Project Easter Hat

Happy Easter and a day for those who celebrated over the weekend.

Our family is Eastern Orthodox, so we ae entering Holy Week this week. And I have a fun post to share with you today.

Anyone who's followed this blog for some time knows I rarely post photos of myself, mostly because I want to post interesting content, and photos of me typically aren't very interesting.

Today is an exception.

Fun fact: I love hats. I also have a large collection of hats, most of which were gifts.

In 2017, I needed a new Easter hat for my favorite blue dress. The dress is as old as child number four (Timothy), making the dress thirty-one years old. So to extend the life of the dress, I usually only wear it a few times a year and always at Easter.

So while trying different hats, Rebekah started snapping photos, and I got into the mood with goofy expressions. We could only afford one hat at the time, so none of the ones in the photos came home with me, not because they weren't good hats but because they didn't go with the dress.

The first photo is of actual hats I currently own.

Happy Monday and keep smiling!

BryonySeries Throwback Thursday: Making the Bryony Video, Step Three: Finding Melissa Marchellis

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Making the Bryony Video, Step Three: Finding Melissa Marchellis

Up until this month, Bryony filmmaker Stephen Tuplin had an actress interested in playing Melissa. After we set a production date, the actress had a conflict of interest, so Stephen asked my seventeen year old daughter Rebekah to portray Bryony's main character. He liked her "look," for the role, he said.

I thought Rebekah would refuse. She is very shy, preferring to hang out with one friend at a time rather than a room full of people. To my surprise, she agreed to do it, so I copied the script, and she began practicing "swaying and swooning."

Five hundred miles away, her older sister, Sarah Stegall, Bryony web administrator, was seeking someone to "makeover" Rebekah. Sarah found two people. Vanna Fleetwood to cut and style Rebekah's hair, and Jennifer Wesolowski to do her makeup.

On the Sunday afternoon before the April 20 shoot, Jennifer, Rebekah, her friend, and I huddled in a department store bathroom experimenting. Jennifer strove for a natural look, since "Melissa" would be on her way to bed, but wanted to highlight Rebekah's large, blue eyes.

Meeting in a department store had its advantages. Not only was it a location for us, we had a ready supply of product just waiting to be purchased and tried out on Rebekah's face. Fortunately, Rebekah had brought her own makeup with her, so few additional items were acquired.

Conversation was mostly, "Watch how I put this one and now you try it," and, "No, we're not line for the bathroom." Rebekah's friend took "before" and "after" pictures with her camera phone to send to Sarah for posting on the Bryony blog and Facebook pages. (We've haven't gotten that far yet, oops!).

Although she exhorted Rebekah to practice at home, Jennifer had so much fun, she offered to come out to the Magosky mansion the night of filming and do Rebekah's makeup. Good thing, too, because Rebekah came down with a nasty cold later that day and didn't feel up to playing with cosmetics.

While we were playing with eyeliner and mascara, Rebekah's older brother, Timothy, was looking for 70s-style pajamas. He had taken Rebekah shopping the other day, found a couple of possibilities, and sent, after having received permission from an employee, photographs from the floor to me for critiquing. ("Excuse me, ma'am, may I please take pictures of women's nightwear?").

Again, we found two pairs that might work, so we sent the images to Stephen and dug through a bin of DVDs waiting for his reply. He suggested buying both. That way, if one didn't work well under the lights, we had options. We paid eighteen dollars total and left the store, feeling like we had an MGM budget.

Now all we needed were a couple of Victorian men's suits and a blond wig. How difficult could that be?

BryonySeries Throwback Thursday: Logo, Makeover, and First Appearances

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Logo, Makeover, and First Appearances

Wow! Bryony is getting busy.

First, the official Bryony logo and tagline is complete, thanks to Bryony's illustrator, Kathleen Rose Van Pelt (http://www.imaginarylinesstudio.com/) and CAL Graphisc, Inc (http://www.calgraphicsinc.com/).

To view, click onto Bryony's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bryony/115857775121196?ref=sgm

My publicist, Dulcinea Hawksworth, has scheduled a makeover for this Friday afternoon and is coming with TWO cameras in tow--I don't own one :(--so she can take lots of pictures of the "new me" to post on the Bryony sites.

Now, this a little daunting for me because I don't wear makeup (I have chronic hives), but Dulcinea insists it's part of my packaging (see http://bryonyseries.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-am-commodity.html), and that the make-up is very hypo-allergenic.

I trust Dulcinea's judgment and, besides, it's should be a nice bonding time with my two daughters. Rebekah, seventeen, can heckle me in person, and my web administrator, Sarah Stegall, who lives out of state, can heckle me long-distance, via camera phones.

I have a dressmaker!!!

Last week she came to my house and measured me for my first, three Victorian outfits: two walking suits (spring and fall), and a ball gown. Yesterday, we purchased our first patterns and several yards of shimmering burgundy/black fabric, on sale.

Her future plans--sooner than later--is to kidnap me for a day (sans her children--two small boys who "helped" us yesterday look for patterns) and flee to a much larger, out-of-town fabric store.

Last, but certainly not least, Bryony has two upcoming events. Because any profits of the Bryony cookbook will be donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties (http://www.bbbs.org/), Bryony is supporting the 2011 Bowl for Kids' Sake in two ways, by helping to fund event costs and through pledge-sponsored bowling on March 25.

If you live in the area and want to become a sponsor, form a team, join an existing team, or pledge a bowler, visit http://bfks.kintera.org/ for details. It takes $1000 to match one child with a positive adult mentor, so any help is welcomed, appreciated, and put to good use.

Bryony will also participate in an April 10 event at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Joliet (http://www.uucj.com/). I don't have details, but will share them when I do. Although WriteLife LLC does not yet have a release date for Bryony, the entire Bryony team is eager to start spreading the word.

To view sketches and biographies of the Bryony team, visit our website at http://www.bryonyseries.com/ or click here: http://www.bryonyseries.com/About_Us_FFC4.html.

I wonder if the spring walking suit is appropriate for April 10. I certainly hope so!!!