A few images

First up are two of the elves from my husband's stocking. I started the green one and the guitars the week we got married. And then, nothing. I had planned on working on the stocking on Sundays because the other days were spent doing homework (big surprise!) Anyway, this didn't happen so by the beginning of the break I had two done and basically nothing else.

One Christmas miracle later and this is what James had Christmas morning:

Granted, it would have been nice if it had been a surprise but it's okay. He stayed up with me until 2 AM while I finished it. Seriously. I have an amazing husband. We switched back and forth between the following:

1. A Christmas Story
2. The King's Singers and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
3. Midnight Mass at St. Peter's

I hadn't ever watched it and James was interested. It was a weird combination of shows but it kept me working until I finished the stocking.

Merry Christmas!

I don't have pictures available, I forgot my camera cord and my phone album isn't loading.

Anyway.

Christmas was great! Time together and with our families.

I'll post pictures soon.

Hopefully.

Finals are almost over

What has happened since I last blogged? "A Midsummer Night's Dream" finished its run. My parents, one set of grandparents, a brother (and his girlfriend) and my in-laws came to see the matinee. James' sweet parents gave me these beautiful roses.I like that some of them look like the fairy costumes. I was inspired by flowers so it makes sense.

On Sunday I tried to make a fancy Swiss braided bread. It wasn't totally successful but it was mostly good.
It got a little mangled when we took it out of the oven. Notice the poke mark on the upper right hand side. The bread looks awfully yellow, due in part to the egg wash and the yellow cabinets in our kitchen

My final FINAL project is a group of designs for a children's play called "The King of Ireland's Son." It's based on medieval shapes, James Christensen's amazing paintings and it is also a work with patterns and colors. I'm really pleased with how far I've come even in the past two years. My techniques have gotten better, I've gotten faster with my production and I think I've become a better designer. It's sort of hard to see the progress unless pieces are juxtaposed.
Okay, mostly I just wanted to type juxtaposed.

On to Christmas!

Wow. Seriously, wow.

My friend Courtney and I are totally fascinated by this lady in our ward. She is really stylish AND ridiculously creative. Her inspiring blog can be found here.

As much as I love my life (and totally hate the stress) sometimes I find myself fantasizing about how it will be when James and I are both NOT in school.

Hopefully James will have a good job that he loves and I'll be a stay at home Mom.

Theoretically we'll have some cute kids, maybe two boys and two girls.

Sometimes I think about how cool it would be to ride around on one of those cute cruiser bikes (despite the fact I'm really clumsy.)

Sigh.

Instead, I'm going to be grateful for the wonderful things that I do have:

• My husband James

• A really awesome opportunity to go to grad school (I mean, seriously, who else gets to the stuff we do in the shop?)

• Great friends in the costume shop

• Also, Midsummer is OPEN! That is definitely something to be grateful for!

Christmas is just around the corner and that means FAMILY! I'm so excited to spend the holidays with both of our families.

Final Dress and Opening Night

Just a few pictures from second dress rehearsal and final dress for Midsummer. Tickets can be purchased at the Caine School of the Arts Box Office or online here. The show runs until Saturday with a matinee that day at 2:00 and all evening shows at 7:30.

First Dress Rehearsal

We had dress rehearsal this morning for Midsummer. I snapped a couple of pictures with my cell phone. Some are good, others not so much.

This was the cast on stage, hanging out.
The cast doing warm ups. Isn't the set cool?
Oberon watching Helena and Demetrius argue about who loves who. Apparently Oberon is invisible to the mortals. Here is a shot of all of the guy fairies. We painted all of their pants with dye. We also added fabric strips to Oberon and Puck's pants. It was really time consuming but I think it was worth it.

Here are the fairies sleeping on the ground with Lysander and Hermia. This picture shows the color scheme: mortals in black, white and gray while the fairies in color.
Here is a shot of Bottom after his transformation. A dentist donated the fake teeth, which you can't see. It looks great!
It was probably the most stressful lead up to a design that I've ever gone through. I wasn't sure if it was going to work or if things were going to happen but it did work and is has happened. We have two more rehearsals before opening on Wednesday. I'm really pleased with how it worked!

In response to a comment from the last post: I didn't use a pattern, I just made it up. I measured Avery's torso and then made a trapezoid shape by taking an inch off each side and angeling the sides in. I just sort of guessed in regards to pocket size, strap length and ruffle size.

Projects: Midsummer and an apron

As you guys probably know, this play is quickly approaching. As in, we open in a WEEK.Working on a show like Midsummer, you see a lot of weird stuff in the costume shop. Such as pairs of legs wearing stretchy pants:
People painting on tables:
Sometimes people (ahem, me) paint with tiny brushes. It took more time than it should have.
But, I think it was worth it. I'll post an actual picture of this costume, Mustardseed, rather than this pinned together one.

Over the Thanksgiving break James and I spent time with our families. We had dinner at his Grandma's house and then we ate dessert at my parent's house with my Dad's side of the family. It was a well deserved break, I think. While we were at my parent's house, I kept a promise I had made earlier to Avery. She spotted Hilary's apron and decided she needed one too. I'm sure she said something like, "I yant un" or something cute. I used leftover fabric from Hilary's hooter-hider and the quilt my Mom made for Avery. It is a reversible apron. Here is the white floral side:
And the pink side, as modeled by Ave.
I can't get over how cute she is! It was so great to be able to spend time with our families, especially Hilary and her family. It will be Christmas before we know it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

While the low forecasted for Thanksgiving hardly seems like something someone should be thankful for, at least it isn't...
this:
Holy cats that is COLD! I predict the return of my Sorels, scarves, hats and gloves. As opposed to regular shoes and only a combination of two of the last three items.

BTW, USU closed campus at 2:00 today which meant an early day at the shop. I'm sort of terrified of next week, because we go into dress rehearsal on Saturday, but I know we'll all pull together and it will some how work.

Hopefully.

My husband IS a rock star

I'm quite possibly the luckiest woman in the world because I married this guy:

James is in a word, FANTASTIC. And in another, WONDERFUL.

Seriously. There is no amount of exaggeration going on here. I figure as it is Thanksgiving next week I'll list the reasons why he is such an amazing spouse.

#1- He has a sense of humor and is able to maintain it during stressful times.

#2- He is understanding. Case in point, "costume shop time." Usually when I'm working in the shop and I say, "I'll be done in fifteen minutes" it usually means twenty or twenty-five. I usually try to not hold to costume shop time if we have somewhere to go but even then

he's so patient!

#3- James doesn't think my taste in music is weird.

#4- He takes charge of things when I'm stressed out or busy with school stuff.

#5- Connected to #4, he can cook AND clean! Here is some proof. Sorry about the color levels, I was trying to be sneaky and take the picture from the dark hall.

#6- James may be laid back but he is also ambitious and responsible, a crazy-great combination.

#7- He sings really well. (Funny story: when we were in California last month an elderly couple asked him if he was professional singer after sacrament meeting. I still tease him about it.)

#8- He has a wonderful family. I was pretty sure I liked him a lot before I met his parents but I knew for sure after meeting them. His sisters are all amazing too.

#9- James keeps me focused. I've been a little distracted lately and kind of baby hungry but he sweetly reminds me that we are BOTH in grad school and graduation is less than two

years away. It's not too long to wait.

#10-James noticed me. Sure it took him a year to ask me out, but he was only guy in our singles ward to do it. I am so lucky!

My husband is a rock star

Sort of.

He is in a band with some of his friends from high school (and before in some cases) and they had a paying gig this weekend. Sorry about the quality of the pictures, I took them with my handy cell phone.

The marquee with the band name: Mid 6.

And some dark pictures...I guess it's better than nothing. Right???

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I can usually gauge how busy/stressed/freaked out I have been when I can't recall exactly when something happened recently. What? That didn't make sense? Case in point, I was just talking to someone on the phone, telling them about my recent publicity photo shoot and I couldn't immediately recall which day it happened. It's not a big deal but it is a pretty good indication of stress.

Anywho...

I also finished another paper project for design studies. This time we worked in groups and we all designed different versions of "Much Ado About Nothing" by Shakespeare. One person did lights, another designed the sets and another handled the costumes. My group decided to set it in contemporary England on a country estate during Christmas time.

First up is Leonato. He is the owner of the estate and he has invited the prince and his soldier friends to spend a month with them. I wish the camera had done the rendering justice but you can't always get what you want.

Next up is Hero, Leonato's daughter.
She is sweet girl, in love with this guy, Claudio, who loves her too. Sweet.


This is Hero's cousin, Beatrice, a catch who doesn't want to be caught. She likes to verbally spar with...
Benedick. I wish I would have finished this rendering more but I'm happy with the line drawings.Between this project, Midsummer stuff and school, I was trying not to freak out. I sort of did, a little bit, on Saturday but my husband is a champ. He is the most wonderful man and I can't believe we're married. It totally rocks.

Christmas!

Okay, I realize that Christmas is a ways away but I like to take care of things and I'm sick of homework. So anyway, here are somethings on my wishlist:

New scriptures. My current set is six years old and it is falling apart. Plus, it has my old last name on it. It would be cool to have scriptures with Lindsay Beardall on them.

Art supplies.

I'm running low on cadnium red.

Sephora giftcard. Always nice. I also made a registry on their website. I can't figure out how to update my account so it's still under Lindsay Keller.

Black stretchy Gap t-shirt. My old one is falling apart. Literally. I like in a large in the stretchy variety.

Brown riding boots. I'm not really copying my sister, we just have similar tastes. My old pair wasn't really my size and I finally owned up to it last year. You know it's a bad sign when your shoes hurt your feet.

They are all so cute!

School starts tomorrow. Bleck. Three more semesters after this one for James and two for me. Hopefully.

Publicity Photos

First up, the rendering:

Last night I made the middle section, AKA the corset. It took some time but I finished it enough for photos today. In fact, here is the lovely Wendi:

And here is Lance as Bottom:

And together...
Nice face Lance.

The rib bone's connected to the something bone

Actually, it's rigilene. I spent over three hours in the costume shop this evening making this:for our photo shoot tomorrow. It's far less scandalous than it looks. Our fairy queen is not shaped like the dress form, hence the newspaper. It makes sense....Any how, I sewed in the boning into the corset and hopefully tomorrow it will be finished enough for the shoot!

Here's hoping!

It's a good thing that James had homework in the computer lab because I would have felt really bad about spending ALL DAY in the costume shop.

Utah Halloween

So, I decided to be ambitious and make good food for Halloween this year. I realize Halloween is actually tomorrow but, hey, it's the Sabbath and this is Utah. I made...

Bolognese sauce

and crescent rolls with delicious spices inside.

Our friends Lonnie and Amber came over to eat before they went to the Howl. It was fun to visit with them and socialize. Earlier, Alex came by with some friends before they went to the Howl. It's my second Halloween here and I still don't really have any interest in attending the Howl.

Earlier this week James and I carved pumpkins at our friends' house, Seth and Lisa. James' pumpkin is on top and mine is on the ground.
And attempting to capture the jack-o-lanterns with my sometimes shoddy camera.
Happy Halloween!

One more thing! We had a trick or treater! One! It was a good thing we bought that bag of candy!