, skirts and choli are on top of my belts and scarves which are on top of my jewelry. It takes about 2 hours to get ready and about 5-10 minutes to take it all off. We danced an 11 minute set.

Hopefully the video from the performance turned out, if so I'll post that when I get it, as well as any action shots I can find.