Everybody Scream, Everybody Scream, It’s Halloween!

Hi Internet People,

I know those aren’t really the lyrics to This is Halloween, but since I haven’t been able to get my official move-in papers for the town of Halloween or Halloweentown I thought it’d be okay to mess them up a bit. Today is my favorite day of the year and I am going to be dressed up all day! I know I mentioned that my comic book store is doing a costume contest so I’m going to head over there later today with Benny. I did finally decide on a costume, but I won’t be posting pics here until tomorrow. I will be tweeting some out, I promise.

I wasn’t sure what I would be doing, Benny is totally going as Ghost Rider because I had the supplies and he wanted to show that he could be a bony bad ass, but I finally figured something out. I am going as Liv in a Gwen costume, yeah I know that’s kind of random and I’m sure no one will get it. At the comic book store I’ll probably just say I’m Gwen from the iZombie comics, but you and I will know that I’m secretly Liv in a zombie costume. I even bought a wig, which was technically a Game of Thrones wig. I did some hacking and sprayed it with a bit of sort of white hair spray stuff and turned it into a sort of Liv wig.

I have to work today, but I get to wear my costume so that’ll be fun. I’m supposed to get off around 9:30 pm est so at 11 pm est I will be doing a Halloween Periscope. I’ll keep my iZombie costume on so that people can see it and I will be doing a bit of a stupid Katherine trick. I promised to sing a Taylor Swift song, though I haven’t picked one yet. I’m not a big Swifty so I don’t really know a lot of her songs. I do know two at least sort of so I’ll figure something out. I also have some random candy I want to try and it actually goes with my costume so I thought I’d try that on air too. I’d love if you could join me so at 11 pm est keep an eye out for me, I’m @kleffnotes on Periscope.

I’m hoping to film my attempt at a crime scene tape dress tutorial on Sunday night, probably technically Monday morning. I also might do a how to dress like an iZombie zombie video. I’m still getting used to having a YouTube so I’m trying my best to get stuff up. I really need to figure out how to edit things. I wind up just doing one shot videos. Not one take mind you, but the videos you see are just me talking to my camera and hoping I don’t sound too stupid. We have some cool stuff up on The Nerdy Girl Express this week that you should check out, including an interview with iZombie Nation.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Halloween is Coming!

Hi Internet People,

It’s almost Halloween! This year I am hoping to hit up the Halloween party and costume contest at my local comic book store. I’m super excited because I think this is the first one they have ever done and they have a bunch of cool stuff going on during it. There are going to be free comics, I mean I can’t pass that up. I’m also planning on bringing Benny, though I do need to get a costume together for him. I actually was thinking I might take Erin’s suggestion and make him into Ghost Rider. Sadly he won’t have a bike, but I think I could make him look pretty convincing.

There is one downside to the awesomeness of Halloween this year, sadly I have to work, but I can dress up at least. I was debating about what to wear to the costume contest, but now that I can also wear my costume to work I’m trying to figure out what exactly I can wear that would work for both places. I have random costume bits around the house and I know I’ve mentioned doing a bunch of different costumes this month, but I’m not sure exactly what to wear.

I’ll be cleaning and shelving movies at work so I can’t wear anything that would be hard to move in. I also have to make sure I’m mostly covered up. I do have some small vampire fangs I could wear, but I don’t really want to just go as a generic vampire. The costume I would love to wear to the comic book store would be Cassie Hack from Hack/Slash, but I can’t really wear it to work. I love Cassie, but her outfits are a bit on the skimpy side and I really don’t want to get sent home for being too revealing. Since I am going to the comic book store I kind of want a comic book character or at least a pop culture character that people would recognize.

I am going to do some research of my own, but I would love suggestions. I can’t really buy much so let me know what you think I can do with stuff I have sort of around the house. I have some random stuff so feel free to suggest whatever you think of either in the comments or on Twitter, @kleffnotes.

If you haven’t already watched it, you can check out my attempt at Liv’s crime scene tape dress on Youtube, My iZombie Crime Scene Tape Dress. I’m going to attempt to make a tutorial of how I made the dress in the next couple of days so I hope that works out okay. You should also check out The Nerdy Girl Express because we have a bunch of stuff going up today, including an awesome interview with iZombie Nation.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Crime Scene Tape Dress or My Trip to the Danger Zone

Hi Internet People,

I finally attempted the Liv’s crime scene tape dress from the iZombie episode Zombie Bro. Because I wanted to share my craftiness with all of you I decided to attempt the dress live on Periscope. Well, it was something let me tell you. I got on at 9 pm est, right before AHS: Hotel, and in a half hour I’m pretty sure nothing went right. I could not get my danger zone tape, yep it said danger zone all over it, to do anything that I wanted it to and I had to stop. I decided to come back at 12 am est, technically this morning, with a new plan. I grabbed safety pins and made coffee and got back to dress making.

The second time did go a lot better, but it took me an hour to make the dress and even then it was just okay. I wound up pinning the tape to my tank top and being super covered in random danger zone tape and clear packaging tape. I actually posted a video on YouTube a little while after I got the dress made where I talked about all the issues I had, including not knowing how to get the dress off. Not kidding, I was pretty sure I would have to be buried in the dress because I didn’t think it was ever coming off. Here are a couple pics of the dress to prove that it worked, sort of.

 

I did do some Liv Moore inspired makeup for my Periscopes and for the YouTube video. It wasn’t super fancy or anything, but I tried my best to look a little bit like the lovely Liv. It was just purple eyeshadow, lots of mascara, some kind of heavy eyeliner, and a combination of concealer, powder foundation, and white face powder.

I did manage to get the dress off, but it totally can’t be worn again. I tried to get it off without having to destroy it I promise, but it just did not work. I was trapped! I did get the safety pins out so my tank top survived. The dress though now just looks like this:

I wish I’d been able to save it, but it was either have to wear the dress for the rest of my life or destroy the thing I spent almost two hours on.

If you want to see what went into making the dress you can check out my two Periscopes, I’m @kleffnotes there, and you can check out my latest YouTube video that I linked above. You can also find me on The Nerdy Girl Express. You can also tweet at me, @kleffnotes. If you attempt this dress I would love to see it and if you find a way better way to make it, please let me know!

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

It’s iZombie Kitchen Time Again

Hi Internet People,

Yesterday was iZombie Tuesday which means that today is iZombie recipe day. For this week I made something I’d never attempted before, meringues, and of course because it’s iZombie these weren’t just any meringues, they were brain meringues. Try saying that five times fast. I totally did and only got through one before it turned into a tongued tied word jumble. I went to the internet for inspiration instead of cookbooks and actually had been thinking a meringue would be the perfect thing to try for making brains. If you didn’t see them on Twitter last night here’s a quick pic of one of the finished ones.

If you’ve never had a meringue before they are like a really fluffy eggy cookie. Like taking the top of a meringue style pie and throwing it in the oven for extra long. The version I found online called for 1 and a 1/3 cup sugar, 4 egg whites, a pinch of salt, and 1/4 a teaspoon of cream of tartar. To get the right color I added red food coloring, but I still had some on hand from last week. The most expensive thing in this recipe is the cream of tartar, it was almost four dollars for a little container. I didn’t add flavoring, but I would suggest maybe adding vanilla extract or something like that to add a little bit of extra fanciness. Here’s what I used in my recipe.

You’ll also need a medium to large sized mixing bowl, an electric hand mixer, some sort of spoon, and I used toothpicks near the end. I suck at gradually adding ingredients so I put all the sugar and cream of tartar in the mixing bowl and then separated my eggs so that only the egg whites went in the bowl. I saved the egg yolks so that I could use them for something else later. I then started mixing the sugar, cream of tartar, and egg whites on medium speed for what felt like forever.

I honestly think I was whipping between low and high speed for like twenty minutes. You have to wait for the mixture to hold a stiff peak, it needs to look like whipped cream basically. Periodically I would stop and add drops of food coloring until I got the color I wanted in the mixture. I used between about 10 or 12 drops to get a healthy pink color.

This is what that stiff peaks thing should sort of look like, you get little mountains of meringue.

Once you have the necessary peaks then you can start scooping out the meringues. I used a bowl shaped table spoon to help get a rounder shape and dropped the stuff onto aluminum foil covered cookie sheets.

I used my fingers a little to round out the cookies, but you totally don’t have to do that. Then I got my red food coloring and put some in a small bowl and grabbed a toothpick. I used the toothpick to draw random wiggly lines on each of the meringues.

Before they went in the oven this is what they looked like.

You then put them in the oven for 35 minutes at 275 degrees Fahrenheit. Once they were done mine looked like this.

I added some extra food coloring to the one I showed in the upper picture. Next time I would just add more squiggles before I baked them. Some of my meringues did crack and one broke so much that I couldn’t get it off the cookie sheet so they all didn’t come out perfectly.

When I tweeted out the pics of my finished product I was super excited because, ta da!

Rose McIver, yes the wonderful woman who plays Liv in iZombie favorited my tweet. I’m just going to pretend that means these meringues are iZombie approved.

If you try these I’d love to see them! You can tweet at me, @kleffnotes, or comment below. I’ll be on Periscope tonight attempting to make a crime scene tape dress like Liv’s from Zombie Bro at 9 pm est. I hope you can tune in! I’m @kleffnotes there like I am on Twitter. You can also find me on YouTube, I’ll be posting a new video after the Periscope, well after AHS after the Periscope. You can also find me and the wonderful Erica and Erin at The Nerdy Girl Express and you can tweet at us @thenerdygirlexp.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Katherine

Me and All The iZombie Things

Hi Internet People,

This week seems to be cropping up to be very iZombie themed. I didn’t plan it that way, but it does seem rather fitting with Halloween this Saturday. Yesterday I looked up recipes for my weekly brainy kitchening for iZombie Tuesday and found something I think should be pretty tasty. I went to the store with my brother and it actually turned into a bit of an adventure because neither one of us was having any luck finding one of the key ingredients I needed. After hunting high and low we found it. I mean we are practically Winchesters with the hunting, right? Okay, so we didn’t really save people, but we did hunt things and there was salt involved. No spoilers, I want my brainy treat to be a surprise during iZombie at 9.

Since this is the perfect week for costumes I decided I wanted to do my attempt at Liv’s crime scene tape dress. I’ve had the supplies for a couple weeks, it’s really just lots of packages of Halloween themed caution tape, but I hadn’t found the right night to try it. Since I’ve been messing around with Periscope I thought why not do it on Wednesday before AHS’s Halloween episode. So Wednesday at 9 pm est I will be trying my hand at Liv’s frat party outfit from Zombie Bro. I’m also going to throw together a YouTube video after to show how the dress turned out. Benny will probably help act as my demonstration dummy for YouTube. I’ll just be wrapping myself with the tape in the Periscope.

Also Wednesday my brainy kitchen recipe will get posted here. I can’t leave my fellow brainies hungry and it is Halloween week so bringing brains with you is totally cool. You’ll be a hit at parties, work, home, cemeteries, mortuaries, you know all the places you might go during the week.

Oh Saturday Benny and I are going to try and go to a Halloween party at the comic book store and we will definitely both go in costume. I promise to take lots of pics!

So yeah, Wednesday be on the look out for a brainy recipe here and for my Periscope at 9 pm est. I’m @kleffnotes there just like I am on Twitter. I’ll also hopefully have the YouTube video up that night too. I’ll link it here and on Twitter. You can also check out some articles about The Evil Dead I’m writing and other amazing articles by Erica and Erin on The Nerdy Girl Express. We’ll have an interview with iZombie Nation up this Friday that you should definitely check out.

Remember, pumpkins scream in the dead of night,

Katherine

Let’s Do The Time Warp Again!

Hi Internet People,

It’s the start of Halloween Week and I’m super excited! I mean I’ve been excited for the whole month of October, but this is like peak week of excitement. I thought now would be the perfect time to talk about one of my favorite things that I’ve ever taken part in around Halloween. Grab your squirt guns and toast, it’s time to talk about The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When I was in middle school, I think about eighth grade, my dad suggested I watch the movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had never hear of it, but he said that when he used to work at a bowling alley these people used to show up in costumes with bags of random stuff and bowl until the theater nearby opened for a midnight showing. He said he’d never seen the whole movie, but he had seen some random clips because he used to put the movie in sometimes. He said something about it just seemed to scream Katherine. Well, I rented the movie and was immediately sucked in.

After that first watch I took it to my friend’s house and we watched it all the time. We even attempted to make a secret handshake based on random things the characters did in the movie. That never really took off, but we did get other people to watch the movie with us. When I was in high school a random place downtown advertised that they were doing a late night showing of RHPS and I jumped at the chance to go. I got a guy I knew to come with me and I dressed up like Magenta. My costume wasn’t great, but I did have a t-shirt on that was supposed to look like a maid’s costume and I wore fishnets and a skirt. I even attempted to make my hair sort of poofy. We went and were the youngest people there by a good 20 years. We bought party supply bags and threw things when we were told to and even did the time warp with the big group. Even if we were super out of place we managed to have an amazing time.

When I got to college during my junior year I was put in charge of Halloween plans for the entire campus. My boss knew how much I loved Halloween and just let me run with it. We had talked about doing a movie night to end the week and I immediately suggested Rocky Horror. We put together treat bags so people could throw things and play along with the prompts on screen and we suggested people wear costumes. I was worried not a lot of people would come. Not everyone knew what Rocky Horror was on campus and sometimes night events weren’t well attended. The Thursday before Halloween I got home and got dressed in my best Brad costume. Not underwear Brad, wedding Brad. I needed to help set stuff up so I couldn’t really wear a skirt. The movie was a huge success and we actually almost didn’t fit in the room we were holding it in. I led the Time Warp and made sure people followed along with the dvd cues. That night will always be one of my favorite college memories.

If you want to read more from me I am posting articles about The Evil Dead franchise on The Nerdy Girl Express this week, the first one went up today. I posted my first YouTube video this weekend so if you want to see me and some Funko figures you can check it out by clicking here. I also have some fun stuff planned for the rest of this week, including a Periscope and an attempt at Liv’s caution tape dress.

Remember, there’s a light over at the Frankenstein place,

Katherine

Blogging with Benny: Costumed Cadaver

Hi Internet People,

It’s Sunday which means it’s time for fun with Benny. With Halloween right around the corner everybody’s favorite bony buddy decided he wanted to test out some costumes. Using what the two of us could find around my room we threw together a few pieces to show to you all. Benny is particularly proud of the last one.

To start off we went with a classic skeleton costume.

I didn’t have the full pinstripe suit that he wanted, but we did have the jacket. To help sell his attempt at a Jack Skellington he held the sign my sister made me a couple years ago for my birthday with lines from my favorite Halloween song.

Outfit number two was a bit on the goofy side, we called it The Tenth Doctor Caught With His Pants Down.

We didn’t have a banana to bring to the party, even though we all know you should always bring a banana to a party. Yes, that is an an air filter behind him. Benny was a little tired after hanging with some of his bony pals and he needed a little help staying on his feet.

The third outfit is one of my personal go to costumes, but Benny wanted to prove he could wear it better. You’re a wizard Benny!

This next costume Benny actually picked out in advance. When I went shopping for Halloween stuff at the dollar store I told Benny about this shirt and he insisted he needed it. He thought it was the perfect ironic t-shirt for every occasion.

Benny’s final costume seems kind of boring, but he insisted I add it to the post.

Wait, why are you laughing Benny? Hold on…is that supposed to be me? He’s laughing so hard I think he might have cracked a funny bone. Oh geez, so I’m the final costume. Well, okay, I might have been the easiest costume he put together all night.

If you want to see a bit more of Benny and me you can check out my newest broadcast on Periscope. You can find me @kleffnotes and the video should be up until about 10 pm est today. I also made a short little YouTube video that I would love you to check out. I’m planning on doing a Periscope Wednesday and am going to try and post at least one YouTube video too. I’m just getting used to YouTube so the videos are a work in progress. just click here to see my first one. If you like the video please subscribe if you can. It would be great if you did!

You can also find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, and at The Nerdy Girl Express. We have a Twitter contest going on that you should totally check out, @thenerdygirlexp.

Remember, no bones about it bony buddies are the best,

Katherine

It’s a Busy Busy Day

Hi Internet People,

Today’s post is more of an update than an actual post. I did write an article about some of the Hellraiser movies over at The Nerdy Girl Express that mentions that the internet thinks I’m Pinhead. I do have a lot of ear piercings, but I lack the leather and the accent. I’m working at #magicalmysteryvideostore today, but as soon as I get off work I’m going to get my binge on with Erica, @quietlikeastorm, and Jonathan White, @_JonathanWhite_. We’ll all be live tweeting and you can totally take part if you want to.

The third and final season of Hemlock Grove dropped on Friday, but we all had too much going on to binge it yesterday. We are starting at 5 and going until about 10 pm est. I’m super excited for this new season! I was already excited, but on Thursday night the Hemlock Grove Twitter account tweeted at the three of us about how excited we were which totally set me to 11. I also saw some crazy tweets from people who were live tweeting it on release day. I wish I had my Peter costume together, but this month has been way busier than I anticipated and I’m severely lacking on the costume front. I might try and throw something together though.

Besides work and Hemlock Grove I am going to be up to some more Periscope shenanigans. The reason we are stopping at around 10 pm est is that I will be going live at that time on Periscope with a horror themed night. I went to my comic book store on Friday and was elated to find they had the Funko Pop Horror Blind Boxes. The boxes hold mini figures and even though I wanted to buy all of them, I restrained myself and just bought 4. I’ll be opening them during the Periscope and I’ll probably throw in some stupid Katherine tricks for good measure.

I know not everyone has a Periscope so I have made a plan that hopefully works out. I am going to run the Periscope through my phone and also record what I’m doing on my laptop. I’m going to set up a YouTube channel and then once the Periscope replay has been deleted, they disappear after 24 hours, I’ll post my version of the video to my YouTube channel. I haven’t set up the channel yet, but I will either tonight or Sunday. Hopefully this all works out, I have high hopes.

I would love it if you could watch my Periscope at 10 pm est, I’m @kleffnotes there like I am on Twitter. If you want to share your weekend plans or chat about anything going on with you please comment below or tweet at me, @kleffnotes. Oh, and The Nerdy Girl Express is hosting a giveaway that you should totally check out on our twitter, @thenerdygirlexp.

Remember, don’t play with puzzle boxes,

Katherine

Marvelous Meat Pies and Close Shaves

Hi Internet People,

Late last night while many people were in bed I was live tweeting a rewatch of Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I had been talking about watching the movie for a while and the ever wonderful Erica, @quietlikeastorm, said she was thinking about watching it. We got started about 11 pm, eastern time zone so maybe some of you were still awake, most of my house was very much asleep.

Sweeney Todd is my favorite musical, though Assassins and Evil Dead: The Musical are both close seconds. Every version of it I watch or listen to I absolutely love. I am a huge Tim Burton fan and really enjoyed watching this movie with Erica. We have decided to start a meat pie shop called Mrs. Lovett’s and hire a barber to work there. We will serve pies of the people, for the people. Okay, so that might involve bribing a few health inspectors and getting a small business loan, but it would be amazing. Burton’s version of Sweeney Todd is amazing to look at, the costumes, the scenery, all wonderful. There is a version of the show that I have on cd that I think is super cool too. The cast is super small and each character actually plays an instrument. When someone dies there’s a super high pitched squeal from I think a clarinet. It’s jarring when you hear it for the first time.

One of the reasons that I love Sweeney Todd so much is that I think Mrs. Lovett is absolutely fabulous. It is my fondest wish to be able to perform in a production of this musical as Mrs. Lovett. I don’t care how big the production is or how old I am when this happens. If I have to sing and dance on a street corner while wearing a costume I made out of scraps from my own bed sheets I would do it. My favorite song is “A Little Priest” and I’m not ashamed to say I have sung the duet by myself with two different voices, because I mean even alone you need a Sweeney and a Mrs. Lovett. I will admit that if I wasn’t able to be Mrs. Lovett I would be okay with being the mad beggar woman. She has some great lines like, “Wouldn’t you like to push me parsley, looks to me dear like you got plenty there to push” and the panicked squeals of “Mischief, Mischief.”

Speaking of rewatches I’m thinking a Rocky Horror Picture Show one next week would be really fun. I’m leaning toward Thursday, the 29th, right now. I’d totally take pics, maybe even mini videos throughout the movie and other people could too so we could show off costumes and our goofy singing skills.

Let me know what you think either in the comments or on Twitter, @kleffnotes. You can also find me on The Nerdy Girl Express. Today I posted an interview with the awesome Kirsten of iZombie Obsessed that you should totally check out.

Remember, fop is the finest in the shop,

Katherine

Periscoping Stupid Katherine Tricks

Hi Internet People,

I did it, I tried Periscope and I had a great time! It didn’t seem like there were too many glitches, I know some people got kicked off, but I’m not sure how frequently it happened. My phone didn’t overheat and I only showed I had no clue what I was doing at the end when I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the broadcast. You swipe down and then hit end broadcast. It’s remarkably easy, if you swipe correctly, which I didn’t. Starting was a little odd because it defaults to the rear cam and not the front cam on my phone, but thankfully I remembered to google tips right before I started. I probably need to find a better setup for my filming because this was my Jenga tower of filmdom,

Yes, that’s a portable dvd player. It still works, but it also makes a really convenient sort of tripod.

If you weren’t at the Periscope there’s still time to rewatch it. The video stays up for 24 hours after you do it, at least I think that’s when the clock starts. I finished my Periscope at 9:50ish, so you have until 9 pm est TONIGHT to replay it. I don’t know how to link it or tell you how to watch it without downloading the Periscope app. I can tell you that I’m @kleffnotes on Periscope and it’s currently my one and only broadcast.

If you want to know what you’re getting into I performed random things that I mentioned I could do in my previous post, Random Fun Facts About Me, and then did some additional singing and a tiny bit of dancing. There was a performance of Part of Your World with a Freddy Krueger Funko Pop if you want to see something extra goofy. Benny, my favorite skeleton, also made an appearance, though it was a bit more of a lurk than anything else. I’d love to do more Periscopes, but I’m also considering some different video ideas that are more permanent.

If I start a YouTube channel I wouldn’t really edit my videos, but they might be a bit grainy. I’d probably film them on my laptop and it isn’t the greatest. I’d have to save up for a better camera. I’d also try that Google Hangouts idea I mentioned for some extra videos. Blab was mentioned as a multiple person app option, it sounds a lot like Periscope, but you can have up to four people video chat together, with a running chat function for viewers. I’ve also heard about dubsmash and a few others that would be great for Benny. I just need to take the time to mess around with them.

If you have any suggestions for Periscopes or types of videos you’d like to see I’d love to hear them. I also am curious if people would subscribe to a YouTube if I started it. I’m not saying they’ll be great, but they’d be full of random goofy stuff. Don’t forget to check out my Periscope before it disappears into the abyss of deleted internet things, again I’m @kleffnotes. You can comment below, tweet at me, @kleffnotes, and you can also check me out at The Nerdy Girl Express.

Remember, the internet is made to be weird,

Katherine