TwiCon 2009 Recap

I wanted to give a little taste of TwiCon in pictures to all of you not able to go. I must add that some of these pictures were taken by the queen TwilightMOMs News blogger herself, Amy and some (most of which have her mark on them) were taken by photographer extraordinaire Heather of Heather Gardner Photography and Fire and Ice who also happened to be one of my roommates and my booth partner at the con.

Dallas!

Our fabulous booth we shared with The Mitch Hansen Band!

Gypsy Wings La Push Treasures

↑ This picture got onto Reelz Channel, as they were doing coverage of the entire convention.

http://www.reelzchannel.com/show/90/twicon-2009

That is our faithful servant Lauralee. She sold the snot out of our merch and was quite the

salesperson! She will be getting a surprise from me soon. ;-)

Dolls all posed and looking cute

All the Little Unreliable Vampires sold out quickly!

(but there are now more in my etsy shop - hurray!)

Wall o' banners

Our booth team: Heather, Me, Brock and Curt from Positive Music and Downloads

Our booth volunteers: Lauralee and Amy D.

Below is the official picture of "TwiGirl 2009" painted entirely in Twilight themed body art. I love this look. This picture of the actual banner doesn't do it justice.

On the second day of the con, the had painted her half wolf/half vampire. AMAZING!




This husband's shirt was brilliant.

"I lost my wife to Twilight"

The Central Cali Coven had a special sparkly TM shirt made just for THE Lisa

Everyone wants to nibble THE Lisa

Got to meet a few VolturiMOMs in person finally and now some of them are my assistants in the spotlight section. YAY for Amanda, Amy D and Christine!
AmyO, Amanda, Amy D, Christine, Lisa

Some awesome artwork. Robward made out of the words from the books.

Kimbra Hickey - the hands of Twilight. She is the hand model that graces the cover of Twilight. She told me that when she did the shoot, the photographer knew it was for a vampire book and specifically told her to make her hand and arms shape a "V" for "vampire". So cool!

I told her how it took me almost 45 minutes to get my hands positioned as close to hers as possible for this picture my dad took for our Official TM Charity, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.

Luckily, my friend Lina had a copy of our logo there for all the charity auctions she was holding at her booth (Go Lina!!) and she let me have it so that Kimbra could sign it.

Thank you Lina and Kimbra!!

Rae was making this face almost the entire convention. She was just about the hardest working volunteer there and got maybe 2-3 hours of sleep each night. I felt so bad for her. She deserves a month on an island made of books.

Evil Iguana sandwich for Lisa. Yum.



Our Miss Lisa on the Webmaster's Panel

Friday night Lisa and I found out we were going to introduce the triple band concert about 15 minutes before they started. We were so super nervous. I think we rehearsed our intro about 15 times before we went on. LOL!

The bands that played that night: The Mitch Hansen Band (our booth sponsor), National Rifle and 100 Monkeys!

The National Rifle

Mitch Hansen

Taken during our intro - not sure what I was doing here but it looks as though I'm sorta giving devil horns?? Rock on.

J. Action of 100 Monkeys

photo by Heather Gardner

Later that night, we spotted Jackson playing pool with some fellow TMs in pure TwilightMOM-hottie-on-a-stick style.

We also spotted Larry Carroll with MTV at the concert. Here he is catching up on his Twilight reading...

A group of us stayed after and had a nice chat with him. He is SUCH a cool guy.

Volturi Ball!!!

I was inspired by So You Think You Can Dance's famous Ramalama Bang Bang dance (it is my favorite EVER!) for my hair and make-up and wore my Steampunk Gothic black dress from the last vampire ball I went to - gotta get good use out of it, right?

Lisa primping

Doing Heather's hair and make-up. She ended up looking like a little fairy sprite. She's petite enough to be one. I actually think she may very well be!

Elevator fun. This is one of my favorite pictures of the night. We had to get a Georgia lips pic in there somewhere.

Funky, sexy socks and shoes!

Lisa and I were supposed to be the Volturi Wives, Sulpicia and Athenodora. Not a direct interpretation from the books but our own version.

There was a little girl there with her mom that was dressed like Claudia from Interview with a Vampire. I wanted to wrap her up and put her in my pocket, not just because she was unbelievably adorable, but because she played the part the entire time, fluttering her feather fan and tipping her tiny hat to us. It just KILLED me!!

We decided she should be our little Volturi child.

The beautiful Erin enjoying a glass of vampire wine in her retro chic cocktail dress.

Volturi Wives want a taste of the Larry.

What would a masquarde ball be without exotic masks? The next two are from are a particular Etsy seller, but I don't remember who at the moment. When I get the link I will be sure to post it. This lovely damsel wore a replica of Stephenie Meyer's dress from the Eclipse Prom and her her mask perfectly compliments it.

One of my other roommates, Brenda wore this mask from the same maker. The name of it is "Wind" and I LOVE the blue tone of it and her dress. Breezy. Flowing. Simply lovely.

There was a group of girls there who made each of their dresses to represent the Twilight book covers. Brilliant!

Dancing the night away...

I love my new friend, Erin. She's as cute as a button (and I LOVE buttons, as you will see on my new shop blog in the coming year or so as I make a million things with them). We share the same taste in style and would be perfectly content to spend the rest of our days shopping in vintage/retro/antique stores, watching Tim Burton movies, and crafting.

Lisa and Kimbra

This picture I simply adore. It is of Kelly (another one of my roommates), Heather, and Gabby(another new assistant to my spotlight section!!) I just love the giggly, girly look Kelly is giving here. A true TwilightMOM up to something.... hmmm....

Daniel, the Edward look-a-like of Fire and Ice, playing the Yiruma lullaby for all of us. Swoon!

A "ball" of a time had by all! It's the friends that always make it sooo fun. Thank you to all who helped out at our booth and volunteered countless hours so that we could enjoy the convention. TwilightMOMs rock!!!

Book Give-a-way: Izzy the Dizzy Dragonfly-Winner Announced!

Picture from Google images

Dragonflies hold a very special place in my ♥.

Ever since I was little, I've had an obsession with faeries and often searched for them in my backyard. A few summers after my family had a built-in pool put in, God sent me my faeries in the form of dragonflies. They would buzz around our heads while we were swimming and I discovered if you held your finger out and were ever so patient, they would delight you with dainty perch on the tip of your finger and sometimes stay there for minutes on end.



I would talk to them and memorize their wing patterns (so I would recognize them if they came back). They would tilt their heads as if to listen intently, clean their "WWI Flying Ace" eyes like a cat cleans it's ears, and smile at me with a friendly, segmented, exoskeletal grin. =)

Picture from National Geographic Explorer

Imagine my delight when I heard from a lovely lady who had just written a children's book about a dragonfly and wanted to do a give-a-way? It's just perfect, saith I! So I am super excited to introduce you to Izzy the Dizzy Dragonfly and it's author, Teri Gurule.

Izzy, being the dragonfly she is, likes to zig and zag through the air, but her flights of fancy can sometimes upset her friends. Will she have to stop flying the way she loves just to please them? In this sweet tale, children learn how to show respect and kindness to others while still being themselves.

Teri Gurule is from Albuquerque, New Mexico where she lives with her husband and 2 sons. She was inspired to write this book when she spotted a dragonfly one day while on a nature walk with her boys.

The book is for sale by 3 different online book vendors:

Tate Publishing

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

However, you could win a free, signed copy with matching bookmark from Tate Publishing just by entering this give-a-way!

Just follow these simple steps:

1. Blog, tweet, update your facebook status or myspace blog about this give-a-way with a link to this post. With each way you post about this give-a-way, this will enter you into the drawing.

2. You MUST make a comment under this post with a link to wherever you have posted about it. This comment is your ticket into the drawing and you must make a comment with each different way you post about it, or include a link to each all in one comment, if you are going to enter more than once.

3. Only one entry per method per day. (i.e. don't tweet about it 50 times in one day) For example, you can blog about it and tweet about it on Wednesday, then tweet about it and post about it on FB on Thursday, etc... get it? Each time you send it out to the webverse make a comment so I know to enter your name in the hat again.

4. The last entry will be taken this Monday 9-14-09 at midnight PST and the winner will be announced Tuesday, September 15th. Good luck to all!! I wish you lots of happy dragonflies!!

*•_•*•_•*•_•*•_•*•_•*•_•*•_•*

Update! Winner was chosen today using random.org and the winner is:

evrythngzen!!

Congratulations! Please send an email to me at feyavanya@pacbell.net with your name and address so I can get you your darling book. =)

For those of you who would still like a copy of Izzy the Dizzy Dragonfly please visit one of the book seller links above. You can also become a fan of the author, Teri Gurule, and see what other projects she is up to on her facebook page.

Thanks to all who entered! Teri and I appreciate your support. ♥

Twilight Inspired Goodies for TwiCon!

Head on over to my shop blog to see all the goodies I've been making for TwiCon. There is also a new blog button to the right for easy access in the future.

Here's a little preview...

Little Unreliable Vampires by The Black Pumpkin

He and other Twilight inspired creations are the reason I haven't been blogging lately. Each doll takes about 3-4 hrs to make to it has been very time consuming, to say the least. But I hope to be back in a couple weeks to post a children's book give-a-way, more shop stuff, more family stuff, and more "Britten-ish" stuff, of course. =)

Hope everyone is having a luscious summer.

~B