Geek Week!

Well, I managed to get one post up in July! hashtag winning! Between Fourth of July, Comic-con, Maine, and general shenanigans, the blog kinda fell to the wayside. But - I have a few posts coming up - on the previously mentioned Comic-con and some fun themed parties I'm in the process of planning. Until then... it's GEEK WEEK on YouTube!

They've got some great programming up including this Choose Your Own Adventure! Super cool right? I've been having a lot of fun watching the Geek Week videos. Not to mention productive at work!

How Many Did You Eat?

Last weekend I hosted our second annual Lord of the Rings marathon. All 3 extended versions of the movies = 13 hours of awesomeness! I had a lot of fun planning out the menu though we did have to combine a few of the meals for time's sake.

First Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies
- Sausage
- Bacon
- Hard-boiled Eggs
- Grape tomatoes
- Cheese Cubes

Lunch, Tea
- Finger Sandwiches
- Cherry Scones with clotted cream and jam
- Chicken Curry Balls
- Strawberries & Cream

Dinner, Supper
- Stew
- Croissant rolls
- Cake
- Cream Puffs

And then of course for snack there was Lembas bread! If you don't know what that is, let Legolas here explain it to you:

Lembas bread is typically wrapped in Mallorn leaves. I found a pattern for the leaves and a delicious recipe here. The website suggests making the leaves with craft foam, but I used cardstock.

I bought a pack of different shades of green and I think they turned out really nice. I drew the spines on the leaves with a green highlighter (on both sides so it looked more like an actual leaf.) Then I wrapped the bread up and tied it with some twine. It was a great snack in between meals. And the leftovers made a nice addition to my breakfast the next morning. More pictures of the party and a link to the drinking game we played after the jump!

Costumes and Nerd Heaven

As you all know, I love to dress up - whether it's for Halloween, themed parties, or Comic-con. Last year my brother and I dressed up as characters from Galaxy Quest. I'm still trying to get our costumes together for Comic-con this year. It's hard to choose what to go as - you want something that people will recognize, but not something that 100 other people are going to be dressed up as too. (ABSOLUTELY NO SLAVE PRINCESS LEIA'S) Also, as you will be running around all day, you want a costume that is semi-practical.

Costumesupercenter.com is running a contest for a chance to win a $1,000 shopping spree and $500 cash to spend at Comic-con. This year my brother, sister, and my friend Christina are all attending the Con together. Our plan is to go as Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. If I win I'm definitely buying my brother this outfit. It is a lot harder than I thought to find a regency costume for men. They have a costume that would work for women too so I won't have to force my sister to sew together costumes for us the day before we leave like I did last year (LOVE YOU SIS!). Winning $1,000 would also mean we could dress up MORE THAN ONE DAY because now we have MONAYZ. There is a Super-hero bar crawl on Friday and Saturday that sounds like a lot of fun and I am kinda digging this woman's spider-man costume. I'm pretty sure my sister would find a way to go as Lady Gaga because she is obsessed with her and is convinced that she is a super-hero in her own right.

$500 cash would mean we could also do the ZOMBIE OBSTACLE COURSE. I read about it a few weeks ago and immediately put it on our "to-do" list, however tickets are 80 bucks a pop and when you're already spending money on a flight and hotel plus fronting the money for your broke brother and sister, that's just a little out of my price range. But it does sound AWESOME.

Only 3 more weeks until NERD HEAVEN!!!

Never give up! Never Surrender!

Friday Musings #17

It's Star Wars Day people! I wish I had had the time this week to get out my star wars cookie cutters and really celebrate today. Oh well there's always May 4th 2013!!

Basically this is a weekend full of NERDY things. Tomorrow is free comic book day. If you're into that sort of thing you should definitely check out your local comic book store. I went last year and got a few free comics, though where they are now is any one's guess. If you're a Whedon fan like me, I hear there are some free Buffy/Serenity comics!

That's right Schmidt, but there is one sequel that I am pretty pumped about. AVENGERS! 

Geekologie had an article on a bunch of different Avenger eye-makeups. Captain America is def my favorite. I'm going to go see it on Sunday and kinda wish I could rock this look.

It's also Cinco de Mayo this weekend. She Knows has this awesome recipe for Piñata cookies. I totally want to make these someday. I hope your weekends are full of margaritas, tacos, and superheroes!

HUNGER GAMES TONIGHT!!!

This has me laughing non-stop. As I said before, this week has been crazy - I was up till 1am last night making THE COOLEST CAKE OF MY LIFE. Get excited for that post next week. I have my Effie hair, my Effie nails, and my Effie eyelashes. Hopefully the dress and shoes will fit in well with the rest. OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS - in 7.5 hours I WILL BE WATCHING THE HUNGER GAMES. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Friday Musings #3

The Hunger Games comes out March 23rd. (62 days!!!) I'm already trying to decide what to dress up as at the midnight showing. My current idea is Effie Trinket. I always feel like I need to go as a blonde - sorry Katniss. Plus Effie is just fun.

I need to find a dress/pattern and try to make something like this. I will probably try to find something at a Goodwill since 62 days doesn't seem like a long time to learn how to sew. I also already bought these eyelashes:

They're paper lashes that Sephora sells - I bought 2 different kinds - these and ones that look like peacocks. They're amazing and were only $10! If I can get a good enough costume together, I think I'll also dress up like her at Comic-con in July. Hope you all have a great weekend and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Because I Love All Things Harry Potter

The first adult sweater I ever made was of course, Harry Potter themed. I made it as a Christmas present for my college roommate (also a big HP fan). My Aunt Robin who is a ferocious knitter gave me a bunch of her old patterns and told me which ones would be easiest to make at my skill level. I picked a simple pull-over pattern which has you knit the front, back, and sleeves separately and then sew them all together at the end. 

I love you Ron!!!

I bought Red Heart yarn in Maroon and Gold (Yeah Gryffindor!!) and plunged in. Red Heart isn't the softest yarn so you'd definitely need to wear an undershirt. Knitting a present like this is so fun. The whole time I was knitting I kept chuckling to myself thinking of the look on Katie's face when she opened the present to find a Weasley sweater with her initial on it.

I made another one the following Christmas for our other roommate Barb. Again at this time I still didn't know how to knit with 2 colors so I embroidered the letters. The sweaters turned out great. The pattern is kind of a chunky sweater which I think is perfect - looks just like something Mrs. Weasley would make!

One Ring To Rule Them All

I am a nerd. I love fantasy and sci-fi and am therefore uber psyched for the new Hobbit movie!!




My whole family loves Lord of the Rings - in fact, my parents took my brother, sister, and me out of school to go to the very first showing the day it was released. I think we saw each movie at least twice in theaters. We own all the extended versions on DVD and may or may not also own this life size cutout:

Another thing I love? THEMED PARTIES! Over the summer a few friends and I got together for the ultimate marathon - all 3 LOTR movies (extended versions!) in one day. Twelve pure hours of Middle Earth geek-awesomeness. it. was. fantastic. One of my friends works for an interior design firm and printed out a giant map of Middle Earth so we could move the characters around as the story progressed.

All our meals were themed around the movie as well. (which basically just means we ate British food all day) For breakfast we had scones and tea. Fruit for second breakfast. A nice stew for dinner. Trail mix for elevensies. And I made this Hobbit Hole cake for dessert!

I used a cupcake for the Hobbit Hole bit and melted down chocolate for the stepping stones and fence. I had to fill in a lot of the gaps with copious amounts of frosting but its delicious so a little more wont hurt anyone. I think the pearl sprinkle finishes it off pretty nicely as the door handle.

I plan on being at the midnight showing of the Hobbit so maybe I'll throw a pre-viewing party and make some more fun Middle-Earth themed foods. Dwarf cupcakes?

A few more photos of the party after the jump.