Tuesday, October 29, 2013

When it's cold outside

As our fall starts to feel more like winter it's time to get cosy inside. Some of the best ways to make that happen involve candles, décor and bath time.

Lets start with my  favorites. I bought Gourds and pumpkins to decorate with and I absolutely love them!! All different colors, shapes and sizes. And naturally I picked the weirdest looking ones...




Of course, I love candles all year round and have lots dotted throughout the condo anyway, but I've been burning them more and I've pulled out the cold weather scents. 
Cinnamon and clove buds, Leaves (which actually smells like apples), Cider lane, Fraser fir and Gingerbread is what's going on now.




The candles also make for a cosy warm bath time. Perfect relaxation. And naturally, bubbles, bath bombs and face masks make an appearance.. more on them another time!

Keep warm
xoxo


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

ECC2013, continued..

Really it's just one more thing. 
We got commissions done!!! Basically, find an artist you like, give them some money and time and when you come back they will have drawn whatever you asked. For us, that was sketches of Chad and I in our costumes. 



Yay! We turned out so cute!! 
Xoxo


Monday, October 7, 2013

Edmonton Comic Expo 2013

I was beyond excited about going to my second comic con and looked forward to it for such a long time. It's an environment I really like, I love to dress up and I love that it's a giant room full of dork's that have something in common. Letting the inner dork out without any judgement is pretty cool too.... I'm not really sure when this happened to me.. but it makes me so excited!

The show didn't disappoint. Most of the vendors we saw in Calgary, but this just meant we didn't spend money at this show. Except on food...

We went to 2 panels and the costume contest and other than that, spent the whole of both days walking around the halls, taking pictures, trying things on, considering buying stuff and meeting people.


Some of those people we met were Holly Conrad and Jessica Merizan. Cosplay celebrities I suppose you would call them. The costumes they wore were amazing! We also tried hard to meet Jessica Nigri, but failed. She was surrounded at all times by teenage fan boys... not surprising really.


One of my favorite things though, from this show and from Calgary, is playing dress up at one of  the corset booths. One day I will have one!!


Snake tamer, Dani! Or something like that.. I'll take snakes over spiders any day. 
Chad however would not. He was super brave and held this snake too though.


The cutest family costumes. Bane, Harley Quinn and baby Batman. You can kind of see in front of them is a kiddie car with a handle to push it, it was painted as the bat mobile. So cute.

Lulu, another Final Fantasy character. Her costume was awesome.

Pretty much any group of cosplayers that involve children are big winners. That little Mr. Freeze is so cute. And the tanks on his back for his freeze gun are made of 2L pop bottles. Clever.


And the Hello Kitty samurai.. I think it is a man, but I can't be sure. "It" has someone who walks around and talks on it's behalf. Awesome costume though. 

I can't wait for the next con and I'm already working on another costume!!! See you in April, Calgary!
xoxo

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Cosplay; Yuna

For my costume this time I didn't take pictures of the process like I did before, mostly because I got so into it that I forgot... And because some pieces were made more than once, were complicated or didn't take much work.
A major difference between this process and the last is that Garnet was made of pieces that just needed to be slightly altered and put together, for this one everything is made by hand from scratch with the exception of the shorts which are cut off hemmed pants. 


I actually made the hood and top in the spring when I finished making my last costume and then put them away for when I was ready to do the rest of the costume. That original top didn't end up making the cut and I made an entirely new one from scratch. I absolutely love the new one and I must say, I'm pretty impressed that it looks as good as it does considering I didn't use a pattern. A bra is attached to the inside of the shirt, 2 separate panels of lace are attached the the bottom and there is a zipper down the back.  The hood was pretty simple once I figured it out. I chose a sweater from my closet with a hood shape I liked and stared at it for a bit until I could make it in my head, then made it for real. The detail on the chest is cut out of craft foam, painted and glued on.



The hip pouch was made 3 different time because I wasn't satisfied with the first 2, it was then altered twice after I finished it. The point is, I got there eventually. 
The half skirt was also made twice. I originally used blue fabric and intended on bleaching the ends, but the color wouldn't lift out. When that didn't work I made the skirt anyway out of the solid blue fabric and just added the white lace to the bottom. Then I hated it. Finally I figured it out. Buy white fabric and blue dye. Ding ding ding! 
The 3 pieces were cut and through some trials I figured out how to get a somewhat decent color fade happening. Rinse, dry, sew, sew, sew. Add the lace trim and then finally done. 


The arm bands were quite simple and pretty quick. Once they were cut and sew to the size I wanted, I hole punched them and put in eyelets. The eyelets get laced with black cord and that's all. Done.
The blue thing in my hair (that obviously didn't get photographed much) is a string of beads, some of which I hand painted to look right and blue synthetic hair. Not to hard to make, harder to figure out how to attach. In the end I just used a clip from hair extensions.


Lastly, one of the more challenging pieces. The long braid of fabric wrapped hair.. The character is meant to have a section of crazy long hair that is wrapped in fabric and only the very ends show. I obviously don't have hair quite that long so mine is scrap fabric rolled up, wrapped in more fabric, sewn up a bit so it doesn't unwrap, hair extensions wrapped around the very bottom, another piece of fabric to cover that and the tied with a black cord. This wasn't the hard part. The hard part was trying to figure out how I would be able to wear it. It turned out surprisingly heavy and therefore couldn't be attached to my head or neck. In the end it was tied to the shirt straps in the back and covered by the good. 

Please don't ask. I was fooling around and Chad took the
 picture anyway... It turned out to be the only picture that showed the back of the costume...

And that is all. I hope you enjoy!!
xoxo

 

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