Showgirl Beauty Tip: Expensive Lashes

Every once in a while, an event comes along that warrants the wearing of fake eyelashes in everyday life.  Those events include your own wedding and a performance in a play.  Those events do not include a night out at the clubs.  (Please don't be that girl.  You really are beautiful just the way you are.)

When a lash-worthy event finally comes along, it makes perfect sense to want to pop into a fancy makeup store like MAC or Sephora to buy an expensive pair of lashes.  That's what almost every rookie showgirl does when she's buying makeup for her first show.  I certainly did.

Much like high heels and ice skates, fake lashes need to be broken in before they feel comfortable.  Expensive lashes are significantly stiffer than the $5 pairs that you can buy at Target or Walmart, so they are much harder to apply to your eyes and much less comfortable the first time you wear them.

So if you're only going to be wearing the lashes for one special evening, do your eyes a favor and buy less expensive lashes.  Once they're out of the package and on your eyes, no one will know the difference anyway.

Wondering if the cheaper ones will hold up?  I like to buy my ice show lashes at Target and I usually wear the same pair every day for months before I trade them out for new ones.  I just try not to take naps with them on; then they'll be toast.  ;-)

Happy lash shopping!
xoxo
Laura

Showgirl Beauty Tip: Crossing your Pins

Today's showgirl beauty tip is a 100% serious rule in ice shows:

Always cross your bobby pins!

What I mean is that every time you put a bobby pin in your hair, you should add a second bobby pin to it so the pins look like an X.  You can see an example of properly crossed pins in this crown braid tutorial.

Crossing your pins keeps them from falling out of your hair, which is pretty helpful in normal life and absolutely essential on the ice.  Skating over a bobby pin will make a skater fall every time, and I'd very much prefer it if that didn't happen when I'm up in a lift like in the pictures above.

Those pictures are from a really fun TV show that I did in Holland two years ago.  It was a "skating with the stars" type of show, and I loved participating in it with all my heart.

Happy pinning!
xoxo
Laura

August in Instagram Photos

August has been a crazy month filled with a lot of fun and skating and traveling and not as much blogging... oops.

Here's what my month has looked like in Instagram photos:

I skated in a million ice shows (that first picture is a view from the wings during a show), I tried knitting with teeny tiny knitting needles, and I rode on one of my favorite rides at Cedar Point: the swings.  I also hung out with my hilarious friend Courtney's stuffed animals backstage, watched my awesome friend Andy play his guitar, and rode on an antique carousel at the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky.

My feet were suffering during the shows at the end of the contract due to a very unfortunate run-in with some mosquitos, but then I packed up my crafting area and left town.  In Colorado I ate some really yummy spaghetti squash casserole at True Foods, checked out the cutesy stores in Cherry Creek, took some pictures with the "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" sign, and hung out with my best friend who coincidentally has the same haircut as me.

Did you have a good time in August as well?  I'd love to hear about it.

Here's to a new month!
xoxo
Laura

Heading Home

I'm all packed up.

We'll do 3 shows this afternoon and then start driving home.

I'm looking forward to stopping in Kansas to see my friend Johanna and I'm also looking forward to sleeping in my own bed on Tuesday night.  Yay!

xoxo
Laura

Change is in the Air (Again)

We've officially entered the last week of our summer show here in Sandusky.  We spent our last day off celebrating the end of our contract at our friend Chuck's farm.

The end of a show contract is always a strange time because we all know we're about to leave all the friends we've made.  I'll probably get to work with some of them on other ice shows down the road, but there's an equal chance that I may never see some of them again. It's the proverbial parting of ways. Ugh.

I've gone through this time once or twice a year for the past 7 years and I still find it unsettling.

These are the things I'll miss about this contract when it's over:

1.  My Sandusky bffs.  Each and every one of them.

2.  Having wordless conversations with my friend Shawna using just our eyes.

3.  Seeing everybody (and their stuffed animals) wearing the bows I knitted for them back in June.

4.  Singing the 4-show-day song with the other Laura.

5.  Laughing so hard with Andy during the show that I can barely stay on my feet.

But as each contract comes to a close, there's more to it than just leaving it all behind; there's also the excitement for what's coming next.  For me, that will be a 6-week break at home in Denver before my next skating contract in the Caribbean.  

I can't wait to spend all that time at home!

These are the things I'm looking forward to at home:

1.  Hanging out with my family and my Denver bffs.  I am so incredibly lucky to still have great friends back at home even though I haven't lived there full-time in 7 years.  (See you soon, Button!!!)

2.  Unlimited time for knitting and crafting. Yay!

3.  Yoga.  In a real studio with real instructors.

4.  Living within a mile or two of Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage, and Sunflower Market.  It's seriously gluten free heaven.

5.  Leaf peeping.  I can't wait to spend my favorite time of year in my favorite place in the world.

I guess the point of all this is that even though I'm sad to be leaving good old Sandusky, the future is looking pretty darn awesome as well.  And thanks to modern technology (I'm looking at you, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snap Chat, etc.) I know that all the friends I'll be missing will really only be a phone call (or a text or a tweet) away.

You stay classy, Sandusky.

xoxo

Laura

Work

My work week isn't Monday to Friday like most jobs, it's Thursday to Tuesday (with Wednesdays off).  And this week, my mind was so caught up in work stuff that I didn't have much time to think about my blog stuff.  Everyone knows how easily that can happen.

My work stuff is really fun though.  We've been practicing new tricks, watching the show we might skate in next summer, going to dinner with our fabulous casting director, performing with my big sister in the audience... things like that.

I also got to check out some cool pictures taken by photography students at Arapahoe Community College.  We volunteered to model for their class a month or two ago.  Here are my favorite shots.

Tomorrow is good old Wednesday (yay!) and I plan to spend the day off getting my head back into blogging mode.

Until then...
xoxo
Laura

Hair Bow Knitting Pattern

Whenever a rehearsal period ends and it's finally time for our show to open, I like to make little presents for all the girls to celebrate our opening day.  I made friendship bracelets when we opened this same show last summer, and this summer I decided to knit hair bows.

This is a great project if you're working on shrinking your yarn stash like I am, because each bow only uses a small fraction of a skein of yarn.  You can probably make several of these little guys without buying a single thing.  I made 10!

Notice the black loops behind the bows?  Those are hair ties that are built right in for ease of use.

Materials:
Worsted weight yarn (any color, any material, whatever you've got in your stash!)
US Size 3 knitting needles
Hair ties (I used Goody ouchless elastics in black)
Scissors
Tapestry needle

Pattern:
Cast on 10 stitches
Row 1: Knit

Row 2: Purl
Repeat these two rows for 6.5 inches.
Cast off

Finishing:
1.  Weave in the ends.
2.  Place the knitting on a table right-side down (aka purl side up).
3.  Fold the cast on and the cast off edges toward each other so they touch, as shown in the picture on the right.
4.  Seam the two edges together so the fabric becomes a loop.
5.  Wrap a piece of yarn around the middle of the loop so that it looks like a bow; then secure that piece of yarn with a knot.
6.  Now hold a hair band against the back of the bow and wrap another piece of yarn around both the middle of the bow and one side of the hair band.  Secure the yarn with a knot.

You should now have a finished bow attached to a hair band!

Here's a shot of all my lovely cast mates modeling their bows:

I had a great time knitting these bows, and I think they were a big hit with the girls.

I used all different types of yarn to make these, and the bows made of superwash wool were definitely the easiest to knit, but the cotton bows felt the sturdiest as finished products.  Can you tell which bows were made with which type of yarn?

No matter which yarn I was using, I had a great time creating this pattern and knitting these little guys, and I hope you have fun with them too.

Happy knitting!
xoxo
Laura

Doodle Stitching

I finally ended up buying this embroidery kit and I'm trying it out right now, see?

I'm only a week and a half away from the end of my current ice show contract, and with the end of a contract comes a lot of goodbyes.  With that in mind, I'm going to spend this week embroidering cards for all the friends that I'll be leaving.  I think it will be a fun learning experience, since my current embroidery skills are super basic.

Have you ever used a kit like this one?  Did you find it helpful?
xoxo
Laura