Entry Approved!

Yay!!!!!

Our entry is now avaliable to view at www.stuckatprom.com in the "2011 Gallery" section. There's five photos there, some of which I haven't posted anywhere else. Also, they let me use the tango picture with the photoshopped background :D

So now I have to wait for them to announce the top 10 on June 17th, the same day the voting starts. So please keep tabs on that with me!

I've been doing some thinking about what I'm going to do with this blog once the contest is over, and I decided to keep it going and keep it duct tape themed. I saw this really gorgeous fancy dress hat the other day that was way too expensive for me to buy, but I've decided to make it out of duct tape because I can. Also, I'm planning to start selling duct tape wallets and I'll probably give my blog readers a discount...

So stay tuned for all of that! Hopefully I'll be making more frequent blog posts between now and the top ten announcement...

Our entry!

Whew! Now all we have to do is wait...

So there were a lot of curve balls thrown at us while we were filling out the entry forms online.

First of all, I'd looked at the descriptive blurbs and guessed that there was a 100 word limit to them. So, I wrote a 98 word description ahead of time. When I got to the requirements for that, the limit was actually 500 characters, including spaces. So we took a while to edit the blurb, because I used a lot of big words and was about 80 characters over.

Secondly, there were a few requirements for the pictures that were NOT in the official rules, which only says 1 to 5 high resolution photos. We debated what to do for a good 15 minutes before we decided that 5"x7" 300 dpi only applied to scanned photos. Since the images were directly from my computer, I had no idea how to measure them like that. So we just cropped our tango photo to a 5x7 dimension and turned them in as is. Hopefully anyone entering in future years will see this and not be suprised. That's partly why I'm doing this...

And just because, here's our accessories collage!

Definitely a multitude of stars...

So i did some counting and guesstimating as to how many stars went into both the outfits and the accessories, and I came up with a rounded number of 950..............

Yikes.

So...

I'm just going to put in the description blurb that it's "almost a thousand." Because it kinda is...

Aaaaand candid photos from the pre-prom shoot!




By the way, thanks so much to everyone who follows my blog! It really means a lot to have so much support, and it'll definitely count if we get into the top ten!

Candid photo and what I've been doing with my spare time

So while we were attempting the tango pose shown in the last post, the strain of bending over and lifting the arm became too much for Alex's jacket and the button popped off. Instead of getting out of the pose to fix it/put it somewhere nicely, I snatched it out of the buttonhole and tossed it out of the frame. However, my mom was still snapping photos and managed to get this beauty with the button flying through the air.

In other news, I guess it'll take me a while to stop taping stuff (if I ever do). I just made myself a colorful wallet with all the trimmings, including a card holder with a window and a section for coins with a flap to keep them from falling out. I'll probably make more sometime and sell them on ebay...

Promotional material

Well, I think we've got our 5 pictures pretty much sorted out. The rules say we can submit 1 to 5 high resolution photos of the outfits, so I'm going to use as much as I can. I put more than one picture on some pages, especially the accessories page which has six different pictures in a collage. After I was done with that, I messed around with photoshop and made some "poster pictures," as I like to call them. Here's my favorite. Enjoy!

Photoshoots

Alex and I got together again today, but this time it was to take photos and we were at my theatre director's studio. She had a black curtain we used as a backdrop and floor-to-ceiling mirrors we used to practice our poses before we did the shoot. There was one pose that was rather difficult, and Alex popped the button on his jacket while doing it. My mom snapped a photo of me in the act of tossing the button to the side, with the button clearly seen flying through the air...

Since these are the photos I'm going to use in our entry, I won't post any until I've sent it in and it gets approved (Well, maybe I'll post the candid shot of the button. I'll think about it). I'm going to call the Duck Tape company before I turn the entry in just to make sure I have everything in order.

Pictures!!!

Prom was awesome!!! And everyone loved the outfits. Here's a picture of me and Alex in the limo bus and another one we took before prom. I'll post more closer to when I'll be sending in our entry.

SUCCESS!!!!!

Wow, Blogger was down for a really long time yesterday and now I come back and find my latest post is missing...

Well, I finished it!!! I was up till 1:30 last night putting the finishing touches on the dress, but I managed to do everything I wanted to do, including tweaking and superfluous details. I talked about covering press-on nails with duct tape in the last post, and I was able to finish those with the silver tips as well. Now for the non-attire details such as packing my wonderfully accomodating duct tape purse with the prom neccessities and extra duct tape, just in case. I wrapped about two feet each of black, purple, and white around a pencil and packed that instead of bringing rolls.

I'm really happy right now. I got done everything I needed to get done, and all the extra things I wanted to do, like adding purple to the purse and making more star hairpins.

Since people will see the outfits tonight and probably take pictures, I'll post some of my own snapshots tomorrow. Both of the outfits look amazing, if I do say so myself.

And just because I'm finished making the attire, the blog posting's not done yet. I plan to go all the way up until the winners are announced, so keep checking back for entry photos and collages!

Almost there with 2 days to go!!

Well, the shirt wasn't quite right, so I fixed it today and it's fine now. I know I keep saying I'm done with everything except the dress train, but I keep finding more things to do. I'll look at what I have and think, "This doesn't look quite right..." "I should add..." and "Wouldn't it be even more awesome if..."

So I finished my second pair of faux lashes (the first pair wasn't working out), made duct tape press-on nails, and added smaller stars to the back of Alex's jacket. I'm back to the train now, and I'm definitely going to finish this before I do anything else. If I have enough time, I'm going to add silver tips to the nails.

The pressure's on, and I better finish this on time. I'll work on it all tonight and probably most of tomorrow as well...

4 days to go...

Nothing much to report...

I've been wrapping up all the last details like adding a back pocket to the pants and elaborating on details on the belt and shoes. I also fixed the shirt/vest (I think, he hasn't tried it on yet) because the vest was connected too low to the shirt and prevented the shirt tucking into the pants properly...

I'll be getting more purple duct tape from Alex later today so I can add to the design on the jacket. I'm done with everything except for that, putting a button on it, and finishing my dress train. I'm very confident that I'll be able to finish this on time, and hopefully a day early. I'd like some down time before the actual event to get rid of my dark circles... :P

One week to go!!!

I was over at Alex's house today trying to duct tape stuff, but we were shocked to discover that there really wasn't much to do. Which is awesome...

We started looking at technical details like hairstyles and posing for the photos. We found some really awesome poses based on the Argentine tango and the waltz so we got our ballroom dance teacher to help us pull them off. I'm going to ask my theatre director if we can use her studio to take some pre-prom pictures, since the studio has black walls, a big black curtain, and a full wall of mirrors. It's where I took my senior portraits as well.

All I have left to do is put a button on the jacket, add some more decorations on the belt, make a pocket square, finish my faux lashes, and make the star train for the dress. I can definitely finish that in a week, so I'm super excited!

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Ok, I've been at an enthusiasm low for the past couple days, but I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I finally got all the way around my dress with the stars last night, now I just need to go upwards with them and give it the nice gradient you can kinda see on the left side.

I'm so sick of cutting stars you would not believe it. And you'd think I'd be super good at it by now, since I've been doing it since January of '10, but I still produce strange, lopsided things at the same rate I cut nice, symmetrical ones. It's almost over, though. Once I'm done cutting the sticky stars for the body of the dress (which I'd estimate will take about two more batches), I'll use the stockpile of double-sided stars for the train.

I am behind with the whole star thing, but I decided I'd rather have the stars on the body of the dress than the train, so I just went over my deadline and pushed the train back a bit till I finish this, which shouldn't take more than two more days, including today. I'm on track with everything else, though. I've finished putting the vest on the shirt, decorating Alex's shoes, decorating the jacket, decorating the belt, and putting belt loops on the pants. I'm supposed to finish making the jewelry today, but all I've got is a design for earrings. I think that's enough, since I can't wear a necklace with the dress because of the neckline and I have a corsage for my wrist. If I have time I might make a star bracelet to wear on my other wrist...

Hopefully I'll finish the stars on the dress today, since I don't have to go anywhere tonight. After that, I'll cram on the train and then I'm just about finished. I'll try to get that done in three days, which will give us at least from the 9th to the 12th to tweak stuff till we're happy.

I'm excited!!! :D