Chapters (53)
- Front Cover
- Letter from the Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- • One •
- • Two •
- • Three •
- • Four •
- • Five •
- • Six •
- • Seven •
- • Eight •
- • Nine •
- • Ten •
- • Eleven •
- • Twelve •
- • Thirteen •
- • Fourteen •
- • Fifteen •
- • Sixteen •
- • Seventeen •
- • Eighteen •
- • Nineteen •
- • Twenty •
- • Twenty-One •
- • Twenty-Two •
- • Twenty-Three •
- • Twenty-Four •
- • Twenty-Five •
- • Twenty-Six •
- • Twenty-Seven •
- • Twenty-Eight •
- • Twenty-Nine •
- • Thirty •
- • Thirty-One •
- • Thirty-Two •
- • Thirty-Three •
- • Thirty-Four •
- • Thirty-Five •
- • Thirty-Six •
- • Thirty-Seven •
- • Thirty-Eight •
- • ∞ •
- • Thirty-Nine •
- • Forty •
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Excerpt from Be Dazzled
- One
- Two
- About the Author
- Back Cover
“I’m sanding the plastic in small circles, carving out tiny scratches that the glue is going to fill. This gives it some tooth. That said, make sure you wash off the plastic after doing this to get rid of the dust. I also suggest swabbing the plastic with alcohol to clean off any residuals.”
I pick up the fins I’ve already sanded. I hold them up to the camera, letting the light show the newly textured surface.
“Now that our plastic is treated, we can get to gluing. For gluing to hard surfaces, I recommend an industrial-strength adhesive, like this E6000. But because I need to mask the seam between the stiff material of the fin and the fabric it protrudes from, I’m also going to use some foam clay to smooth out the gap, and then this liquid cement, which comes in a fabric formula.” I hold up both. “Whatever you use, always make sure that it’s going to dry clear. You don’t want a bunch of dry white stuff all over your beautiful jewels.”
I hear myself and cringe.
“Sorry, Mom,” I say to the camera, playing it off. Evie is, of course, not watching. She is backpacking in São Paulo with one of her artists, a man who only produces one painting per year, applying the paint directly over his last painting. She’s got him booked at a gallery in SoHo in a few months, where he’ll complete his next layer.
“I’ll be handling the gems with a picker tool so I don’t get glue all over my hands. I can tell that the glue is going to get everywhere if I don’t use something very fine to administer it. So what am I using, you might ask?”
I fan a fistful of syringes at my audience.
“These are glue syringes. They’re perfect for getting glue into very small spaces without making a mess.”
I adjust the camera to look down at my hands, and I begin. As I work, I sometimes forget to talk. I’m most chatty when I’m nervous, but I calm down when I work and just go dead quiet with focus. It’s like I’ve only got enough electricity to run my hands or my mouth. Never both. But I have to make the effort to narrate or else it’ll be quite a boring show.
“Not all rhinestones are created equal. Did you know that? There are tons to pick from, and for almost all your cosplay needs, you’re going to want ones that are flat-back, which means the backs of them are flat, which is perhaps obvious… I don’t know, maybe it’s not obvious, but whatever. They have flat—Oh, shit.”