Bellydance DVD Review: Twins Basic Moves and Fat Burning

Next another DVD back from 2001 (god I am old!) from Veena and Neena, the bellydance twins.

Again this DVD is similar to their previous ones. They don't talk during the workout. There is a voice over. The video is good and they look at you as if you are in a fitness class. Which this is a fitness DVD so fair enough. The content is basically basic drilling. Some of it was too slow for me. I put it on fast forward a bit to help me with boredom.

This is an extreme beginner DVD. Like the kind of DVD you give your friend, family member, or coworker a DVD to do "bellydance moves". If you are a dancer you understand what I am saying. If you are any bit of a seasoned dancer you will be bored with the slowness of the DVD. I will give them this, they really describe the moves really well so for the absolute beginners this is fine and clear.

Verdict: Sell, though not because it was bad, it is just too basic to warrant taking up space on my shelf.

Oh yeah the end performance in the black and gold lame was classic 90s bellydance costume. Love it. And could have done with out the dark shadow dancing to the introduction.

Cheers,
Lauren

Nadira 5-Layers Bellydance DVD Review

Happy Tuesday! Next up is the beautiful Nadira. Who when I first saw her looked like my best friend from college Jana. I did a double take and thought, Jana when did you start dancing and how are you better than me? ;)

This is all about layering. It has a nice Chapter DVD where you can select anything to work on. This is also a great inspiration to all the really tall dancers out there with long arms, yes you can get them under control and they can be beautiful!

She teaches like a class, speaking and facing a mirror for when she breaks things down. She starts small and builds up. I felt the warm up was too fast and I needed more. Especially for her DVD! I recommend warming up a bit more. She also has a great posture section. She was also a dancer who had back problems, a herniated disc from an accident and learned how to work with her injuries. Really great advice here.

I struggled with a few of the combos. I am the shimmy queen and for some of them it was hard to not shimmy. Bad body. She goes through everything really clearly, starts small and adds layer after layer. Then you drill that combo to music. After that next combo. The combos get harder as you go through the DVD. There is also at the end an extra practice, which was really good.

I loved this DVD. It is a KEEP! Recommend for intermediate dancers and on up. Not for beginners, you need more experience under your hip belt.

Cheers,
Lauren

Bellydance DVD Review: Sera Solstice

Well happy Monday! Happy Veteran's Day! Today is a Tribal DVD review. Now I will admit that I went into this DVD with a bad attitude with this DVD. I did not take it seriously until I actually did it and completely willing to admit it. This is a good DVD.

The quality was good for both sound and video. I saw everything clearly. My only wish was I wish the background music was lower than the talking.

The menu was full of chapters I could go to, really nice! And it breaks it down by minutes!
The warm up was really, really good. She mirrors you and also has an interesting layout with 4 girls. 2 facing each other, 2 facing you. And what is impressive is she talks to you while dancing full out. Doesn't even flinch that she is out of breath.

The rest of the DVD was great! It is geared for a very advanced beginner and up. I learned things so I recommend for all levels. There were new things for me to combine together. And it was something I wanted to revisit again. I enjoyed different combos and moves. She goes through 6 combinations, step-by-step with clear instructions and what not to do. And then you do it together. I will say that everyone was in sync but 1 girl. It was odd. And it wasn't just once. It was a lot and that same person.

The performance with her is really odd. It is a New York bellydance DVD and they is what you see with these DVDs, its almost like the dancer is improvising and they throw over a beat which doesn't match. The girl just keeps dancing and dancing, just randomly. That is what this was. And odd, weird background stuff with her name coming up on the back.

I highly recommend this DVD I need to do it a few more times to be comfortable. Good workout too. This is a KEEP!

Cheers,
Lauren

Bellydance DVD Review: Princess Farhana, balance

Here is my last Princess Farhana DVD. This one I was very excited about. Sword and Shamadan. All about balance. Any pointers I am always open to!

It has a bunch of chapters. However, I will say this they are not very long. 

The production quality is good. She talks to you while she dances however she faces you so you will mirror her. The sound is ok, like the other one you can hear cars driving by!

She has a good introduction with pointers with swords and shamadans. One good one for the shamadan, or a candelabra, is to not leave your candles in your car for even the slightest of time. Always bring more than you need and your own matches. Look for doorway clearance, air vents to blow hot wax, keep all your props on the floor for storage. Simple things to make life easy.

The routine portion in let's review, is a general song, nothing elaborate and can be used for shamadan too. It is not a full walk through so if you were looking for a routine you could use to perform this is just a stepping stone base.

Her performance is impressive with her sword floor work and transitioning from standing to ground is need. The boob balance, not always a fan. But she really teaches good technique.

Verdict: this is currently a keep. I would say this is for beginner sword performers but intermediate in bellydance skill. You need to know everything prior to putting a sword on your head.

I thought this DVD was just full of really good information and instruction. I wish I had watched it sooner in my life. I don't know if I would keep it for a long period of time should I need to save on space and I am a veteran sword performer. Though she did give me some good information that I had not thought of before.

Well I am catching up here. The wedding in Florida was fabulous but I got no rest and had to go straight back to work and I have been busy. And I am also trying to get adapted to winter. I acknowledged the fact we got early cold weather here and went through my clothes transitioning my summer to winter. Where fall went... I have no idea. But I got rid of 4 big bags of things! We cleaned up our place. Ahh. But my poor blog suffered. I normally keep things pre-written and scheduled but towards the wedding I was lucky to have things done in normal life. So I did manage during the incident here when I felt better, to get some sewing done. I just need to get some end pictures done and edit them. That is all that is holding me up and time to write. I do have a lot of DVDs done and more reviews to come. I may have this week be all dedicated to bellydance DVD and next week get back on my normal schedule.

Cheers!
Lauren

Iron craft: Cheers, wine cork wreath

This Iron Craft Challenge is Cheers. Make something that has to do with beverages or something that came from a beverage. I decided to use this as the perfect time to use up more of my wine corks.

First I sorted the corks by size. Then I used something round and circular to line them up and began to glue with hot glue. FYI hot glue and wine cork, either synthetic or real, are not the best of friends. So then it broke in 4 pieces. So E6000 for the rescue.

Now I decided I didn't want it for a wreath. Maybe at another time so I looked for ways to use. I decided to use it for my cactus planter and it was the perfect size. So right now it is cradling my cactus!

Which by the way is growing new flowers!!! Yay!

I may add more cork and make it more of a trivet but I didn't have enough to fill it up. Future project. And shucks I need to drink more wine! ;)

BTW my apologies for being a little MIA on the blog. I just have not found my swagger yet and getting back to work has been crazy. So the blog has taken a back seat. We are also getting in full wedding mode with my cousin's wedding. Very rapidly creeping up on me!! Ack! So needless to say I am bit tired. I will catch up by the end of this week.

Sorry for the departure.
Lauren

Refashion Runway #2: Halloween costume- Marie Antoinette

Greetings everyone! My apologies for this late post. It has been a busy few days and I have been away from my computer. I am finally getting to my computer to get things done here!! Today after seeing pictures of myself, I realized I am not the happiest in the way I look and I think I have let myself go some. So today I was at the salon getting brand new spanking blonde highlights which took forever since I let my hair grow too much. Combined with fabulous wine tasting event, shopping, today has been a great day.

Unfortunately I just found out online that I did not make the next round at Refashion Runway. I would like to take the time to personally thank all of my blog followers, friends, and family for supporting me through this journey. I will admit I am ready to not be on such a big timeline and now go in my own direction. It truly has been fun. I did say also that in my time off I was super productive and actually sewed an additional 14 garments unrelated to the challenges. It was nice to catch up and also finally heal this horrible cold of mine! I am doing really good and barely have a cough. It feels good to feel like a normal human being.

I did complete the next challenge, which was Halloween. I had actually planned this costume about 1.5 years ago when I found this dress for $0.99 one Sunday and snagged it up. I knew I wanted to make a costume out of this dress but what exactly I didn't know. I had thought it could go many ways.

I then found this lace top from Talbot's that I liked that I wanted to add to the costume. It was really nicely sewn however there was a lot of princess seams. I realized this after I purchased it. I also realized that it buttons down the back.

So what I made was actually 2 costumes: one that was Rennaissance Faire inspired and the other one was Marie Antoinette. Here is what I did.

First I cut away lace to cover my bodice between the 2 princess seams. I used green thread to baste the 2 fabrics together to make my life easier to sew.

I actually had leftover gold trim from an old bellydance costume I had that I had pulled it off of (which btw on a side note I only started to sew b/c I was a bellydancer. I started to sew costumes first then transitioned to fashion clothing, b/c you know wearing bellydance clothing to work is just not cohesive being a scientist). I also cut off the bottom of the dress which I don't have a picture of.

I began to attach it to the dress bodice. I made sure I curved it with the dress. Then cut off excess. Sew down with gold trim- this was the only time I sewed the trim with my machine everything else after this was done by hand.

Next I detached the skirt from the bodice and cut it in half. I only went to the side seams. Then gathered each detached piece and then reattached to the bodice.

I curved the skirt using a bowl. I hand sewn the hem since I wanted to have it not look tortured. I then also added trim by hand to the skirt.

One of the good things I noticed was at the bottom of the dress was the lining had a netting connected to it and decided to use this as my underskirt.

I needed to make a portion of the skirt to peek out from the blue satin and I wanted it to be lace and match the bodice. I did not have enough to salvage from the rest of the blouse so I decided to use the sleeves. I needed to combine them together for it to be long enough.

I connected to mid skit to the bodice.

Now to also connect the underskirt. I gather stitched it and then connected to elastic. And then skilly attached it at the waistline.

Now I also needed sleeves so I cut the leftover fabric from the bottom of the dress and made sleeves. I will say in my initial feel I wanted them to bell more so I added in a gusset down the seam. I created an elastic casing at the top of the sleeves. Then at the elbow area of the sleeves. I added another elastic to gather. Now I have a poof above the bell of the sleeves.I also added trim to the bottom of the sleeves. Of course by hand- this is one of the reasons why this took so long.

I opted to not fit the bodice to Present tense Lauren. Only because I would like to have this costume for the future. I would like to wear it whatever size I am and also I wouldn't mind if others could borrow it too. So instead to fit it I added elastic to the back top portion of the dress.

The elastic wasn't enough and I did not want to mess with my costume while at a party. So I opted to make straps. I had some leftover grosgrain ribbon that I used to used in my bellydancer costumer days so I cut some grosgrain. I sewed one side and left a lot on the opposite side. Foldover. Seal with some simple iron on fusible web. Then add trim. And attach to the bodice. I crisscrossed in the back so I did not have to worry about having my skirt slip off my shoulder while wearing it. Which is something else I learned from making bellydance costumes.

Now if I wear it as is the costume has a Renn Faire sort of feel.

However, I wanted options with my costume so I opted to sew some bows with the little bit of satin I had leftover. Simply cut a rectangle. Sew to lining. Turn right-side-out. Close seam. Sew gathering stick down center. With a quick few tacks, the bows were attached to a bodice. Added a fluffy petticoat underneath. Attached to add some white out shadow. Gray hairspray and a lot of teasing my hair. Pearls. And now I have something else I can go as to a Halloween Party. Marie Antoinette.

 

Sorry for all the photos. I spent a LOT of time spraying my hair and teasing it. Then spraying it witth the white hair spray. Which by the way smells so strong. Made my apartment stink! The peacock feathers I had on hand (because yes I have a stash of peacock feathers- don't ask). Here is the close up.

Love it! Unfortunately b/c of some scheduling conflicts we are actually not going to any parties this year so this costume will be in my closet. And hence why all the pictures. I got to enjoy my costume for a bit. And best part is I can wear it 2 ways so I can have future options. Got to love multi-functional costumes.

Cheers!! :)
Lauren