Baby Halloween

Not long now intill Halloween comes around once more! I had lots of ideas for infant costumes and have several planned for the next 3 years : D here are a few of my favourites:

Pea pod is this years halloween costume - see separate post for full details :)
Lobster pot
Super Ted is a great idea a bear suit with zipper to reveal a red onsie with the Super Ted logo on : D

Ewok - Great for conventions and perfect for the expo in London, I plan to take Lucas in May 2012.

LionThe last one is planned for Halloween 2012 with a the whole family, Mummy as Dorothy and Daddy Scarecrow : D

Katrina and Spike

Many of you may know my all time favourite anime is Cowboy bebop, I just can't get enough of it. Its smooth style quirky characters with interesting back grounds and the super cool American blues soundtrack really give it an edge, its a cut above other animes.

This year I was planning to finally done the PVC hot-pants to cosplay as Faye Valentine, I'd lost over a stone at the end of the summer and was going to the gym regularly enough to regain my old flat stomach and was brave enough to agree to the skimpy outfit . . . but have now had a change of plan! We decided to start a family and no one will get to see that tiny tummy of mine as by the time the convention comes around ill be only 2 weeks from my due date lol
Instead I've got a purple dress to cosplay as an extra from the first episode of Cowboy Bebop, Asteroid Blues. Her name is Katrina and she is the GF of a drug smuggler with a bounty on his head, I'd always loved her busty dress and swarthy Mediterranean look. She has some chemistry with Spike, but sadly her sob story doesn't have a very happy ending!
I wanted to make a suit for Dave to be Spike but with Katrina he wears a poncho and sombrero for half the epsiode so I can miss off the complicated suit jacket. It should be easy enough to make trousers and source the accessories.

Mad as a Hatter!

With the royal wedding coming up our little community has planned a big street party complete with bunting! We will have a bouncy castle, races, games and even a set of stocks to get dad wet with water bombs! My part is a hat making competition to encourage people to dress up for the party. I'm not sure how many will take part - there are only going to be 40 attendees and not many have shown an interest in my competition!

Any way as the judge I have been making a fabulous hat for myself, I need little excuse to get crafty and love the chance to make something wonderful. We are having our street party in the meadow with cupcakes and bunting so I figured a fancy garden party hat would be great, but ofc its never as simple as that! I wanted it to be novelty and patriotic so I designed a Tea Cup Hat :)
I've modified a wide brimmed pre-owned hat, by taking the rim off and attaching it to the very top of the hat, this will make the saucer. Its a very classy navy blue hat with cream ribbon round the base and 2 bows both of which are now under the rim below the saucer. I have made the cup part from paper-mache.
I painted it cream, adding details in navy blue around the rim and handle, I wanted the hat and cup part to look like they belong together so it needed to be done professionally and to a high standard. The finished product looked great at the end and everyone commented on it :)

Kawinnet J Frye

Kaylee! Sqwee ^_^

I adore Firefly, the frontier scifi show from genius Joss Wheadon, the series that certainly is a case of quality over quantity. I love the crew of serenity but Kaylee has something special about her, and it wouldn't be hard to stay in character whilst wearing her costume!

First of all I bought a parasol with the intention of painting it but so far I've been un-able to find a suitable silk shirt to wear with it so for now I'm sticking with normal mechanic Kaylee. I searched a long time to find suitable overalls and finally found this great pair from Uncle Sam. Shipping from the US was as much as the item itself so I decided to buy 2 and try to sell a second complete costume online to help towards costs.

There are three patches on Kaylee's coveralls: the bear, the heart, and the flower.

The size of the flower is 1.25" x 1.5" and it has a yellow centre.

From yet another long search came the 2 smaller patches on the front of her overalls. Although the heart and flower seem to be home-made or crochet on Kaylees overalls I have bought some iron on patches made from shiny material, and the flower also has a little glitter but the size and colours are right. Despite not being spot on they cute and I know kaylee would approve :) I attached a heavy metal zip to the front of the overalls, removed the sleeves and tweaked the shape of the jump suit to make it a more flattering shape for a curvy woman such as myself.

I used sand paper to age the pockets, knees and other hard wearing areas. I found very few resources for the characters on Kaylee's trousers, but this one is amazing. After I had decorated the Chinese doodles, I used spray paint and oil to dirty it up - it was good fun! When I was done I washed the whole thing about 6 times, sometimes with some lightener, to give it a well broken in look. I searched for a long time and did find a good copy but it was too much money so eventually bought a long sleeved tee-shirt on ebay, its not perfect but again I'm sure it would definitely be approved by Kaylee herself :)

Special thanks to Maggie at http://www.costumersguide.com/

Broken links

OK after posting a link to this blog onto FB I have just found that some of the photos and links from my new image hosting site are broken. Please bear with me and I'll upload them again via blogger asap.

From my previous post you can see I'll be very busy for the next few days so don't hold your breath, but I hope you will come back again soon and take a look :) I always like to hear feedback from friends and other cosplayers!

Party Season?

High fashion continues to display 80's dresses with floral and animal prints this party season which to be honest doesn't excite me at all.


There are also plenty of sequins to be found! Luckily I have seen at least half a dozen items that I would love to buy for my costume wardrobe (which lets face it is twice as large as my regular one anyway >_>) such as this sequinned skirt from Bay trading, wouldn't it be perfect for Columbia! They also have a questionable gold sequinned blazer : ) I have been holding a torch for her costume for a long-time and this is enough to push me into to putting it together : D

Emily: The Corpse Bride

Tim Burtons musical underworld is where Emily the corpse bride spends most of her time, intill she meets Victor, and then all sorts of drama ensues! I have planned a brilliant costume and although I'm not sure how many people will recognise me I am satisfied it will be accurate and realistic : ) I like to adjust costumes to fit in with real life, using real clothes and adapting make up etc to make things more realistic, after all I'm not a cartoon.

First I ordered a cheap Chinese lace corset that is very satisfactory, spray it with a fine layer of silver to give it a bit of sparkle and then aged the edges with dark blue, mostly around the top and bottom of the bodice. I took some time in constructing a trio of rib bones using ivory polyma clay and attached them to the bodice.

A silver dress bought on ebay will be adapted and made into a high waisted skirt with a knee high split slightly of centre to show a view of my shockingly bony leg : ) I will wear a white stocking with knee high blue sock rouched down round the ankle on my left leg. False lashes and bright blue eye shadow to the brow are a must, I have also bought 3 new shades of face paint to paint my body with. The veil I cut to a custom design, which I then hemmed, it is chapel length and falls to the floor. I soakd it in a tea bag/water/dye mix along with some ivory lace wedding gloves. I’ll also distressed them a little with velcro, and tears, both are made of cheap material and tarnished very well. I bought some wooden flowers in several colours which I aged with teabags and paint to make a fabulous bouquet and head piece, the latter of which I will attach the veil : )
On a side note David has a very acceptable hump made from a pair of pillows and some thick elastic straps. I was hoping to find some sort of plastic buckle (like you get on suitcases and the like) but for the moment bows and knots will suffice. I made a rough sack cloth type tunic in stone coloured cotton to go over the top. I had all the materials needed for this and my Emily costume cost £35, which I am so very proud of.

Bridal halloween costume

The party is pretty much planned and I have all the supplies I need, I have started David's costume and my own. I had planned to wear a charity bought bridal gown and put my hair up for Bride of Frankenstein but she actually only wears a sort of bed sheet bandage combo rather than a formal wedding gown. I'd love to do my hair up and I'm sure everyone will recognise me, it would be a very agreeable costume.

But I am tempted to modify the gown (it would look great) and tint my hair purple to become Tim Burtons corpse bride, Emily. This would be more authentic but I'm not sure I can ruin such a gown (even a bargain one) with good conscience.

I'd like some opinions please, do I modify the gown and paint myself as a zombie (I do love a good zombie!) or do I keep it decent and do a passable bride of Frankenstein? Decisions decisions! Please vote on the right hand side, opinions are greatly appreciated : )

Frankintiens bride & Igor

This year I started planning for Halloween early, we are having a party and David is away for 6 weeks before hand so I wanted to get most of the planning done before he left. I've ordered supplies, made shopping lists and menus, I have even got most of the decorations sorted.

I wanted to invite my friends for a dinner party, make a very fancy formal invite and then when they arrived up it would be a ghost house with cobwebs and a graveyard : D We are still doing that but now that David is going to be home early we have made it to a full blown party with cocktails canepes and 25 guests.

I had an idea of 16th century dress in silver and talc in my hair to make me look like a ghostly lady of the court and I did buy a dress pattern but money was the main issue, not to mention a lack of sewing machine. Last week David and I were in a new charity shop in Saffron Walden and I got this perfect bridal gown at a steal for only £5! Its home made so its all frayed and the roses are perfect, I hardly needs modifying, only pulling in the train and taking in the waist so I am very happy : ) I found some hair crimpers at a car boot but I still need to find someone to help to put my hair into a beehive though >_>

I have drawn up plans for Davids hunch back costume, I'm going to use brown cotton sheets to make a sack cloth type tunic with thick straw colour embroidery thread and a pillow strappe to his back underneath for the hunch back. A pair of old trousers/jeans with the bottoms rolled up and some drawn on scars/stitches will finish it of : ) He is in Canada at the moment and they have lots of Halloween things much like they do in the US so he might pick up some treats like a wig or eye piece.

Tifa Lockheart

I quickly compiled the items I needed for my Tifa costume and I am very glad it came together so easily! I had some items already including; a white ribbed tank top, socks, boots and gloves. One essential piece was this brilliant leather skirt on I bought on ebay. Although it will be a bit longer than "offical Tifa" with its very high waist the tank top - rather than the authentic crop top - will look better. The only problem was the braces pulled the skirt even higher! so next time I'll buy a skirt that is not so high on the waist as well as changing the elastic on the elbow pad to brown to make it more accurate. Over all I think it went very well : )

The braces were the most expensive item at £7 but they are double ones which is spot on so in my view worth the money. I like it when I find perfect accessories ; ) I painted some brass split pins (no silver ones available!) and modified a pvc belt, turning it back to front, I taped the back to avoid snags when wearing.

It took a bit of time to find some Polyma clay, but once I got some I had fun with it! I put some tape on the INSIDE of the gloves and used the 4 air holes as guides for the "studs". I guessed what proportions by going with what looked right to me and rolled out 4 balls. I flattened them with my thumb, baked them following instructions and stuck them on with craft glue, simple! I have 2 knee length socks cut at the toes and worn under the leather gloves to complete Tifas gloves : )

The elbow pad I sprayed silver with a bit of pewter over the top to give it some depth. I also made a small armoured piece with cardboard and clay to attach to my boot, shown on the far right. The gloves looked fantastic and I was very happy with the result : )

I was not overly excited about this costume by itself but I was excited about Arieths dress! Being along side her was great, I was very proud and Laila was happy to be glomped several times : ) We saw a couple of other FF cos-players and some serious guys but mostly was store bought and a few nauturo (boo). Ill definitely stick to the bigger conventions in future.

Alcon

Well folks seems we are all going to Alcon 2009, Aerith and Tifa here we come! I'll post as I go along as I did with my medieval costume back in April, that way you can see the work in progress : )

The costumes mainly consist of the following:
- Aerith
Red denim cropped jacket
Pink button down summer dress
Brown boots with white socks
Wicker basket & accessories (Hair tie, thong necklace and bracelets)

-Tifa
White tank top
Black leather skirt
Black 6 clip braces
Brown leather gloves
Custom elbow pad/long black gloves
Brown boots with black socks.
x2 red hair ties.

Budgets for both costumes will be tight but I hope to do Tifa for under £15 and Aerith for under £25, lets see how that goes shall we? I hope you will enjoy following the progress, I love actually getting a chance to put together and make new costumes, and in this case I get to do two! Lets hope I get everything done on time considering it is only a couple of months away.

White Rabbit

"I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!" This watch is two days slow, now wonder he is late!



Here is a costume I now own in its entirety thanks to a friend. He is reluctant to keep possession he is unlikely to use and so has passed it onto me, I am ever so grateful to have it in my extensive collection : ) It has a pair of very nice pale yellow checked trousers, (Think Rupert the bear) a large plastic watch with a red jacket and dickie bow. He also gave me the yellow short-sleeved shirt and Rabbit ear and nose piece.

Unfortunately I couldn’t wear it all myself, there would be modifications, a waistcoat would be great for starters, although it is a shame the fetching check trousers wouldn’t fit me. And I would probably wear free-standing ears and paint on a nose/whiskers or else where a separate nose piece rather than the one nose/ear set, my eyes get irritated by things on my face >_<

But it is a very welcome addition to my collection, and I am grateful to have many things in my possession I am unlikely to use very often ; ) Thanks very much Jim!