Pay No Mind To The Pain

I have been given THE BEST present of all time…

My mom fronted the money for my dentist bill!

It means the world to me to have that front tooth fixed, you don't even know!

I went around, for over a year, with this hole in my smile. Financial struggle and lack of insurance made it impossible for me to make it to the dentist. For Dr. B to squeeze me in before the holiday and reconstructing my front tooth from almost nothing and my mother for throwing down almost $100 when she was having to decide between food or presents…

Yeah, I'm blessed!

The comical part never made me laugh, but that tooth always looked like I had pepper in my teeth. But, as it got worse, it looked more like I had been smoking crack. My dentist even asked me if I did meth or something! No, I've never tried hard drugs…ever! I'm a smoker addicted to coffee, I take antacids for my acidic stomach and I inherited soft teeth from both sides of my family. Plus, if I did hard drugs, I'd be skinny as a rail. Haha. yep, anywho.

Even though things are not going as planned, I can at least smile without covering my mouth. I can laugh aloud without being self conscious and I can feel better knowing that I have one less thing to worry about  :-D

My mouth is screaming right now, due to the extreme drilling doc had to do, but I can't even give a damn, I feel so much better :)

I had made a video about a month ago, I noticed my effing tooth in the video and just deleted it. I avoided putting on makeup, mostly because I thought it was pointless to try to look pretty when I can't even smile.

This is the best present ever! Thank you momma <3

Local Band Frenzy

Lately, all of my time has been committed to Albuquerque's finest Local Band, Ballistic Batz!

Becoming closer to the band has given me a light in my life that I needed. But, to be needed has me giddy like a little school girl! I've been busting my ass to make the band's merchandise to raise money so they can record, EXCITING! 

Yesterday, I drove down to El Paso with them, which was very....interesting. Quite a drive, the venue was kinda small, but a little crowd is better than no crowd.

These guys have been so busy putting their heart and soul into their music, it has inspired me.

Here are some photos and video of this past week...I don't document enough!

The T-shirt stencil I made for the cool chicks. Shirts were pink.

HI!!

My wonderful hubby took this of me while I was tracing stencils!

Ballistic Batz performing Head2Toe (sorry about the quality, I forgot my camera)

Video taken at the El Paso show by the wonderful owner!!

For more videos, check out my youtube channel

I even HANDMADE their necklaces thanks to this AWESOME woman and her tutorials, it made perfect sense to me and it turned out great:

Here's the tutorial

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BANDS!!!

P.S. BALLISTIC BATZ IS WHY I'M ZANEYBAT!! YEAH!!!

Yay! 1,000 views!

I'm delighted to announce my celebration of 1,000 views on my gothic blog!!! 

I would love to post a photo shoot that I've been day dreaming about for months! My method may be strange and unpractical, but I'm excited!

Any suggestions, Please comment below and let me know what you are picturing!

The only thing I miss about B.C. is the industrial areas. I used to hope and pray that we wouldn't get shot. Ha, seriously though!

How DIY Goths FAIL! (warnings and tips from personal experiences)

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!

1034D Brother Serger Review (Problem and Solution)

Firstly, I had mentioned a few months back that I was getting a serger. DIY goth is my everything, so a serger seemed like the right machine to have. I bought it from Amazon, and when it arrived I quickly opened up the box and started learning how to thread this monster!

What I saw when I first opened the box.

So, I specifically chose this brand and style because its the only 4 threaded serger that had adjustment knobs for different kinds of material, instead of having to mess with each tension wheel.

Well, I thought I was doing something wrong right from the start! I have watched evert threading video out there, read the instruction (which I now have memorized!) but the serger was eating my material! I could not figure it out, then I was pissed!!

After 3 weeks of endless searching, I found that the two guiding needles, underneath the foot, one of the two did not exist!!! Duh! I felt this overwhelming urge to scream! How dare they send me a broken machine! And, and how can something so small be sooo significant?! Luckily, Amazon let me send it back and they replaced it, no cost to me.

See the right guiding needle is there, but the left one is missing.

Now you can see, there should be 2 guiding needles! yay!

Got that all straitened out, and my second serger is amazing!! I'd recommend to anyone who loves making their own clothes, it was only $199, which is cheap considering the magic it makes!

Now, here is a picture of my very first hoodie!!!

Altogether, it might have taken me 4 hours, just because I freehanded it! WHAT?! YEAH! I got the material from walmart (stretchy, comfy, lovey) all for less than $5! The zipper was only a few bucks. So, yeah! Awesome sauces!

To wig, or Not to wig...

That is a question for us Goth Folk!

Wigs come in many quality categories, but the most popular is usually the least expensive and the most itchy!

I have a lot of hair, so its hard for me to wear hair pieces that require snug fitting. I do, however, love clip-in/tie-in  pieces! I've made a handful of pretty colored head things.

Being a diy-er and a goth at heart, it is no surprise that I've looked like this:

...or this....

(((So, I guess hair pieces have always been "my thing". I remember how excited I was when I made all of these. Every piece has a story, but shockingly, I no longer own any of them, now! I am an artist, I can make some similar, but I could never ever clone any of these pieces! I've tried)))

Now, Some of us do not like hair pieces, but some of us have gone out of our way to purchase or create some kind of extravagant creation to wear! Here it is again, To wig or not to wig?

What are the pros and cons of wearing hair gear of every category?

Does it not always come back down to the price? When I originally made either of these pieces, I did it to: 

1. Save money
2. Be original
3. Create for others
4. Artistically express myself through my appearance.

None of this was cheap! Even buying the cheapest materials, It ended costing a few hundred dollars altogether due to the learning process. When I started, there were 2 tutorials on youtube and only a few pictures...I learned the hard way. It was a fun, yet, a frustrating process, but I would not trade those experiences for the world! Now that I know how to do these things, I want to share with everyone else who is interested, I want to be the one that starts a 16 year old girl on her dread making, or clip-ins selling extravaganza!! I want my people to join me in creating and DIY-ing! I want us to come together and share our knowledge and our methods of madness!!

WHOSE WITH ME?!!

Let me know in the comments below!

Silly, Fun and Positively Amateur! *photo dump*

My heart is screaming with excitement today!! I finally have a chance to check out that Goth store thats like an hour from my house! I may even possibly do a photoshoot with my beautiful mother this week.

Now, with me, its totally amateur modeling and photography but we have SO much fun and thats what counts. To see what I mean, the photos below are many I am proud of:

Okay, maybe not that last one, lol.

So, yeah! I love playing around like this, even if I look ridiculous <3

~Love Zaney~