A Very Mirkwood New Years' Eve

How can the holidays be anything but merry when Party King Thranduil presides? After all, it's now movie canon that he doesn't shirk on the quality of the drink. And I found this gem in Weta's art and design book for the movie (Mr. Cation good-humoredly let me choose my own Christmas present from him):

See that? The open collar symbolizes his rockstar-ness! I think that's as close as we're going to get to admitting that he really is as fabulous as tumblr makes him out to be. It does rather unfortunately bring to mind the vampire Lestat, though...

Gorgeous concept sketches for his throne.

When I saw this in the movie, I was ready to swoon. Much as I liked Rivendell and Lothlorien, they can't hold a candle to how the Woodland Realm took my breath away.

As I mentioned before, my sister Emily and I have a holiday tradition of building things, and this year, it was only logical that we build the Elvenking a throne. I cannot say enough how much I love Alan Lee and John Howe's imagining of what the Thranduil's underground halls looks like, and the movie was every bit as fabulous (actually, more!) as what I had in my head when I first read the book. The challenge was to make our cheap cardboard version do justice to it. Thankfully, we had plenty of large boxes in the garage; the flatscreen TV box turned into the antlers, the vacuum box turned into the top layer of the seat back, and a monitor box turned into the backing.

I sketched out the design onto the box, then Emily cut it out with a box cutter. Gosh, I just love elvish design elements. All those curved lines and intertwining branches! If I could outfit my whole house with Art Nouveau furniture, I would.

After that, it was just a matter time, paint, wooden chopsticks to stabilize the antler points, and plenty of hot glue before we had a throne. As always, things started out looking awfully dubious, but then it all came together spectacularly in the end (as my mother once again grudgingly admitted...poor lady, I'm sure she thought that a mess of cardboard scraps and the threat of paint on her white carpet should have ended once her daughters became adults).

Brown, black, white, red, and gold acrylic paints can transform cardboard.

It's really too bad the boxes had so many folds in them, though; it really messed up the painting.

If we'd had more boxes, we could have built up the sides more so that the back wasn't so narrow. Considering that we spent zero dollars, though, I'd say it turned out pretty dang well.  

Welcome to the Woodland Realm, mellon. Check out my fabulous throne (and not my hideous seam allowances).

We broke out the Christmas decorations after that and had entirely too much fun taking pictures and trying to get the cats to cooperate.

I need Oonaballoona's expertise in coming up with an appropriate cocktail for Thranduil. 

You know it's a good party when the Elvenking starts throwing tinsel boas in the air?

Celebrating the fact that my son's not pledged to a lowly Silvan elf!

Gummy got interested and came over to check out the bar. 

Oh hello there, fey creature! Would you like to party with us? You're welcome as long as you're not a dwarf.

Have you been a good cat this year? What would you like in your oversized hosiery?

The answer: Gummy would like to not be roped (boa-ed?) into such shenanigans. 

I'm not really sure what's going on, but I know I look good.

I thought about apologizing for the ridiculous spate of Thranduil posts this past month, but then I'm not actually sorry. I guess I'm sorry that I'm not more sorry? Anyway, now that 2013 is almost over, it's time to start thinking about my year-end wrap up. There's been rather less sewing than in previous years, but it'll still be interesting to see how my making has changed in this last year. Thanks to Gillian for organizing a way to reflect on the year; without her helpful lists and guidelines, I'd probably be too overwhelmed to even start!

A very happy new year to you from Party King Thranduil and the Party Elk!