LennyMachine
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2015
28 days until WDW! And 30 days until our cruise!
Meaning only 30 days to break this terrible Tsum Tsum habit I've formed (the iPhone game, not the toy -- though I could totally get into those, too!).
At one month to go, packing has already begun, with a lot of the "bare necessities" for our Disney trips -- autograph books and Sharpies, pins and pin lanyards*, quarters and pennies for obtaining flattened pennies -- coming out of storage and into the suitcases. Right now, I'm spending more time obsessing over the packing list than the actual packing. Should I get a multi-USB port for charging or just carry all the chargers as usual? Should I get a tray to carry food for 5 people back to the staterooms? Minutiae like that, which, for me, is part of the pleasure of Disney planning.
One important ongoing item is the pirate costumes! Our WALL-E costumes from last year had to be homemade, because there are no commercially available costumes on the market, and the handmade items available on Etsy were not what we had in mind. For pirates, though, I know the market is already basically saturated with pirate costumes, plus I don't know how to sew, so everything was going to have to be purchased or made to order.
The kids were easy, because there are bajillion kids pirate costumes available. For my son, Jack, age 6, it's this guy:
A very handsome costume, to be sure, but let's hope it still fits, since I bought this months ago at a steeply discounted price.
For my daughter, Julia, 2, I bought a couple of costumes, and the simpler one actually looked better on her:
I used a safety pin to gather up and pin the left side of the dress so it looks more "pirate wench-y." But again, purchased months ago, so we're probably due for another fitting.
For me, as a Chinese American, I wanted to do a Chinese-inspired costume, something along the lines of Elizabeth's costume when she becomes the captain of the Chinese ship in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' . . . 37? I was surprised and pleased that Googling "Chinese women pirate" pulls up one key figure, Ching Shih ("Zheng Shi" in modernized Pinyin). Originally a prostitute in Guangzhou, she married the captain of the powerful and notorious Red Flag Fleet then took over when he died. She is viewed as one of the most successful pirates in world history, being one of the few to make it to retirement.
Even *more* pleasing was the fact that a blog called "Take Halloween Back" has designed a Ching Shih costume! The website's aim is to provide inspirations for non-sexy Halloween costumes for women (that is, no Sexy Pirate, Sexy Nurse, Sexy Big Bird, etc.), and a lot of the figures they use are historical or mythological. Here is their style card:
The jacket was the most expensive item, but luckily, I already have a couple of my own. The only thing I have left to get is a shirt to go underneath, as the jacket will be unbuttoned. I've ordered a traditional Chinese dudou (a kind of a triangle-shaped undershirt) and hoping it will work with the costume.
My husband's costume was a little trickier. He is very particular, so I couldn't get him just any ol' pirate costume. Then, one day, as I was looking at the biography he was reading at the time, inspiration hit me: NAPOLEON PIRATE. I mean, the idea of a pirate with a Napoleon hat? YEAH!!!
So, take one Napoleon costume:
[which, I assure you, is *way* cooler than this photo lets on!]
Add one Napoleon hat:
And a pirate-like shirt:
And maybe some good pirate makeup . . . And *hopefully* we'll get something that looks like a pirate!
Meaning only 30 days to break this terrible Tsum Tsum habit I've formed (the iPhone game, not the toy -- though I could totally get into those, too!).
At one month to go, packing has already begun, with a lot of the "bare necessities" for our Disney trips -- autograph books and Sharpies, pins and pin lanyards*, quarters and pennies for obtaining flattened pennies -- coming out of storage and into the suitcases. Right now, I'm spending more time obsessing over the packing list than the actual packing. Should I get a multi-USB port for charging or just carry all the chargers as usual? Should I get a tray to carry food for 5 people back to the staterooms? Minutiae like that, which, for me, is part of the pleasure of Disney planning.
One important ongoing item is the pirate costumes! Our WALL-E costumes from last year had to be homemade, because there are no commercially available costumes on the market, and the handmade items available on Etsy were not what we had in mind. For pirates, though, I know the market is already basically saturated with pirate costumes, plus I don't know how to sew, so everything was going to have to be purchased or made to order.
The kids were easy, because there are bajillion kids pirate costumes available. For my son, Jack, age 6, it's this guy:
A very handsome costume, to be sure, but let's hope it still fits, since I bought this months ago at a steeply discounted price.
For my daughter, Julia, 2, I bought a couple of costumes, and the simpler one actually looked better on her:
I used a safety pin to gather up and pin the left side of the dress so it looks more "pirate wench-y." But again, purchased months ago, so we're probably due for another fitting.
For me, as a Chinese American, I wanted to do a Chinese-inspired costume, something along the lines of Elizabeth's costume when she becomes the captain of the Chinese ship in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' . . . 37?
I was surprised and pleased that Googling "Chinese women pirate" pulls up one key figure, Ching Shih ("Zheng Shi" in modernized Pinyin). Originally a prostitute in Guangzhou, she married the captain of the powerful and notorious Red Flag Fleet then took over when he died. She is viewed as one of the most successful pirates in world history, being one of the few to make it to retirement.Even *more* pleasing was the fact that a blog called "Take Halloween Back" has designed a Ching Shih costume! The website's aim is to provide inspirations for non-sexy Halloween costumes for women (that is, no Sexy Pirate, Sexy Nurse, Sexy Big Bird, etc.), and a lot of the figures they use are historical or mythological. Here is their style card:
The jacket was the most expensive item, but luckily, I already have a couple of my own.
The only thing I have left to get is a shirt to go underneath, as the jacket will be unbuttoned. I've ordered a traditional Chinese dudou (a kind of a triangle-shaped undershirt) and hoping it will work with the costume.My husband's costume was a little trickier. He is very particular, so I couldn't get him just any ol' pirate costume. Then, one day, as I was looking at the biography he was reading at the time, inspiration hit me: NAPOLEON PIRATE. I mean, the idea of a pirate with a Napoleon hat? YEAH!!!
So, take one Napoleon costume:
[which, I assure you, is *way* cooler than this photo lets on!]
Add one Napoleon hat:
And a pirate-like shirt:
And maybe some good pirate makeup . . . And *hopefully* we'll get something that looks like a pirate!
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I think the main difficulty is taking a military-type costume and dressing it down enough to make it pirate-y. In my head, the backstory is he was a naval officer in Napoleon's fleet but decided to become a privateer when he found it was a more lucrative line of work. 
Book staterooms
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