How I Made my DI Scenery

As I already said in my last post, I just recently got in 4th place for this year’s Destination Imagination Competition. Besides Mrs. Soap’s costume that I made, our second team choice element was a mushroom that I made. This is how I made it.

First, the stem was made by taking a carboard tube and a 5 gallon bucket. To make the mushroom stable, I needed a strong base. To make a sturdy base, a hole was cut on the bottom, where the carboard tube was inserted. To secure the tube to the bucket, I used triple-expanding foam between thet tube and the inside of the bucket. After letting the foam dry overnight, the base was finlly done. To make the transition fromt the tube to the base smoother and more cone-like, I wrapped chicken wire around the entire base. Next, to cover up the base, I cut the elastic off of a fitted sheet. to color the sheet, and to give it a more natural color thats not pure white, I neded to dye it somehow. My father and my little brother are ardent baseball fans, I went with them to our local baseball field. I was watching themplay, and saw the red dirt of the innerfield, wich would be perfect for dying the sheet. I took serveral cup fulls of dirt home and added water to make the dirt red. I soaked the sheet in the  muddy water overnight. It tinted the white sheet reddish-brown. I then sewed it around the base. Like a sock, I slipped it off when transpotring it.

Moving onto the top of the mushroom. The top was slightly harder to create thant the base. To create the shape of the top of the mushroom, I used an inner tube and a beach ball. I inflated them both and stacked the ball on the tube. To cover the top, I went to my local fabric store. there I found some fuzzy, darkish red cloth. I then took it home and spent 3-4 hours sewing it all together and leaving  a hole where I could then blow the tube and the ball up. To create the white dots needed on the mushroom. I used local moss called air ferns, wich are nature’s puffballs. After dipping them in white paint, I used adhesive glue to attatch them to the fabric on the mushroom.

After that, it was transported to the competition, where it scored very wel and played an important part in or performance.

My Destination Imagination Costume

One of the reasons I joined Destination Imagination this year was to have fun and work with people, and it toatally paid off. If you’re thinking of joining DI, do it. it is fun, you get to let your creative side show, and in the end, you wanna do it next year. One of the aspects of DI is creating your own creative costumes to be judged. This is how I made my costum. First off, my character was Mrs. Soap (s-oh-ah-p), the main manager of a dishwasher. Her and the two workers she in chrge of are all miniature people that wash all dishes inside of a dishwasher in our world, instead of machinery.

Since she is the manger of a dishwashers, I based her costume off of bubbles and cleanslieness and the color white, usind a base color of white and other colors like light blue.

I first started off with a skirt created entirley of bubble wrap, plastic, tubing (which I nicknamed “fabulous string”), and clear masking tape. I used several layers of transparent, shiny pplastic to make the base part. Clear plastic bubble wrap was wrapped around the plasitc, wich showed the shiny plastic. They were secured with clear masking tape. I then used the fabulous string as a belt waist of the skirt. To complete it, I wore white leggings underneath it. It may have looked good, but it was very hot, and I couldn’t sit down. If I did, i would pop the bubbles on the skirt :/

Next I made boots. I sacrificed an old pair of Uggss by covering them completley in white duct tape. A layer of silver was added to the bottom. for the final touch, and also add more bubbles to it, I wrapped the top part of the boots in blue duct tape, and blue bubble wrap to make it appear as if they were rain boots.

For the shirt, I borrowed one of my mothers long sleeve button up dress shirt and tucked it into my skirt.

Since mrs. soap is a manager, and has a job, of course she has to have a name tag. I used light blue duct tape to make a double sided piece of duct tape. I then used the rim of a cup to draw circles, wich I then outlined in thin strips of white duct tape. To finish it, I Sharpied in “Mrs. Soap” on the front, and duct taped it to my shirt.

The final touch-and personally my fvorite piece of my costume- was made with starting out with a dollar-store hat from last year’s New Year party. I wrappped that in white duct tape, and the bottom rim covered in light blue duct tape. I made more duct tape bubbles the same way I did before and attached them to the side of the hat. I then used the fabulous string and used it as a hatband. This is my final costiume. Since I was competing in DI, no parents were allowed to help or give any team member any ieas, including me. I hope you enjoyed this post, a I am hoping that I will make it to state this year.

Favorite Mistake Essay

My worst nightmare, standing right in front if me. Do I have arachnophobia? Triskaidekaphobia? Anatidaephobia? No, no, and no. My fear—is microwaves. Which, I guess, would be microphobia, I don’t know.

Whatever I have, I’m terrified of microwaves. If I keep up this fear, I would probably starve to death in college, not being able to use a microwave. I know that microwaves seem pretty harmless…until you do some research. They can make things blow up and catch fire, which totally isn’t harmless at all. Of course I knew this beforehand, but I wasn’t scared of microwaves like I was of spiders, or the dark. But that was before “The Great Black Castle Incident,” or so my family calls it.

It started with a couple of White Castle burgers. If you don’t know what they are or haven’t tasted them, you haven’t lived. They’re amazing burgers that are sold in Chicago and other parts around that area. They’re hamburgers that are miniaturized—and they’re delicious! I love them because they’re so small and you can eat 3-4 in one sitting. I decided one fine afternoon to make a couple of these burgers sent from the heavens themselves.

It all went fine at first. I unwrap 2 and pop them in the microwave—this is where it went wrong. The package stated on the back that they were to be microwaved for 60 seconds—nothing wrong with that. I then mindlessly continued to hit the “0” button 2 times, causing me to nuke them for 6 minutes. That is where my mistake was.

Uh-oh.

I flopped down on the couch and decided to browse the internet on my phone while waiting for them for them to cook. I was fully absorbed in Instagram. Minutes felt like hours, and soon, the kitchen filled up with smoke, the gas filling up my lungs. I can’t remember what happened next, only that my father came in with a bowl of water, him yelling, and the unbearable stench of smoke. When I came back into the kitchen, I saw the two burgers in the trash—they looked like lumps of coal. Hence the name, “Black Castle.”

Even today I’m still teased by my family whenever I try to microwave something, and I always check the package before I heat up anything.