A Plethora of Pictures

I basically dumped a bunch of pictures I had on my phone, on to my blog. Most are from after ACTF but a few are from before. First up, Valentine's Day. My husband is amazing, wonderful, loving, thoughtful and funny. I think that his gifts show all of his sides. He bought new garments (I really needed them, mine were all gray!) risque candy hearts and a jewelry box.I was really surprised by the jewelry box but he pointed out that I usually complained about my necklaces getting tangled and lost earrings. It was extremely thoughtful and I really love it!

Next up: STAIRS. I'm taking set design this semester and although I feel pretty confident about it, I obviously still have a lot to learn.

Case in point, this photograph:
As you can see, there is the 1/8" stair section on the left in heavy paper followed by two failed attempts to replicate the same stairs in 1/4" scale. It took three tries to FINALLY get the stairs to be wider at the bottom than the top. And I'm in grad school....

The skirt that Amanda is holding up is the long-lost skirt from The Cripple of Inishmaan...from SEPTEMBER! It was lost during the build of the show, replaced with something else and, of course, found months later. I think Amanda's face says it all.

Also from the costume shop is a picture from the trim used on the officer's coats for Our Country's Good, in performance until next Saturday at the Morgan Theatre. It was my task to thread the serger in gold thread and then serge 160 strips for the coats.
I really hated that job. But, I finished it.

Yesterday morning, as I was making breakfast, I noticed that the pepper I had pulled from the fridge made a funny rattling noise. I half expected some scary bug or something to fly out when I cut it open. Not so!It was a baby pepper! Crazy!

I noticed on Thursday that our tailor's ham was looking particularly sad. It had a gash on the back and the plaid side was falling off. I took it upon myself to fix our sad little ham.

I think it is much improved:

What do you think?

Wednesday morning I saw this:
Yep, a horse and buggy. Technically I think it was pulled by shetland ponies but I'm probably wrong.

Last up (I'll bet you're glad) my "completed" set for The Goat or Who is Silvia? which is technically still in the white model format but that is all we had to do for the assignment.
I'm going to remake the window piece (the center piece) because the balsa wood just didn't look as nice in real life.

Next up: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus in Design Studies and Grey Gardens for Set Design.

Oh! I forgot to mention what I gave James for Valentines: "Manly Mustache Mirror clings," guitar shaped ice cube molds and underthings (technically it's for both of us.)

ACTF!

Warning: there are a ba-jillion pictures in this post. I'll come up with captions so you can follow what happened.

#1 A photo with Avery. I stayed with Hil and Josh on the way down and the way back. Ave and I had a good time!

#2 Caroline couldn't drive with one hand during this stretch of road so Molly fed her cheeseball and crackers.
#3 Caroline's boards. She won the regional prize! Good job Kennedy!
#4 The winning designs, headed to the national competition at the Kennedy Center in DC.
#5 The ceiling of the Los Angeles Theatre Center. It used to be a bank.
#6 Caroline and her boards, the day we presented. She was much relieved.
#7 Me and my boards and book.
#8 Trying to get a jumping picture. We really did jump. Promise.
#9 Molly and Caroline at Babycakes NYC bakery. The banana cupcakes were the best- gluten, sugar, dairy and something else free. I can't remember, there was a big list. I'm glad Molly and I swapped halves of the red velvet cupcake because it tasted weird.
#10 The guest house in West Hollywood, it was built in 1928!
#11 Guest house, kitchen.
#12 Guest house, sun room.
#13 Guest house dining room.
#14 Guest house, view down the stairs.
#15 Bathroom (1 out of 4!)
#16 Annie's room, with really cute windows.
#17 A view from the landing...
#18 the front room.
#19 the entry way.
#20 Hollywood boulevard, Milinda and I went exploring.
#21 The Kodak Center
#22 Disney's El Capitan theatre
#23 A view down the Boulevard
#24 Milinda Weeks and me, at the Kodak Center, thank you camera timer
#25 Milinda and a Chinese statue at the Theatre
#26 Feeling the love at Sephora. Shocking news, I didn't even go in any Sephora store.
#27 Feeling confused at Cary Grant's shoe and hand impressions. We're about the same size.
#28 Bowie!
#29 Molly and Caroline at Max Factor's star, he was a make up pioneer
#30 The Hollywood sign as viewed from the Kodak Center
#31 Guest house, another view of the beautiful sun room
#32 Beautiful GREEN trees!
#33 The ferris wheel at the Santa Monica pier
#34 Annie and Milinda on the ferris wheel
#35 The beach at Santa Monica
#36 Milinda taking pictures...she did that a lot
#37 Caroline basking in the sun with her ukulele
To sum up: Brandee and Molly are going to Nationals in April for Set design and Make up, Milinda, Annie and Caroline won regional prizes in Lights, Set and Costume. Way to do USU proud!

ACTF here I come!

My boards are ready...

My book is together....
And my bag is mostly packed. I'm ready to go! I'm riding with some fellow USU costume designer students. We're stopping in Vegas which means I get to see HILARY!

(And Avery and Josh, of course!)

I'm really excited, this past week was horrendous. I don't think James and I went to sleep before 1 AM at all this week. Sick. Being so busy is really tiring.

Oh well.

ON TO LA!

Cupcakes, Candles and Cubbies

I made some cupcakes this week for a birthday in my design studies class. I could have used a box and a jar of frosting but I like to bake and try new things. Plus, I stress bake so the timing was PERFECT! I talked to some class members and using their feedback I made the following decision:

LEMON MERINGUE CUPCAKES

I didn't have an actual recipe so I combined a couple of recipes together. I started with vanilla cupcakes, I filled them a little under the usual amount. After I baked them I used a plastic juicer to remove the middle of the cakes. I used about 2 teaspoons of filling per cupcake (a quick note about the filling, make sure it's at room temperature so it will spread easily.) Once all the cupcakes were filled, I lined them up on a baking sheet and topped them with marshmallow cream. This part was tricky, that stuff is hard to spread! I think next time I'll warm it up in hot water or try piping it with a large baggie. The last step is to brown the marshmallow so it looks like meringue. Ideally I would recommend using a small blow torch to burnish the tops but I don't own one so I put it under a broiler. Make sure you watch it so they don't burn.

ENJOY!

Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Cupcakes (The recipe says it yields 24 but I wound up with 36)

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 3 (1/2 cup-12 capacity) muffin tins with cupcake papers.

In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

America's Test Kitchen's Lemon Curd Filling

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice from about 6 lemons
1/2 teaspoon gelatin (powdered)
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon table salt

2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), cut into 1/2-inch cubes and frozen

FOR THE FILLING: Measure 1 tablespoon lemon juice into small bowl;
sprinkle gelatin over top. Heat remaining lemon juice, sugar, and salt in
medium nonreactive saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally,
until sugar dissolves and mixture is hot but not boiling. Whisk eggs and
yolks in large nonreactive bowl. Whisking constantly, slowly pour hot
lemon-sugar mixture into eggs, then return mixture to saucepan. Cook overmedium-low heat, stirring constantly with heatproof spatula, until mixture
registers 170 degrees on instant-read thermometer and is thick enough to
leave trail when spatula is scraped along pan bottom, 4 to 6 minutes.
Immediately remove pan from heat and stir in gelatin mixture until
dissolved. Stir in frozen butter until incorporated. Pour filling through
fine-mesh strainer into nonreactive bowl (you should have 1 1/2 cups). Cover
surface directly with plastic wrap; refrigerate until firm enough to
spread, at least 4 hours.

We had not 1, not 2 but 3 birthdays on Wednesday (hence the cupcakes.) Here are some shots of the birthday girls in the scene shop, blowing out their birthday candles.

Cake in the scene shop, nice.

Cubbies is sort of a funny term. I guess my work station in the grad lab is a cubby but Amanda's office isn't really one, she has an actual desk and a sort of room.

Anyways.

Here is a new batch of renderings for my first project in Design Studies: costume designs for The Dark of the Moon. I used my friend Brandee's Prismacolor markers and they are SO COOL! I've never rendered in marker before so it was a new experience.

I'm really pleased with the results. I should take a picture with my camera so you can actually see the pictures.

And now, the picture that goes along with the reference to Amanda's desk:

We had a mouse in the costume shop. We think it was a girl because she ate part of Amanda's Cadbury egg. Look at the little nibbles. It's cute and gross all at the same time.