This one came to me quickly.
My first thought was to take a picture titled Lip-Lock. I was going to take a bead of jelly-lubricant and place it along the margin between my lips and then take a container of lock-tite and bring it up to my lips for the image so that it looked like the adhesive/epoxy was being applied to my lips. In theory, it was simple. In practice, it was going to be a multiple person job, it would likely need multiple takes with many applications of lubricant on my lips, and (frankly) my heart wasn’t in it.
So what could I use instead. I could use clothespins and play-off the idea of keeping secrets. I could still use the “Lip-locked” idea with a composite and a padlock. But once I opened the door to the idea of using a composite in GIMP, the easier idea in practice seemed to be to sew my lips shut. Initially, I was going to place a t-shirt in my mouth, measure out and mark spots for the stitching, then try multiple exposures with the t-shirt/stitching in place in my mouth, thus maintaining the shape of my mouth underneath.
This solution proved to be easier: I rolled up a t-shirt and sewed some stitches in it.
From there, it only needed some masking. The image is lacking in execution, but I don’t care enough to fix it. If I did, (1) I would work harder to localize tension in the lip where the threads move in/out (I did do some puckering with the transform-tool, but it is insufficient), (2) I would use thicker thread with more texture so that it didn’t look like an ink pen, (3) I would work harder on the light/shadow around the threads, (4) I would lighten the blacks on the thread so that they better matched the darkest parts of my beard (even though the thread is absolutely darker in real life, and (5) I would reduce the tension on the threads that would eventually be held to at the left side of the frame.
In the end, it was a decent idea, but looks more obviously manipulated than I am capable of. I just didn’t care enough. This image serves more as a proof of concept than a final image. I am okay with that for now.
As for the title … it just seemed too obvious to not use it and I couldn’t help myself.