Royal Family 5K Costume Prep - in Photos!

While I am running the Princess Half next month and haven't shut up about, I am also participating in the Royal Family 5K the morning before. My mom and I will be walking together. This is purely because I want more bling!!  Last year I did the Royal Family 5K and it was an amazing experience. For me it was the start of a racing addiction, and a race that I took seriously. Taking it seriously meant I wasn't going in costume. (Much like with the half this year where I really have to put my energy into running and surviving, versus worrying about random costume pieces.) SO my mom and I are going to be totally matchy-matchy! We are going to be head to toe orange and black, with some little veils that we JUST created!! Take a look now, as the Rae Girls attempt to be creative and artistic!

Thursday night we threw on our gross painting clothes and met at my mom's house to dye our veils and flowers. The veils started out white, our plan was for black. The once ivory flowers would end up orange. But would it work?

So far, so good!!  What a tedious and boring process. Constant stirring for over 30 minutes! Ugh. But it was fun to watch everything start to change colors - it was like those old Hypercolor t-shirts, except not.

I gathered together oodles of sparking things .... of the royal variety! ... and a glue gun. Oh how excited I was about the glue gun!

You can notice my dog helping me out in the background. The glue gun was tons of fun .... until, well... you see that bowl on the table by me? That's where I'd throw my hand every time I finished gluing. Photos of the poor fingers will be up soon!

My mommy cracked us both up when she actually dared to bring out a needle and thread. Yeah, right! Hello? This is why I bought a glue gun. I take the easy way out of things if I possibly can!

I solicited some help from the girl to the left! (She was still in most of her costume when I had her play Strawberry Shortcake Gone Bad. She took out Raggedy Anne in the bathroom one unfortunately late October night in 2006.)  We used this doll to hang our veils so we could see out it was all coming together. I just adore her make-up. I'm never washing it off!

My inner drag queen came out once I pulled out some neon feathers. And do you see that flower on my head??? I felt like one of those Munchkins that pops up with a flower pot on their head!  You know, with feathers the natural progression leads you to.... sequins!

This is the back view of the first completely veil. We ended up adding more rhinestones to it later when we found a missing stash of them!

And here's the front view ... with  my little helper! 

I feel like I should warn you about what you are about to see! I have terrible old lady hands. They used to crack open and you'd see all these gross disgusting layers of skin. For years nothing would work. I remember a Jazz Band concert in 9th grade. I first played my flute for the concert band, then switched over to the piano. I had to play with 10 band-aids on my fingers just to help muffle the pain. So now my finger tips are all scarred and wrinkly looking.  So now the photo - my thumb and finger less than 24 hours after burning them with the glue gun. Fortunately I had no pain on Day 2!

And now I'll end with a close up of perhaps the most gaudy part of the our veils ... the headband covered in sequins - accentuated with a flower in a bed of feathers!

And there you have it! These will make their public debut early in the morning on February 26th!