I love Renaissance Faires. I really love them.

Usually I manage to make it to about one a year but in 2014 I’ve had the good fortune of attending THREE. I got to check out LA’s Pleasure Festival back in April, then I finally finally finally got to attend Faerieworlds down in Oregon in July, and I wrapped up my Renaissance circuit with the Midsummer Fantasy Faire right here in Washington this past weekend.

I figured I would put together a compilation of photos from the events to share the experiences with you, dear readers. Photos go a lot further when it comes to these events.

Row 1: The SoCal Pleasure Faire with Ariana, Tyler, Sammy and Joe! This one was so big we didn’t even realize we’d missed a whole section of booths and shops until the faire was almost over! We spent the day shopping, eating, and enjoying the fact that it wasn’t 100 degrees out, like most Faires we usually attend.

That second picture has detail shots of all my new medieval swag (the best part of attending a Ren Faire is adding to your outfits each year; I’m totally guilty of overspending all the time). The third picture was just a funny vendor that made me laugh.

Row 2: Faerieworlds is my new favorite event of all time. It’s sort of a Renaissance Faire meets music festival, and it’s right outside of Eugene, Oregon. I attended with some of my best friends: Eia, Joe, Justin, Ariana, Jenn and Liz. You set up camp, you shop, you dance, you listen to live music and you seriously unplug from everything else. We started the weekend in elaborate mythical creature costumes and ended up wearing next to nothing as it got hotter and dustier.

That second picture is a bunch of us hanging out in a yurt that Ariana was totally in love with… they just left it open all the time, so it became our go to chill space when it was too hot during the day or too cold at night.

The stage with constant folk music playing was a serious highlight, as was the fact that most booths and food vendors stayed open at all hours of the weekend. However, my favorite part was that there were workshops and activities for everyone – I spent a good amount of time with hula hoopers, learning new tricks (as you can see in the third picture) – while the others were at sword fighting workshops. It was truly amazing.

Rows 3: This was our first day at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire with Eia, Ariana, Joe and Meagan. It included immediately getting my hair braided (because it was way too goddamn hot) and putting Eia in jail. It was her birthday, so it seemed like the thing to do. These guys publicly “arrested” her and dragged her over to be contained until she tap danced for them and sang Happy Birthday to herself.

We’re great friends.

This is the Faire I’ve been going to since high school, so it’s always fun to run into familiar faces and delight in how much the event grows each year.

Row 4: The second day of the faire was absurd when it comes to impulse buys for just about everyone involved in the trip. Also Liz joined us. I bought mermaid ears (can you believe it!? mermaid ears that look totally amazing!) and a crystal flute. I’m not even joking you. If someone told me as a child that I would spend my hard earned adult money on mermaid ears and a crystal flute… well… I probably wouldn’t have been surprised. I was a weird kid.

So that was my Renaissance Faire experience for the year, and I’m terribly saddened that it’s over for now. There are always yuletide feasts to look forward to, but I’ll miss the dusty paths of the faire, the turkey legs, the bards, the bodice ice. Until next year, huzzah!

Disneybounding as Bo Peep, complete with a tiny sheep necklace and one of the only items that exists in the world that’s white with pink polka dots. I’m not even kidding.

This past Sunday I was at Disneyland with a whole group of my friends, and we decided it was time to take Disneybounding to the next level. We put a good amount of pre-planning into this trip to the park, but picking a single movie, assigning roles, and managing quite the impressive group Disneybound.

We chose Toy Story. It was a good choice, since it spans three movies and includes more toys than I can even count. We didn’t even begin to cover every character with our group, but we did a pretty good job!

I also managed to convince Joe to choose Woody, which was almost more fun to help put together than my own outfit. His little cow-print bow tie (which I found here!) is just too cute. We’ve done a “couples” Disneybound once before (Ariel and Prince Eric, as blogged about here) but this newest one is by far my favorite.

Overall it was an amazing day, everyone looked great, AND we hosted a big meet up over my Small World that an amazing amount of people showed up to! If you stopped by and said hello, thank you! I was so impressed by everyone’s outfits and I’m just so pumped on costumes right now that it really was the best way I could think of to end VidCon. What a great trip.

Have you ever Disneybounded? Who did you pick, or if you haven’t done it – who would you LIKE to Disneybound as? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for stopping by!

I can’t believe how close we are to VidCon. Deep breaths, Kristina. Deep breaths.

I wanted to write up a quick little post to let you know everything I am doing at the con, since there’s a lot of it. From panels to meetups to running a convention-wide game — I’m gonna be busy! But as usual, I love meeting you guys, so please feel free to come up and say hello! And scan my QR code… but I’ll get to that later.

Here’s my official schedule:

 FRIDAY JUNE 27:

Striving to be Sustainable (206AB): 3:30-4:30pm
Making millions off your web series sounds nice, but for most creators, just the idea of making a living off your content — consistently, and without going crazy — is enough of a dream. What’s the secret to balancing life and work in the web video world on a long-term basis?

SATURDAY JUNE 28:

Job Hunters Cast & Crew (209): 12:30-1:30pm
 Join the cast of Job Hunters for a Q&A after a screening of not 1 but THREE episodes of the new season of their web series. Then stick around for announcements and fun surprises!

SUNDAY JUNE 29: (Disneyland Day!)

I’ll be hanging at Disneyland with everyone else, but what I really want to share with you guys is the Disneybound meetup I’m co-hosting with my friends Sarah, Leo and Joe. It’s going to be a lot of fun and I hope you’ll plan to join us if you’ll also be at Disney that day.

The last important thing to note is VidCon Arena — the convention-wide game Job Hunters is hosting. You’ll be receiving a QR code sticker in your VidCon bag once you get to the convention, and if you want to play you just need to stick it to your name badge. Then you’ll need to hunt down other players with their own QR codes, Job Hunters arena style. Rack up points and the top winners will get to play LASER TAG with the cast of Job Hunters on Saturday in official Maewin jumpsuits – and they might win some other great prizes!

I’ll just let this video explain it to you:

Please let me know in the comments if you’re attending VidCon, and hopefully I’ll see you there! I am nervous and excited and I CAN’T WAIT TO GET THERE AHHH.

Last summer, a handful of my friends and I attended the Canterbury Renaissance Faire down in Oregon, where we became acquainted with a small business called Rose and Thorn Armory. We chatted, we tried on their sweet armor, we hung out together later at the bar – basically, they’re good people, they make great armor, and we became friends. I’ve been meaning to do a little spotlight on them for awhile now for this blog, but they recently sent me a few pieces of their armor for a photo shoot, so now seemed like a good time for it.

The armor they make is awesome not just because it’s actually totally battle-ready, but can also be just as easily used for costumes (which, as you probably know, I am all about). For this photo shoot I didn’t dress it up too much, since I wanted to be able to show off the armor itself (it’s just as stunning worn simply on its own as it is turned into a full-fledged warrior princess costume, trust me). I roped Joe into the shoot as well, to show off the male variety.

I hope you enjoy! And if you like what you see, please go check out their kickstarter! You will not be disappointed.

If you like any of the items we’re wearing above, I’ve got the female warrior princess top and a matching gorget in a combination of purple and black. Joe’s got on a red and black shoulder pauldron and some simple black short arm bracers. You can throw these over a renaissance fair outfit for some added durability and badass-dom, or you can great an entirely new costume out of them! I never even know you could buy armor this legit before I found this company, so I thought it would be fun to share with all of you.

I’ll be back soon with information about everything I’m doing at VidCon – have a great day!

I posted this video last week and I am quite proud of it… it’s one of my “take the camera with me on an adventure” style videos of my and Joe’s trip up to the Tulip Fields. That might sound lame, but Skagit Valley (north of Seattle) is one of the largest tulip suppliers in the US and their festival brings in hundreds of thousands of people. With 100’s of acres of beautiful flowers, I’m not surprised.

We caught the tail end of the festival this year, but still had a fantastic time taking in the sights, soaking up the sun, and making a lot of bad tulip jokes. Come along on our adventure, and let me know your favorite festivals/fairs in the comments!

Many of you saw pictures a while back from a secret project I flew down to NorCal to help out with and were dying to find out what it was for. Now that it’s released, I can finally tell you!

The super awesome costume/hair/makeup I got to wear on set.

The project was a favor I did for Wyrd (the company that helped Joe and I make Jetpack Unicorn) and their new app-making company Drawn by Clouds. We were filming a fun little web series called “Dev” to help promote their Kickstarter – and it’s live now!

This project was a bit different from ones I’ve worked on lately, ie. it was very low budget and a little silly (but ultimately still a lot of fun). It was deliberately made to look amateur-ish to show the struggles of an indie game company trying to bring a game to market, and it shows the team (of which I play the extremely grumpy lead developer) getting their project ready for a fictional kickstarter that runs in tandem with the real one:

It’s pretty rough around the edges, but I love these guys and I super want their game to succeed. No matter what you think of the web series, I highly recommend you check out their game’s Kickstarter because Fall Schematic looks like it’s going to reach extreme levels of awesome and I can’t wait to play it.

This is the final installment in this week’s video series exploring my recent trip to Montana. Joe and I are definitely home safe and sound now, but I wanted to share the whole gnarly experience with you guys. Please let me know if you enjoyed this style of video and maybe I’ll make an effort to make it more of a norm on my channel!

In totally unrelated news, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! Regardless of your views on the holiday, I hope you manage to spend it with people you love.

This the second video in my Montana series this week, in which Joe and I experience some extreme highs (discovering an actual IRL Harry Potter neighborhood) and even more extreme lows (crashing our car and getting stranded on the drive home).

Get up close and personal with us as we take you along on our adventure, for better or worse!

Time for a bucket list post! Back in December, I took a road trip with Joe down the coast to LA, making a few choice stops along the way. One, of course, being the Winchester Mystery House. I had heard about this place before but never found a reason to stop – being in San Jose, it’s not exactly on the way to anything, so we factored an extra half a day into our trip and made it a priority.

We were not supposed to take pictures inside the house, so this picture below is usually all tourists walk away with. Our tour guide, however, was a huge geek about the house and understood the need to photograph the experience. She told us if her back was turned, there “would be no way for her to know we were taking pictures”. So, blog post commence, am I right?

The Winchester Mystery house is less of a house and more of a RIDICULOUSLY HUGE mansion that resides in Northern California. The property once belonged to the late Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Winchester, of prestigious Winchester Rifle fame. Sarah Winchester was also certifiably nuts. She placed the fate of her existence in the hands of a psychic after the death of her husband and only child. She asked this medium why she had suffered such a terrible loss, and the medium told her that the Winchester family was cursed. Sarah Winchester believed this, and felt the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles were pursuing her family. The medium told Sarah that she could confused the ghosts by building a house that was always changing. Sarah took this advice, moved to California, and begin to build. The house stayed under construction until the day she died. She had a permanent team of builders that worked on the house, and she kept many of the same ones for most of her life.

One of the first things she had constructed in her new house was a séance room,  which she used every single night. Each morning she would give her builders new plans based on what the spirits had told her the night before, which led to a lot of crazy building plans. Well, that and the fact that Sarah Winchester had very little architectural experience herself.

This is a second story door that opens to nothing but a straight drop off outside. Other doors open to blank walls, staircases lead to nowhere, and windows were installed in floors.

We were warned multiple times on our tour not to wander off, since it’s totally possible to get lost meandering around for hours in the confusing mess of rooms. Staircases and doors weren’t even the strangest features – probably the craziest part of the house was the “Switchback Staircase”, a flight of stairs that only went up nine feet but includes seven different flights of two inch steps. There was also a staircase that went up and immediately back down to take you to a floor just mere inches higher than the one you were just on.

Also, despite the 160 rooms in the house, 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms, 47 fireplaces, 17 chimneys – the entire house only has one shower. Bet that makes dorm life seem a little easier now, doesn’t it! The house also included an incredible amount of technological innovation. For the late 1800’s, it was quite rare to have furnishings such as steam and forced air heating, modern toilets and indoor plumbing, push button gas lights, and a hot shower. The house also contained three elevators, as well as stained glass windows created by the Tiffany company. These stained glass windows still reside in the house, specifically one designed by Tiffany himself that’s value is said to be inestimable. It was carefully designed so that when light hits the crystals in just the right way, the room would be engulfed in thousands of rainbow prisms. Of course, Sarah Winchester chose to install the window in a room facing a wall with no direct light whatsoever.

Before the giant earthquake in 1906, the Winchester House was seven stories high. Sarah Winchester never bothered fixing most of the damage done to the house, so the house remains to be merely four stories to this day.

As I said, there was round the clock construction on this house for 36 years from her team of loyal builders. She paid them quite well, as she was well-equipped to do so. She inherited more than $20.5 million when her husband died, as well as fifty percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Her income was around $1,000 a day, which, back in those days was more liked $30,000 a day. THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. PER DAY. I’D PROBABLY GO CRAZYTOWN TOO.

Sarah Winchester died in 1922, at which point construction on the house immediately stopped. The total amount of money spend on the construction has been estimated around $5.5 million, which in today’s terms would be more than $75 million.

Nowadays, of course, the staff at the Winchester Mystery house still believe the place is haunted. This man in overalls (pictured below), one of Sarah Winchesters esteemed builders, is said to be seen walking around the house, doing maintenance and continuing to work on the house even after all these years.

I don’t know if I believe it, but the house sure is crazy. You can feel the vibe of crazy thick in the air as you walk around, ducking so as not to hit your head and you wander through tiny doorways, secret passageways and stairways meant for incredibly short people. I immensely enjoyed my tour through the Winchester Mystery House, but then again, I do love a good haunted house. Sarah Winchester’s story fascinates me, and I am so glad others felt the need to preserve her life and allow us to experience a small piece of it.

Have you been to the Winchester Mystery House? Have you driven by it? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Also, please recommend other haunted houses or must-see locations for lovers of spooky and unexplainable things!

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I’ll be back soon to cross another thing off my bucket list!

Welcome, blog readers, to the Camlann Village Experience. What is Camlann Village, you ask? Well, only the quickest way to be transported back to 1376, to rural life in England. WHY would you want to experience rural life of the fourteenth century? Um, fun, obviously.

Last month my friends and I donned our warmest Renaissance gear (mind you, we go to Renaissance Faires usually in the general sweltering range of ninety to on hundred degrees, so this was no easy task) and piled in the car to head out to Carnation, WA, to the medieval living history museum known as Camlann. It’s a 501 non-profit educational corporation and it’s also the coolest place you’ll ever go. It’s also delightfully weird.

Let me preface this review by saying there is no technology of any kind allowed inside Camlann Village. This place takes itself TOTALLY SERIOUS with a capital “Thee”. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the owner felt a little twinge when patrons come in wearing glasses. That picture at the top of this post is so strange because we were literally asked to go outside to take it. In the rain. At night.

So, Camlann Village is open for various over the course of the year and their restaurant, the Bors Hede is open year round. We, however, were attending one of their choice Medieval Feasts, an event I recommend to all. This particular feast was of the Yuletide persuasion; myself and Ariana had been before but none of our friends had. Forty people sit around a large circular table set up in the basement of the restaurant to enjoy a three course meal served on trenchers – round slabs of bread used in the stead of a plate. If you eat your trencher, you’re out of luck for the remaining three courses of the meal. Also, there’s not really any silverware. I truly wish I could have taken a picture of this for you, but you’ll have to use your imagination here. Just like we’re back in the 1300’s! There was no way I was risking taking my phone out down there. I don’t for one second doubt they had some sort of medieval torture room for technological transgressions.

I would say about half the people in attendance dressed up. For the rest, there was either a costume rental area or the knowledge of sticking out like a sore thumb. No, I’m joking – it’s totally fine to not dress up, but it really does complete the experience.

The food was awesome and perfectly period appropriate. The queen of course got to taste everything first, and then dishes were passed around to her right and left after she deemed them worthy of our meal. We alternated between sawing into a whole boar, sampling strange almond puddings, and sneaking seconds of the delicious fenberry pie. My personal favorite was the almond fritters. There was spiced wine poured between each course and I found it delightfully strange as well that whole spices were given out to cleanse the palette near the end of the meal.

Of course no banquet feast is complete without a show, and the mid-course entertainment was surprisingly good. We had minstrels and storytellers and strange instruments I had never heard of before. Most of the entertainers and drink pour-ers didn’t take it quite as seriously as the guy who runs the place – but in a good way, in a “we’re all experiencing this strange thing together” kind of way. I got a few winks. Right after noticing my cup was filled to the very top. Score!

In conclusion, going to Camlann Village is one of my favorite things to do with a group of friends around the holidays. I can’t speak for everyone, but I love putting myself in vaguely strange and unusual situations, and the Yuletide Feast doesn’t disappoint. You will feel uncomfortable, you will eat things that look strange, but overall you will have an amazing night you’ll never forget. And at the end of it all, I promise, you really wont miss your phone all that much. Because strange as it is, it’s nice to just experience things every once in awhile. Don’t get me wrong: I love me some phone pics to commemorate everything I do, but I’ll have the memories of Camlann forever either way.