Two days and 55 peeps richer*, I finally finished my entry into the Washington Post‘s annual Peeps diorama contest.  For those of you who haven’t seen it on my Facebook, here ’tis again:

Peeptrick Swayze: Rest in Peeps. His most memorable roles from Ghost, Dirty Dancing and Point Peep Break.

And here are some other photos taken by the talented Kari Barber.

I started brainstorming last Wednesday what I wanted to do. I had to take into consideration I only had a one-day weekend and the submission was due Monday at midnight.

Lee had the bright idea of looking at the Wikipedia page that details the major events of 2009 — super useful.  After two seconds of browsing, I knew exactly what I was doing.  On the right-hand column there was a picture of Patrick Swayze, who died of pancreatic cancer last September.  My tribute to Peeptrick Swayze was born.

The problem with the Post holding the contest so early is a lot of stores have negligible Easter displays right now.  Of the four stores I went to, two didn’t have ANY Peeps and the other two only had yellow chicks and pink bunnies.   Bunnies make better characters because they’re more emotive than chicks.  But I needed different color bunnies to distinguish the movie scenes I was recreating.

Again, Lee found out that not 10 minutes from me at this bizarre new shopping complex on the Potomac is an official Peeps store.  I headed there Sunday after work, picked up the rest of my peeps (and a chocolate-covered one for consumption), and dove into another six hours of crafting.  Here’s my floor mid-way through construction.

I originally was going to do five movies, including two of my super favorites, Road House and To Wong Fu Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.  I thought I could earn extra points having the main characters dressed as chicks (cue pained laughter).  But the stage was too small and my felt costumes were taking a lot more time than I expected.

I brought in the leftover peeps to work the next day and was surprised to see young and old partaking of these diabolical confections, some as early as 9 a.m. They were gone by 4 p.m. As I said in an earlier entry, people here will eat anything, no matter how old, crusty or disgusting.

My goal is to land in the top 40 gallery.  If I don’t get some stiff competition from other Swayze fanatics, I think I’ll have made it.

*Not fuller (I maybe ate three)