Carnaval 2011 - An overview
(if you wanna skip straight to the photos, move along using the link above...)
Carnaval 2012 tickets are ON SALE NOW! Don't miss it! Saturday, February 4th!!! If you don't have your tickets, get them now or MISS THE FUN FOREVER!!! xoxoxo
Carnaval 2011 was a lot of fun. I am cutting it CLOSER THAN EVER to Carnaval 2012 with getting the photos online. Once again, I FORBID myself to work on my 2012 costume without having first gotten these photos up!! Think of this as "getting your motor primed" for 2012! That's how I feel! I will be shorter on words this year, which I know will make you SO SAD (not), because of the press for time.
This year, as last year, my first goal was to spend as little money as possible!! For the first time, I revamped one of my prior costumes, the Queen Bee. I made a completely new headdress, adding LED lights (as opposed to the floral lights I used the first time), additional bees, a new treatment on shoes and new makeup. I wanted to spend as little money as possible, so I bought only lights, socks and colored duct tape. Thrifty!
I wanted a concept of a swirl of bees twirling around my headdress, as opposed to the random placement of bees like last time. The swirl and lights started out yellow bees with amber lights and transitioned to red bees and red lights as it approached the top of the headdress. I have to say it felt pretty weird to trash my old headdress. So much work went into it, and it wasn't perfect, but it WAS work, and pulling out the bees and other elements felt strange - and good - all at the same time.
Our posse was rockin', with J9 and Jennifer returning to the fold after HAVING BABIES. They both looked incredible. We had some Carnaval first-timers, Celena, JR & Michael and our old friends Kasi, Cara, Hopper, and more. It's funny to type this now, as Jennifer AND Celena won't be here this year (2012), as there are MORE BABIES on the horizon. We're a fertile lot, we Carnaval girls. :)
I'm not sure how much time went into this year's costume. Certainly less than years past, since I had some elements pre-created (yay gloves and skirt and pasties!) - but I had to paint a ton of new bees (something I swore I'd never paint again!!! - and make a whole new paper-mache headdress.
ANYWAY!
I am THRILLED to report that we continue to WORSHIP AND ADORE our Carnaval Home Base Hotel - after being kicked out of that horrible Hotel Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken two years ago - OK, it was the Hyatt! Don't stay at the Hyatt. Listen up, boys and girls, because if you're traveling to Austin for Carnaval, you need to stay here: Embassy Suites - Downtown/Town Lake. All the cool kids are there! You might even see me and my group in the lobby taking pictures beforehand!
Shall I say that again? Stay for Austin's Carnaval at the Embassy Suites - Downtown/Town Lake location.
It's wonderful to be completely welcomed somewhere, smiled at and loved. Such good energy to head out to Carnaval. I wouldn't go anywhere else.
The staff at the night desk were so friendly, and all of the people at the hotel were nice. The HOTEL is beautiful and clean and they have a great lobby for photos. They didn't mind when we stood up beside their water feature and up on chairs to get higher for photos, nor that we wanted to pose in their glass elevators. Embassy Suites welcomes Carnaval folks and thinks that they are all part of the "Austin flavor" they are so proud of. We were treated us like honored guests, and we couldn't have asked for more. Please, if you are traveling to Austin, show this place your support. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to our night to start out the evening with such a positive experience.
Once again, I was linked off the official Carnaval website and received a lot of email from folks just saying hi or people looking for costuming tips. Lots of people asking me what I was wearing so they could look for me there. It was so nice to head to Carnaval and be looking for friendly faces to put with screen names. My intro page I made for the Carnaval website was the highest hit page in Jan & Feb on my site; lots of people are sweet enough to stop by and visit!
MUCH CARNAVAL LOVE TO MIKE QUINN, the Samba Master Extraordinaire! AGAIN, for only the second time, in 2011, we MET IN PERSON!!! I have more photos to prove it!! YAYAYAY!!
Also, don't forget to shop at The Bazaar for all of your costuming, makeup, wig, false eyelash, glitter, risque' clothing needs. Whether you need a full costume or just a few little embellishments, you can get a lot done with one trip to the Bazaar. The Bazaar is the best!
That said, let's get on to why you're here: the PHOTOS!!! I hope you enjoy. Thank you to all of you who "donated" your photos to my Worthy Cause of a website. So many of you made your photos available to me this year and allowed me to pick and choose from your personal photo albums. Thank you! Because of your generosity, I am able to present a really amazing selection of photos that I never would have had otherwise. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
PS, as another note, I apologize to those of you who are basically blocked from my site because I use words like "nipples", "breasts" and "pasties". Really, you'd be surprised how many places block my site for how obscene it is. LOL. As if. I block all actual nipples in the live photos, so the worst you'll see on my site is pasties, big black bars, and maybe a little naked hiney. FYI. I should be SFW in case you're wondering.
Let the 460ish Photos Begin!
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