Well, Betsy and I are still doing our crazy walks down our road and even managed to make the local paper. Thank you to the residents who got in touch with them!
I’ve also got a few more images of some of our other walks below…
Tag Archives: fancy dress
Walking Away Those Blues
Covid-19 Morale
I hope you have all been staying safe and healthy in these unsettling times! It can be incredibly intense and claustrophobic being isolated, but you are doing great.
To update you with what I’ve been up to…every single week day, my 4 year old daughter and I dress up in a different theme and take our 1 hour of exercise time. My plan was to create some crazily cool memories for Betsy, focus on something fun by dressing up and bring some morale to the street. I suffer with depression quite badly and love the escapism of fancy dress or costuming. The fact I can use this outlet as a ray of sunshine for other people and keep my mental health more-or-less stable in these uncertain times is brilliant.
I began by writing a list of characters we could do and even bought a mic that has a little inbuilt speaker so that I could sing to the residents too. At first we only saw a couple of people looking, but now most of the street waves or twitches their curtains at 11.30am each morning!
When I moved here 4 years ago I became familiar with about 4 people in my street. Who would’ve known that a desperately worrying time would lead to so many more friendships being formed from 2 metres away?
So far we’ve done Disney Princesses, Unicorns, rainbows, fairies, Maleficent and a dragon, Steampunk dolls, Mary Poppins, Dorothy Gale (Wizard of Oz) and Glinda the Good Witch, 1940’s, 1950’s and my favourite… Santa and his elf!
It was BAKING this Tuesday and I was dressed in full Father Christmas outfit, complete with beard, wig and hat. I had ordered a pack of 50 toilet rolls that I stacked inside my cart, which was decorated with tinsel, a reindeer and more! I put some vintage festive songs on my Bluetooth speaker and we made our way down the road. Everyone who waved got a toilet roll and I ran out! I left one on a parked ambulance, along with some sweets. “Ho ho ho! Meeeeerrrrry Covidmas!”
What else have I done? Oh! I wrote a parody of ‘It’s in His Kiss’ (made famous by Cher in Mermaids). It’s called ‘Is it Covid’ and you can see it HERE.
I’ll keep you updated on happenings. I’m just trying real hard not to lose my marbles. X
Enchanted Woodland Tea Party
Kitten von Mew - Deer Makeup
On Saturday we went to Candee’s Birthday tea party, which was an enchanted woodland theme! I had been planning costumes ever since she invited us and either thought Unicorn or Enchanted Fawn. I went with the latter and Mr. Mew as Mr. Tumnus!
I had bought some gorgeous handmade leather antlers just for the occasion and transformed a cheap angel fancy dress costume into something a little more mythical. I added an autumnal decoration and hair flowers to my headress too!
Richard borrowed a pair of my horns that were made by a lady who created some of the masks for the film Labyrinth and I made him a pair of fur trousers!
The best part of both costumes were…hoof boots! I had had a look online for hoof shoes, but at around £250 a pair I decided to make my own. After a mortifying shopping trip to New Look for some £10 chavvy platform boots (I shudder as I remembering trying them on and gazing at the far lovelier vintage styles that were mocking me from the shelves), I build up the toe in a hoof-like affair with plastic from a rasberry punnet and papermache. After drying, painted the toes with acrylic paint and finished with glittery PVA to protect it.
Meanwhile, I had ordered 2 fabulously furry cushion covers online, which made perfect leg covers for both my boots and Richards! After sticking the tube of fluffy cushion cover fabric around the edges of the shoes, there wasn’t much to do but look ABSOLUTELY AWESOME IN THEM!
My DIY Hoof Boot Stages!
Candee had done a great job with the decor and everyone had given a helping hand with food, so the place looked like the inside of Fanny Craddock’s brain. It was amazing and I was most impressed with Jacob’s hedgehog chocolate cake and the amazing tiered woodland cake below…
Woodland Themed Birthday Cake!
For gifts, we had decided to get creative and whilst Mr. Mew made an amazing light box (Im sure he will post it on his Facebook Page!), I made an Alice in Wonderland pendant out of a Victorian pocket watch case, pewter and copper figures and a little imagination…
Pocket Watch Necklace by Kitten von Mew
I will be doing these on a commission basis too, but Candee got the first one 🙂
Halloween Costumes and Pumpkin Pies!
Halloween decorations at home with my pumpkin pie!
I am a huge fan of Halloween, always have been. A great excuse to dress up and carve pumpkins, Mr. Mew and I decorated our little cottage with Halloween decoration ranging from paper lanterns to a little bubbling couldron!
On Friday we went to my friend HP Saucy’s Halloween party. We only knew a few people there, but the place looked great! Amazing what you can do with a role of black bin bags! Most had gone as witches and the like, one guy had not even bothered (so I took him into HP’s bedroom, eyebrow pencilled an eye on his palm and transformed him into David Blane…) and Mr. Mew and I went as the Phantom of the Opera and a 1930’s Pierrot clown!
My Pierrot clown Halloween costume
Mr. Mew at HP's party dressed as Erik
Kitten von Mew and Helen Wright at HP's Halloween party
You may have spotted a severed finger in my hand above…This is in fact a Witches Finger that I made a large batch of for the party! Simply look up a shortbread biscuit mix (use plain flour and no baking powder or raising agent), create finger sized sausages after letting it cool in the fridge for an hour and press down lightly on 2 points to form a knuckle. Press an almond flake in the top as a nail and pop into a hot over for 20 minutes. Once cooled, carefully remove the almond and re-attach it with red icing. I also dipped the ends to make them more gorey and scored 3 lines on the knuckles!
Wiches Fingers made by Kitten!
HP being strangled by her partner Dai
On Halloween itself we invited our best friends Candee and Jocob over to watch a horror film (The Cottage). The front room looked an absolute picture and I had layed out marshmallows in the shape of pumpkins in a little black couldron on the table, a hand shapes jelly and a new pumpkin pie with witches fingers bursting out of the top! How good does that look! (see image below).
I made up the recipe as I had lost the original and it ended up being far nicer. It is a mixture of meringue and pumpkin, hence the name ‘Kitten’s Merkin Pie’ which is fitting for a burlesque dancer 😉
3 x egg whites whisked until peaked
3/4 cup of brown or light brown sugar
Savoury pastry case to save time
1/2 tsp of mixed spice
1 tsp of cinammon
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 x Large squeeze of lemon (add a little ornage rind if you like too! Yummy!)
flesh from 1 medium pumpkin
A pot of single cream for pouring
Cover the pumpkin flesh with water and boil for an hour. Sieve it and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Leave to cool whilst you go and carve your pumpkin!
Mix all the dry ingredients together and then fold in the meringue and pumpkin flesh being careful not to loose the air bubbles. Squeeze in the lemon, pop into the pastry case and bake for 20minutes (or until a knife comes out clean from the centre). Serve warm with single cream. I also stuck in 5 Witches Finger biscuits for shock factor!
Kitten von Mew with Sugar Skull makeup, pumpkin pie and jelly!
Like the makeup? I was going to do it for HP’s party, but decided on the pierrot which was a good job as my friend Helen did it! This was my first attempt at sugar skull makeup (think Day of the Dead, which incidentally was yesterday!). I used the white makeup I buoght for the clown costume, my liquid eye liner and eyeshadow palette to colour it in. I also painted Mr. Mew too!
Mr. Mew and Kitten's Halloween makeup!
Candee and Jacob arrived at the door and we whipped open the curtain to shock them. They looked fantastic and we all laughed at each other through the glass before letting them in!
Candee and Jacob, Halloween 2011
How amazing do they look?! Funnily enough, this is the talented lady that took the large photo of Mr. Mew and I behind her!
They brought with them a murder of fake crows and about 4 or 5 carved pumpkins that we dotted around the room with our own. I was thrilled to learn that this was their first tast of pumpkin pie that they seem to enjoy (or graciously chewed!) and were impressed by the finger biscuits too!
We had such a great time and next year we will all be together again for Halloween in Budapest and Transylvania on a steam train journey!
1940's Pin-Up Entertainer Kitten von Mew 