Through SO many trial and error experiments, through bringing a dead girl back to life, how much can a DIY Goth fail?
I've tried to make my own things for years with so many mistakes and fumbles, I thought I was a hopeless crafter. But, I do have some pointers for the crafty bunch out there!
Mind you, these are opinions and experiments I've done, and I am no professional. Trial and error is the only way I've learned.
Now that everyone in the goth community knows how to make their own dreads, I have a suggestion for the girls and ghouls about dreads:
NUMBER ONE!!
Synthetic Dreads
Always make sure that when making synthetic dreads, you use KANEKALON! This was the first lesson I learned, whew, almost 5 years ago! Kanekalon is the fiber you want because of its shrinking properties. When steam is added, the tangled fibers shrink and tighten around each other, causing the lock to stay, well, locked.
NUMBER TWO!!
Accessory and Jewelry making
When you decide to make your own accessories, make sure you know exactly what you are going for. Try to avoid bursting your own bubble, but go hard, jump to it! It took me 2 years to figure out the proper way to create a mold and to make my own charms, and to be honest...its almost not worth it :(
I went out and purchased the mold maker mix, $14. The apoxy jewelry maker (you pour it into your mold and leave it sit for like 24 hours and it gets hard, pop it out, got your charm.) which was almost $20. Jewelry wire (optional, if you want your charm to dangle) $10 for a spool. Then what ever else, like glue, ribbon, sparkles, gems. That was a $40+ dollar trial and error!! OUCH! So, unless you fully plan to mass produce something that will go for 15 to 20 dollars a pop, the hit and miss for your personal uses almost isn't worth it! FAIL! I'm not saying this will happen to you, I'm just sharing my failureness with you :) I won't hold you back!
NUMBER THREE!!!
Corsets
When buying corsets, be aware of the cheapies! My mom used to buy us both the cute corset shirt things from hot topic, NO! Be warned, if you suffer from short torso-itis, be careful buying boned corsets in general! The corsets from HT had plastic boning, cost $50 and with our short torsos, the plastic boning got all wavy and deformed! These are not meant to make thick girls look smaller! If anything they made my shapely, shortness look much wider than I am. Instead, go for slim fitted tees or something.
GET CRAFTY OR GO HOME...WAIT...usually I'm crafty at home, only.
When crafting elsewhere
You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose!
When crafting at someone else's house, please clean up your messes! Don't leave anything permanent on their walls or floors. Don't paint their little one's bodies with non-toxic paint and tell them to play hide and seek. Its just never a good idea!
