Very very late follow-up

I just realized that in the excitement of the end of the contest, I never made a concluding post about the outcome. Alex and I came in 4th place, and we both received $500 prize money. We both loved the experience, and I wish I could be eligible to do it again. I constantly look back on all the photos we took, and I can say that the whole experience was a big highlight of my high school years. For those of you who have found your way here looking to enter the contest in future years, I wish you the best of luck and I hope this blog helps. Happy taping!

Newspaper articles and contests!!!

Less than a week left in the contest!!! I really hope we're doing well, they don't let us know how many votes we've gotten so far :P

I've started a contest of my own on my facebook page (mentioned a couple posts back with a link) designed to create more publicity and whoever wins gets one of my handmade wallets :D So go like that page and enter the contest!

Also, we were in a major local newspaper today, which is super amazing! Front page, too. Here's a link to the article... Click Here

So I've been doing all the publicity I could think of and promoting the contest whenever I can, is there anything I'm missing? Let me know if you have a promotional idea for me and I'll make sure to do it!

Duct tape celebrities

Alex, Amanda, and I went to the fair last Friday and although they didn't let us hand out flyers, we did wear our outfits. At least, I wore my dress, Alex wore his jacket. We got weird looks from pretty much everyone we passed, which I thought was awesome but I won't claim to represent Alex with that statement :P Quite a few people stopped us to ask questions, and one lady got really excited and said, "I feel like I'm talking to celebrities!"

Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera, so I don't have any pictures. I will be going back to the fair this Wednesday, however, and I'm still debating on whether or not to wear my dress since I'm only going to perform a song. If I do, I'll definitely take pictures.

Where else should I publicize?

Duct tape wallets and contact info

I've started setting up to sell wallets, mostly by designing and working on examples I can post pictures of. I've also created a new e-mail account I'll be using for everything duct tape, like media and the wallet-selling. It's ducttaperoses992@gmail.com.

I'll post pictures of the example wallets and start selling as soon as I can.

Publicity

Alex and I had an interview with an online newspaper today. It was a lot of fun, and the story will run on Monday, so expect a post about that :)

I've been handing out flyers to practically everyone, so hopefully that's getting us some extra votes. I've also been posting on Facebook every day reminding people to vote.

I'm planning on going to the faire sometime this weekend, so we'll see if they'll let me advertise there as well. I'll post pictures if I do :D

Also, I went to the craft store the other day for something unrelated, and ended up buying two rolls of duct tape just because. I got black because I was running out, and yellow because there wasn't any really bright colors in my leftover duct tape spectrum. I haven't decided what to make next, though. That's probably my cue to start selling wallets...

TOP TEN!!!

We got into the top ten out of over 300 entries!!!! Now we need to get as many online votes as we can by July 11th. Here's the link to vote: Vote Here! You do need to register on the website, but it takes less than a minute and I promise they won't start sending you stuff. In fact, I've been trying to sign up for their newsletter, and for some reason my request never goes through. So they're not sending me stuff even if I want them to :P

This next month is going to be a barrage of publicity material and fun stuff like that, so stay tuned to hear what crazy stuff I'll do to get votes. I'm already planning on going to the county fair wearing my dress, but I have to make sure they won't kick me out for unauthorized advertisement or something along those lines... Leave suggestions in the comment section on how I should publicize! And go like our page on facebook :D Chelsey and Alexander for Stuck At Prom Duck Tape Scholarship Contest

Fancy Hat

Well, here's the hat I was working on. It took two days and two rolls of leftover tape :P
I'm definitely going to be wearing this thing everywhere I go...

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

Schedules

Ok, so with the pressure on and two weeks to go, I actually made a schedule to follow and if I follow it, I'll be done with all the necessities pretty early. After that, I can work out any details and fix up stuff that didn't quite turn out the way we wanted it. So far so good, except I'll need more time to stick stars onto the body of the dress. To cut the stars, I stick strips down on a plastic cutting board and use a razor knife, which yields about 24 stars per "batch." It's taking me over an hour to cover about a square foot of area, and I don't think three more days is going to cut it. Still, it includes Saturday, so I won't rule out success just yet. If I can't finish it, I'll just stop at where I got to, make it look good, and move on. Then I'll come back to it if I have time.


Basically, here's where I've scheduled myself to finish things:


4/27 - Finish colors on jacket (which I did)


4/29 - Finish the vest and any other details on the shirt


4/30 - Finish stars on dress, finish Alex's shoes, finish jacket stars


5/1 - Finish belt


5/2 - Finish details on pants, like belt loops


5/4 - Finish jewelry


5/5 - Finish dress train


At that point, we're done (I think). That gives us about a week to adjust and tweak until we're happy with everything. For example, I did finish the colors on the jacket yesterday, but I feel like ther's too much white. After we're done with everything else, I'd like to go back and add some more purple. But for now, it's done.