Deck The Halls With Balls Of Bowie: Our Labyrinth Christmas Party Update

"How you turn my world, you precious thing PARTY. 

"You starve and near exhaust me."

Well, one out of two, anyway.

Soooo... hi!

As the countdown to our Labyrinth party ticks down John and I are swinging wildly from the depths of despair ("NEVER AGAIN") to the highest levels of giggle-fueled inspiration. ("Wait! The 'Toby Toss' needs CRASH HELMETS!")

Needless to say, this party is going to be completely ridiculous. 

Here comes a whole slew of props and projects, in no particular order.

(Fair warning: there are a LOT of double entendres coming with this party. We've decided to embrace them for maximum hilarity - so if ball jokes offend you, BEWARE, AND GO NO FURTHER.)

The last knocker sculpt I showed you got scrapped entirely; the Model Magic was a VERY bad call, and cracked all over. Not to mention it's not a good choice for sculpting fine details.

So I started again with these pink insulation foam layers, layering them up with tin foil:

(How's that for nightmare fuel?)

Then my friend Karen helped me again to sculpt a whole new face out of cheap air-dry clay:

This clay was so soft and easy to work with that it made a world of difference:

 

 The trick was to keep the clay wet, so it wouldn't dry out and crack. We spent 2 nights refining it, then immediately handed it over to John to make a brush-on silicone mold:

Orlando's Festival of Trees 2019

It's officially December and time to talk TREES, my tinsel-loving friends! John and I made our yearly trek to Orlando's own Festival of Trees, and I brought back alllll the pictures of my favorites. So let's dive in!

First a quick look at one of the lobby displays:

I really like the combo of evergreen trees with stick trees - and the fake snow skirts with lights under them! If I didn't have cats to worry about I would so be trying that.

Ok, let's start in the main foyer with the big BIG trees, where this sparkly blue monster was on a rotating base. So fancy.

(Shout-out to the OMA for doing a great job this year of matching the wall art to the trees!)

This tree is a LOT to look at, but my favorite parts were the branches sticking out the sides:

I'm all about dangly branches sticking out of trees. Very fun.

Here's a close-up. Look how the blue poinsettias positively GLOW:

I tried to take close-ups like this for a bunch of the trees; it was fun finding just the right section of ornaments to get the prettiest shot.

Across the foyer from Super Grover was this lovely Victorian style vignette:

Serious Grand Floridian vibes here - you Disney fans know what I'm talking about!

The tree is erupting with branches, bird cages, and butterflies:

With more of the same on the swoon-worthy mantle:

Here's a tree close-up:

Such a pretty color scheme with the wine, lime green, and gold.

Remember when mannequin tree skirts were all the rage? Well, we still have one hold-out:

With colors like these, I'm not complaining. They managed to make tree branches and trim look like peacock feathers! So pretty!

Let's move into the other galleries with this red-and-rustic number: