Open Studios Mask Giveaway!

We are giving away this mask to celebrate our participation in the Vermont Crafts Council Open Studios Weekend! All you need to do to for a chance to win is sign up for a free Feedburner suscription to our blog. Enter your email address in the Feedburner widget on the left, confirm your suscription in the email Feedburner will send you, and you're good to go! (If you are already a suscriber, you are entered automatically, you need to do nothing more.) We will draw the name of one suscriber at random on Sunday, June 15th, 2008, and send them this mask completely free and postage paid! There are no purchases necessary and you can have your name removed from the suscriber list at any time, just email us with your request. Good luck!

Welcome to the 2008 Sans Souci Studios Virtual Tour!

As many of you already know, Sans Souci Studios will be participating in the Vermont Crafts Council Open Studio Weekend this year on May 24 and May 25. We realize many of you will not be able to make it all the way to Vermont, so we created this blog entry and video so you could join us online!



Here we are, me, my husband Brian Wightman, and my daughter Isabelle, cheerfully waiting to greet you by the door! (No, I don't remember what was so funny. I promise it wasn't you.)



Here are the two part time studio assistants, Skimble and Teaze, looking up to greet you as you come in (or at least, to see who disturbed thier nap!)



And here is our lovely abode. Sans Souci Studios is located in our home in Barre, VT, in a room that measures about 11 1/2' long, 9 1/2' wide, and 8' high. Have a look around, let me know if you have any questions and enjoy your visit!

First Unicorn Mask Completed!

I've been working on this thing for a better part of a year. Part of the hangup was how to attach this somewhat oddly shaped mask to the wearer's head. I did a lot of experimentation buying and making hoods onto which to Velcro the mask, but found I needed to add straps to the base of the skull to tighten the hood for smaller-headed wearers. So I figured, if straps were needed anyway, why not just skip the hood?

So I went through a lot of gyrations just to be reminded of three basic principles of mask fit, which I was told practically first thing when I started making masks.

1) The mask must rest on the "third eye" of the wearer's head, at a point in the middle of the forehead a little bit above the eyebrows.

2) The straps must fasten at the wearer's temples.

3) The straps must tighten at the base of the wearer's skull.

The black browband I added underneath the mask allows the mask to meet all these requirements. It's also much cooler than the hood, fits more snugly, and makes the mask easier to get on and off.

So now I have a bunch of black vinyl Japanese Zentai hoods laying around I don't need anymore. Fetish clothing, to be exact. Maybe I can unload them on eBay, and let all those friendly neighborhood pervs drive up the traffic at my store.