Watch The Soulfeathers rockin it.

Click here to watch The Soulfeathers on YouTube.


This band brings me back to college immediately. They were just starting up when I was at Clemson and played at my friend’s house parties all the time. My roomies and I were the girls dancing around in the front row the entire time. My best friend, Alicia Cato (yea, that pretty blonde one in the video) was asked to add her lovely vocals to the band. They played at our college graduation party and my engagement party. They do some amazing covers but their original music is incredible. Now they are rocking it all over South Carolina. Like them on facebook so you can get updates on their gigs. Nicest guys EVER; oh, and that chic is a gem herself.

how it’s made: lady gaga

I don’t think I need to explain that I’m an avid little monster. If you know me/read this blog it’s quite apparent. So- naturally when our department chose the theme “Rock Stars” for Halloween (it’s a big deal around here) I automatically knew it was my chance to be mother monster.



· Purchased the wig from Planet Halloween online.
· Dress- I thrifted from Buffalo Exchange in NYC
· Gloves/ tights / shoes- forever21
· Did drag queen make up with red lips
· My tea cup was the perfect accessory. I collect them. No- I’m not 80 years old.
· Telephone hat- I bought a Styrofoam bell at Michaels (perfection). Then bought a Styrofoam square and balls to make the actual phone part. Painted it black. Held together with toothpicks. Used thick white paper and number stickers to make the dial on the phone. The base that the bell was glued onto was some really weird hat I found in a kid’s bin at Michaels. I used it to glue on the phone so I could then attach to my head with bobby pins (which didn’t really work out as predicted). It was REALLY difficult to keep on and unfortunately the hat fell and broke but luckily right after the costume judging (won best homemade!).

how it’s made: Ariel from The Little Mermaid

the little Mermaid


What girl DOESN’T want to be a Disney Princess or mermaid? I mean for real, and at the ripe old age of 24 last year, I decided it was my time to be one. Here’s how I did it.


· The seashell worn on the top is from my Victoria’s Secret bathing suit. Took it off the bandeau top and used to hold the lavender fabric together.

· Purchased lavender bandeau top from some cheap Rave-like store in the mall.


· Purchased glittery lavender fabric for top from Hobby lobby- just folded it so it was the same width as bandeau. I used tape on Velcro on the back to keep it together

· Purchased the fabric for my “fins” from Jo-Anns Fabrics. It was quite perfect with the scale detailing and slight sheen. Basically, I made it into a double wrap skirt; one didn’t cover enough, so I did another going the opposite way on top of the bottom layer and VOILA – looks like a wrap skirt. Multiple safety pins were involved. Especially for the tail- just picked up some green mesh, tied strips of it, then pinned onto the bottom of the skirt.


· Makeup: Lips- Love That Pink from Revlon. Did Lavender on top lid and green on the bottom with mucho glitter to give that glistening “I’m a mermaid” effect. Also used a TON of that spray on multi-colored glitter they sale everywhere around Halloween.

· Hair- Natural Instincts in Raspberry Crème. I literally dyed my hair mermaid red for the costume. Then kept if for almost a year. I just googled the hair color and one of the (bad) reviews is “I look like Ariel.” Hahaha- well that’s PRECISELY what I was going for, and I loved it even out of costume. Oh- and I bought a star fish from Michaels and hot glued a hair clip to the back to make my hair piece

I bleed orange.

As my mother would say in my college essay to Clemson University “I bleed orange.” [and yes- my mom applied to Clemson for me because I thought I had no chance at getting in since they raised their standards, and to my surprise- I did; it was the best decision my mom ever made for me].

While I was only born and not raised in this amazing southern town, I consider it to be home. It’s where pretty much all of my family graduated from and currently live. I’ve gone to games since I was in the womb. In college I didn’t miss one football game. Nowadays- I look forward to the 2 games I get to attend a year as much as Christmas [when I say games, I mean “tailgating” because my attention span with sports doesn’t really allow me to stay focused on football that long]. It’s all about the atmosphere. This town could take anyone’s breath away on a game day.

For years now, the fraternities make these amazing floats on Bowman field at Homecoming. As a child- they were works of art. As a college girl [drinking a beer and helping “pomp”] it was a party. As a graduate, it made me oh so nostalgic.


Here’s a picture taken in 1992 and one taken this year trying “recreate” the awkwardness. Haha- enjoy!

*side note on the ’92 wardrobe choices.
Mom- you look AWESOME. Loving the leggings and oversized striped turtle neck.
Sissy- the bowl cut was not a good choice (like you had one at 3).
and to myself- my grandmother dressed me and I appreciated every cheesy coordinated outfit she gave me. Don’t hate.

How it’s made: Ursula from The Little Mermaid by K*Rod

I absolutely LOOOVE Halloween, so of course this means that I want a costume that is going to be fun and unique. Last year, during a game of beer pong, Kathryn and I came up with the idea of going as the Little Mermaid and Ursula. I’m not going to lie, making an Ursula costume seemed like quite a feat, but it all came together pretty quickly. Here’s how:



1. I scouted the local thrift stores in Denton to see if I could find anything that would give me an idea of the materials I might need. Luckily for me, Ruth’s Room was having an AMAZING sale where everything in the store was 50% off. I found this awesome corset and a high-waisted long black skirt that reached the floor. The total cost came out to about $5-7.
2. I had the idea of cutting the skirt into sections in order to form the tentacles. I went over to Jo-Ann’s fabrics and bought some purple silk-like fabric, glue sticks (for a hot glue gun), and some thread.
3. Next, after measuring and marking how short I wanted the skirt to be, I cut the skirt into 4 sections up to the mark I had made. Ursula only has 6 tentacles, so I was going to wear purple tights so that my legs would be 2 of the tentacles. After cutting the purple fabric into strips that matched the skirt length, I attempted to sew the purple fabric on. However, this was taking a long time. Soooo, I had to hit up Jo-Ann’s fabrics again for some Heat’n Bond Ultra Hold Iron-on Adhesive Tape. I ended up ironing on the adhesive tape to bond the purple fabric to the skirt.
4. During one of my various trips to Jo-Ann’s I bought some polyester fiberfill to stuff into the tentacles. After doing that, I took some wire cutters and cut metal hangers and ran the hanger into the stuffed tentacle and shaped them upwards. To make sure they would stay up, I hand sewed the back of the tentacles to the skirt. I had previously bought some small suction cups from Wal-Mart and painted them black with some craft paint I already had. I then used the hot glue gun to glue the suction cups to the tentacles.
5. To accessorize the costume, I bought a bag of shells, a black leather necklace strap, some purple craft paint, some earring wires, and a seaweed-looking black and purple garland at Michael’s. I wrapped the black leather strap to the top of a large shell and hot glued it to secure it. I then hot glued the earring wires to 2 small shells and painted them purple. I used some white color hairspray I bought at Wal-Mart to color my hair. Then Kathryn helped with my makeup and doused me in glitter spray.





AND THE REST IS HISTORY!!

RocKtober.

It’s my favorite month finally! Well not finally, actually, because 2011 is FLYING by like it can’t wait till the end of the world in 2012. Just kidding of course.

Reasons why I have renamed October ROCKtober:

Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks (just tried it a month ago and I’m HOOKED. One a week please)


Perfect weather. (Texas is pretty nice but Clemson is where fall is at its best)


Weekend mornings on my porch with a cup of coffee and my robe.


Football & my CURRENTLY undefeated CLEMSON TIGERS.


One year anniversary of my first and (only) tattoo.





Oktoberfest beer. YUM.


HALLOWEEN…obviously (posts to come about the creation of these costumes and this years’ costumes).





One year anniversary of the creation of KatBeckDesigns Featherbands (thanks to Megan’s inspirational visit a year ago).




Have a rocking start to October y'all!