Mermaid Altered Art Book

Hey, check it out - a non Project Runway post!

Remember my current altered art book project? For those who have never heard of altered art, you take an item, usually a book, and you alter it with your own designs - paint, pictures, drawings etc. This is the second altered art round robin that I've been in. Each month the books rotate and you do a page in someone else's book. This project was a small group of only 7 gals and I got my finished book back this week. The theme for my book was 'Mermaids' and here is a look at the great work that was done in my book - (click images for larger views)

This layout included real seashells -





Sequins, glitter and pearls -



Very cool mermaid silhouettes -



This layout was a look at the dark side of the mermaid legend. I never imagined seeing skulls with my pretty mermaids, but I think the theme is really cool -


And lastly, pretty vintage ladies with sequins on their tails-

Project Runway - the judges obviously miss shopping at Merry-Go-Round

A quick PR recap this week because poor time management and other projects are making me very behind on my vintage work this week (again)
Last night's challenge was to take Levi's jeans and jean jackets and create a new garment with them.
Now denim is usually only good for jeans and jean jackets and skirts. Anything else has the tendency to look cheap or tacky in denim, unless done the right way.
*Victorya and Jillian both did jacket style dresses. Victorya's basically looked like a jean jacket with a skirt sewn onto it, not very innovative so she got the boot. Jillian's had a slight resemblance to the avant garde jacket that she did last week, but fell very, very short of the amazingness of the previous jacket. Thankfully Victorya sucked a little more than she did, so she was safe from the boot. But she did alot of whining and crying, and threw a few little fits while trying to work with the denim.

*Christian, the 1980s are over. Very over. There is no need to bring them back, so please stop with the harsh 80s looks every other week.
*Chris did a nicely fitted dress with corset top and nicely shaped detail trim. It was alright, kinda reminded me of something you would have bought at Merry-go-Round in the 1980s. But still better than the winner.
*Rami mesmerized the judges with his use of zippers as accents along the seams. Did the judges watch last season? Didn't they see Jeff do zippers along the seams in a few of his dresses? I don't get why they made such a fuss over those zippers on Rami's dress. Also a fairly nice outfit, but kind of tacky 80s looking too.
*Ricky won with a (yes, I said Ricky won) strapless mini dress with ruffled bottom. And there were tears of course. The buttons down the front were cute but I thought it was kinda cheap looking. By cheap I mean tacky, slightly on the trashy side, Merry-go-Round 1980s flashback again. He did a big bouffant hairstyle on his model. This allowed Michael Kors to show off how Hip & Cool he is by mentioning that he saw the Amy Whinehouse influence in the hair, and that he liked her too. Yeah, dirty ballet flats and (apparently) a crack pipe would have completed that look. Ricky's winning dress was offered for sale on the Levi's website and it's already sold out.

*SweetP started out making a denim wedding dress with different colors of denim. Yikes. It was looking kinda patchwork 70s hippie, so she very smartly changed her design. She came up with a dress (on the right above) that I thought should have been the winner. It was strapless (which I don't really like, especially on this model, who had no breasteses to fill it out) The shades of denim were cut on curves and pieced together so nicely that the colors just flowed from one to another, rather than looking like patchwork. My guess is that Ricky's dress won because Levi's saw it as more marketable and probably easier/cheaper to make than SweetP's dress.

That's twice SweetP should have won now. Unfair!

Over the river and through the woods . . . Project Runway Avant Garde

A really late PR recap because I went to visit both grandmoms today and drove home in a snow storm! They are both doing well. Grandmom #1 was in the hospital last week and grandmom #2 was in the hospital 2 months ago.
This week's challenge was to create an avant garde look inspired by dramatic model hairstyles. It was another team challenge, where predictabley no one wants to be the official team leader but they still want to have control of the design. Midway through, the designers were told that they also had to make a readywear version of their avant garde outfit. Panic, tears, vomitting.
Rami showed us a side that I didn't really like while teamed with Sweet P, who ended up in tears because of Rami riding her about how she did her work. Rami also got a little snippy with Tim, which I thought was out of line, show some respect to the Man, he's here to help you. Sweet P's dress was the readywear version and it was very sweet. Rami's dress was deemed 'not avant garde enough' by the judges (he should have done an outrageous bustle like Sweet P suggested)
Jillian & Victorya. Shudder at the idea of these two winers and complainers working together. They both talk in very low voices with barely moving their mouths or making any expressions. They had very restrained panic attacks through the whole episode while trying to get their outfits finished on time. They did a super sharp long jacket inspired by the equestrian-punk mohawk that their model had. Underneath was a blouse and riding pants that were cute, but weren't very avant garde, they probably could have passed for their ready-wear outfit. Instead the readywear outfit was a ruffled asymetric dress.
Christian & Chris. How many people cheered like I did when those two were teamed up?! Team Fierce. Actually, to be honest, Christ could have done that outfit himself and the credit for the fabulously over ruffled gown that they made really should have gone almost all to him. The avant garde outfit had a very striking appearance. The readywear outfit was a cute ruffled blouse but the skirt was very plain and could have used something else. The fabulousness of the avant garde dress won them this challenge which will get them a spread in Elle for TreSomme.

Kit & Ricky did a hoop skirt dress that the judges thought was Gone With the Wind. I actually liked the combination of fabrics on the hoop, but it just didn't 'wow'. And the readywear dress was just another little Ricky dress. Kit got the boot this week and I was really disappointed to see her go because I thought she was pretty cool. I still think Ricky (who I do think is a super nice guy) should have gone before Kit and Kevin too.