Our local HP group, HP-MA, also hp_ma, has been growing in size and activity, and the week before Halloween, "The Group That Shall Not Be Named" from NY apparated over and joined forces with us for a weekend of haunting about Salem's Haunted Happenings - including taking over some carnival rides - and the HP Exhibition at the Museum of Science, with a Halloween Costume Dance Party thrown in as well. It was nonstop wizarding fun, and here are a few of our photos. We're hoping the high resolution version of one of the group shots will be used for an upcoming HP themed calendar, but I can't wait to get together with TGTSNBN again.

( Look inside pensieve )

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

I had the chance to do a small photoshoot today, and decided that instead of choosing between Pansy and Romilda, I'd split the time and do both!

(facebook resized the picture quality, so it's not the clearest. sorry. o.O)
( Slytherin's Princess )


( Gryffindor's crazy stalker fangirl!! )

I love playing both of them! it's very different, but so much fun.

Sweaters and robes from Whimsic alley
Ties from wizardties.com
Skirt is from old navy
wigs are from amphigory.com
wands I made myself.

shirt, tights, and shoes I already had.

I know that it's been a while since I said that I would make a short tutorial on how I made my harry potter wand with a wooden dowel and a dremel tool and I finally got it done. It took a while because I recently got a job at the new Best Buy in town and have been workin like crazy, but that has slown down a bit and I finally got it all done.

http://samwagster528.livejournal.com/3107.html

There's the link to my journal.

It's kind of a new tradition, but my friends and I like to do a yearly photoshoot on Halloween. We go to University of the Pacific, which was just ranked one of the most beautiful colleges, so we like to take advantage of the Hogwarts-esque scenery. Here are the final shots from this year's Halloween. Me as Cho Chang, and my friends Eckoii, Shioji, and Tiff as photographers.

I've also included a picture of the pins I made. I feel like the pins add that little detail that indicate "Cho," instead of just "general Ravenclaw student." I have my Ravenclaw badge, a "RIP Cedric Diggory" pin, and a little tornado with the letters "TT" on them - to support the Tutshill Tornados.

( Cho Chang...the human hosepipe. )

I'm so behind! I had hoped to get some pictures online yesterday and write about stuffs but I didn't get to it. I'm going to try today to start to catch up ;)

This week was good. Got some shopping done ;) Picked up some new shoes for my Marion Ravenwood costume. They aren't perfect but they are a lot closer than the ones I have. They were only $19 too which was a bargain ;)



I also picked up some really cute hairclips from diva that match my cupcake fabric really well :) I haven't decided yet which colours I am going to wear with my outfit when it's done, but I am leaning towards the green and white.

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

I just have a love for getting new wigs, I guess. I was going to wait on getting my wig for Pansy, but decided to go ahead and get it, and I'm glad I did. This is my new favorite wig!!

Sorry for the bad webcam pics... I'll get better ones soon. I chose this wig because I'm going for more of what the movie had her instead of the books, though a little shorter so it can be slightly grown-out book style too. Movie reference: images4.wikia.nocookie.net/harrypotter/images/6/6b/Pansy_card_HBP_1.jpg


With my slytherin sweater and tie:



( Pansy Parkinson does not approve of you, you stupid mud-blood )

I was wondering if anyone here has ordered from Lochaven, and what your experience was with it.

How's the fit?

I'm debating between a small and a medium. I'm very small and petite in stature, but my bust is 35". I HATE too baggy, ill-fitting clothes, so I'm wondering if I should just get a small cardigan, and if it doesn't quite fit in the bust, it won't be as bad as a sweater or vest.

Anyone have any input? I'd hate to spend the money and end up with the wrong size.

Thank you!

aiyatheydidnt
The Chinese version of ONTD, AIYA is a dynamic international community that welcomes users who share a love of contemporary Chinese pop culture. Dedicated to celebrity gossip and entertainment news, you'll enjoy gorgeous photos and breaking stories featuring the glitterati of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

wendylady2
Designed to rescue fashion victims everywhere, this Brit-based community reads like a rag-ezine. Published once or twice weekly, you'll view bizarre highlights of the global fashion scene through captivating photos and delightfully snarky editorial. Sit tight for a virtual fashion tour from the runways of New York to Milan to Paris and back home again to London in homage to the adage: you can't buy good taste.

soldiers_heart
A passionate community for veterans of all ages (mostly American), plus families, friends, and supporters. View poignant snapshots detailing life in combat and back on civilian soil in the form of original artwork, personal narratives, poetry, and photos. Be forewarned that members don't shy away from describing their disappointments, disabilities, and struggles.

Went to the shops today, spent my Spotlight gift voucher from Steve and Helena on fabric and patterns :)

Now that I have white shoes, I can finally use my pretty fabric. It just doesnt go well with black I don't think. These are the shoes:



( lots more pics & stuff below the cut )

Popping online to do a quick update and ask a favour of my fellow costume lovers!

Firstly, my request!

I'm currently working on my 'History of Costume' assignment for Tafe. This covers from Ancient Egypt all the way through to the 20th Century (We're supposed to stop with the 20's, but I plan to go to the 50's or 60's). As a very visual person, I wanted to have a small section as part of each era that lists pop culture references to the era - particularly in the form of movies and tv shows. Unfortunately, my own knowledge of this is limited particularly to era's that I myself am interested in. So I'm wondering if my fellow costume enthusiasts could please help me out in this regard!

What are you favourite historical movies/tv shows? What movies/tv shows do you feel portray an accurate view of their time period? If you had to introduce someone to the clothing of a particular era, what would you recommend they watch?

I'm looking for all historical periods; the ones I've included in my assignment are: Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; Byzantine; The Dark and Middle Ages; The Renaissance; The 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries; Regency; The Victorian Era (separated into Crinoline, Early Bustle, Natural Form, Late Bustle and Belle Epoch); Edwardian; and the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's.

I'm not necessarily looking for the most accurate ones, just trying to get something for each era as a reference - though do let me know if you feel they're accurate or not!

THANKS!! :D

And now that quick update!

So as you will have gathered, I'm still working on my History of Costume assignment, fortunately with an extension til Friday! I'm really enjoying working on it and I'm learning so much more about periods of costume history I'd not previously been interested in. Though it's turning into a much larger assignment than I had first anticipated! I'm almost finished the 16th Century (known for the Tudor and Elizabethan Eras) which I've unfortunately been stuck on for the last day and a half. This is really the period where clothing became so much more complicated, with the advent of Bodies (the predecessor to Stays and the corset) and so many layers! I've been stuck as to whether I should talk separately about Tudor and Elizabethan or not. They're pretty distinct styles, but at the same time, one evolved from the other, so they share lots of similarities. It's really doing my head in! I'm thinking about taking a break from 16th C (since I've lost so much time procrastinating about it) and moving onto the 17th C, and coming back once I've finished. The 18thC is where my interest in Historical costume really piques, so I'm fairly certain that 18th, 19th and 20th centuries won't take me long to get through.

My current plan is to try and have all the writing done by this evening, though at the latest, tomorrow afternoon. Then I have Sunday and Monday as full days to print out my images and writing and start putting it all together. I'll still have Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings to put it together. So I should get it all done. I'm definitely looking forward to that part, putting my creativity to use! As much as I've enjoyed this assignment, I can't wait for it to be over, so I can get back to some sewing!

In addition to my assignment, I'm also working on our next acting production. There's not a whole lot of work to be done on it, though for the first time we're drafting our own patterns for some of the clothes (as opposed to the wardrobe head doing it for us). I finished drafting a rather gorgeous 50's wiggle dress on Thursday, and will be making up a toile for fitting on Wednesday. From what I understand, the play, 'Cloud Street' spans about 30 or 40 years, including the 40's and 50's. All the first years have been put on this production, so we'll likely be doing 1 morning of maintenance, and one evening of backstage dressing. Oh yeah, did I mention the play goes for about 4 hours!! But the good news is that it means we'll have quite a bit of our own time during the production, so I can catch up on the Drafting work that I'm behind with, yay!

I currently don't have any particular costume plans for the rest of the year, though I'd like to get Leia finished, or possibly make Ewok Leia (if I can get a wig) for the Rebel Legion events we have coming up. Other than that, my focus is on making some clothes for Summer, since it's already boiling here and I don't have much in the way of clothing right now. I have a container full of cute, summery cottons calling out to be made into dresses and skirts!

But really, I can't think of anything else at the moment apart from my assignment! So back to it I go, and I'll be back online properly next weekend!

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.