Cinderella Costume

Today is April 3rd, that means it's time for C! Thanks for joining me again in the A to Z Blogging Challenge!

I have a tradition of making my daughter a Halloween costume every year, something sort of carried on from my mother, and in line with my love of costumes and my daughter's love of getting dressed up. For Halloween 2012, she and I decided on Cinderella for her costume. Now, I'm a stickler for costume accuracy - I really don't like the store bought costumes that add silly details but forget important ones. As you can see in the dolls above, Disney added a bow on baby Cinderella, a rose and collar trim on the toddler doll, and tiers in between the skirt puffs on the Barbie size doll. They're fun for my daughter to play with, but for me they just don't work (and you can tell she plays with them from the messed up hair, will fix that someday...).

In previous years, I have used different patterns, sometimes mixing elements of two patterns together, or adding my own bit to a pattern. But for Cinderella, I decided to get the Disney brand pattern, since I could get it for a dollar on sale, and I had never done skirt puffs before and didn't want to try and figure that out on my own. And the fabric had to be perfect, a light crystal blue with some glitter, not the stronger blue used in some costumes. Off to the craft store, and this is what I came home with:

Pattern, baby blue organza for the sleeve and skirt puffs, baby blue glitter satin for the dress, and a baby blue lining fabric for inside (please pardon the wrinkles, I just found these scraps in a box last night!). I didn't take many progress photos of the dress making because I was in a big time crunch, but here is a photo of the bodice with sleeves before adding the skirt puffs:

So sweet and simple! Then on go the skirt puffs:

I did cheat a little on the sleeve cuffs - the pattern called for making a narrow hem for the elastic to go through, but I used white satin ribbon folded in half for the hem and casing. Without that, the elastic would probably show through, so my way was better!

Onto the skirt, finishing the dress: 

Yes, those are light up Cinderella shoes, that's the one thing I bought from the costume section because they're just so cute and fun!

Here is the dress hanging up, front and back:

My zipper installation isn't the best, but it has improved a lot since the first few zippers I tried. In case you are wondering, I started sewing in 2007 on my own, after a few barely remembered lessons from my mother in my early teens. I haven't taken lessons since 2007 and haven't watched any how-to videos, just follow the patterns and learn from those and have also used some techniques from other patterns in new patterns. Simplicity patterns are my favorite! They go on sale the most, and are very easy to understand, with lots of different styles to choose from - especially costumes!

Finally, the princess herself! She loves this dress (along with her two other princess dresses, but those start with R and S).

We didn't have an orange pumpkin coach, but the combination of a yellow school bus and giant bunny works, right? The dress still fits her now, six months later, and I hemmed about 5 inches of length in the skirt, so if she gets taller but not too much wider, I can let out the hem and she'll be able to keep wearing it!

Do you have a favorite costume, or a favorite princess? Share with me in the comments! I hope you enjoyed this entry in my A to Z Blogging Challenge, join me again tomorrow for D!

Don't forget to check out some of the other great blogs participating in this challenge: http://www.linkytools.com/wordpress_list.aspx?id=181381&type=basic

Beautiful Beads

 Welcome to Day Two of  The A to Z Blogging Challenge! Today's post focuses on something that starts with B!

 As a crafter, one of my biggest passions is for making jewelry. And you know what you can make a lot of jewelry out of? That's right, beads! Beautiful beads, and there are so many different ones to choose from!  

I have been actively making jewelry as gifts and to sell for my business for five years now, and I used to make jewelry long before that. Some of the beads in my collection I've had since I was 13 or 14 years old, and some since I was maybe 8 or 9! I have made a lot of jewelry in those years, but I still have a LOT of beads to work with.

My beads are all in containers on shelves above a tv, since we moved to Virginia I have had to get creative with storage.

Yes, those are all mostly full, and they're all mine! My precious precious beads. Want to take a peek at what's inside?

Two of those cases have some of my jumprings as well, for making chainmaille jewelry, but those don't start with B! My cases are various styles and sizes from buying them at different times, and the small ones are great for taking along for mobile crafting. Below is my 'mobile crafting unit', a plastic shoebox full of jewelry making supplies, and lots of beads! Great for long car rides, especially moving from the Midwest to the East Coast, y'know?

So many beads I have great ideas for, and some I haven't thought of ideas for yet, just waiting for it to happen. But I only have so much time to work with! I still have a lot of green beads, intended for St. Patrick's Day jewelry, but I didn't make those again this year. I hear Emerald is a big color for the year though!

Here are a few special beads - I just love the crystalline briolettes in the top left, and the rainbow iridescent cubes and rondelles and hemetite hearts and stars below. Then on the right I have a lot of Swarovski crystal bicone beads, for birthstone jewelry and other pretties.

And just in case you were wondering, yes I am crazy enough to let my three year old have her own beads too!

There's a full alphabet in there, though she has mixed it up a little...

Do you like beads too? What are your favorite kinds? Join me tomorrow for C! (Hopefully I'll get the post up earlier on day 3...)

And if you want to see some of the stuff I make with beads, head over to my etsy shop, there's a button on the right for it ;) And my facebook page has more photos of things I have made not currently available.

Alicorn Art - A to Z Blogging Challenge

Today I am starting something called A to Z Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. This means I will make a new post every day of April (excluding Sundays) starting with the letter of that day, getting through the alphabet and making 26 posts by the end of the month. See the button on my sidebar for a link back to the challenge website =)

So onto the first post of the month!

It's no secret that many girls love ponies, and my little girl loves them a lot! She has this shirt, one of her favorites, with an alicorn on it - a unicorn with wings.

After dressing her in it for a while, and seeing a plain wood plaque at the craft store, the idea popped in my head to make it a bit of wall art for her room. I couldn't follow the design exactly but I wanted something inspired by, with the same colors. I looked online for more inspiration, found a unicorn design I liked and a wing design. A little sketching and layering, and I got this:

I painted the shield pewter gray, so then the next step was tracing the design onto the wood.

I retraced the design, cut it out in the placement I wanted and taped it to the shield. I tried cutting the design with a nail, but that didn't work so well. A hard-pressed pencil worked though!

Next, painting. Outline first, then filling it in.

My painting studio is a little more limited than it was in our last house, but I'm making do!

 I didn't like how the bottom of the neck and shoulders were looking, so I decided to add a cloudy mist underneath, and stars as well.

I used rubber stamps for the stars, instead of painting them and ending up with too much difference in size and shape.

But I was still missing something... there was metallic shimmer, stars, the wings and horn and curly mane... but no glitter!

It might not show up very well in photos, but I love how it looks in person! I added some stripes around the sides to finish it off.

Finally! 

Something new and pretty for my pony loving girl!

Soon it'll be up on her wall with a painted canvas with her name.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my Alicorn Art, and join me tomorrow for a post about something that starts with B!

Edit: This is a blog hop, my first! Here's the list of the other blogs in the challenge, there are thousands! Go see a few, and have fun this month!

A Scarlet Empress

Sometimes, you really have to go big. This costume was a suggestion by my husband, after I made a few other costumes for myself from my own ideas. We both knew and loved the Scarlet Empress from the White Wolf game Exalted, a powerful and some might say fearsome ruler of the Realm. She had great style - most empresses do, along with a big crown. Why not try? I thought. So I set to work... it only took three years! I was inspired after GenCon 2007, and didn't complete and wear the costume till 2010 - but I did have a child in those three years as well! This is a picture heavy post, bear with me please, my first =)

Concept Art, Sample on doll, Sketch

 I started with artwork from the game books, made some sketches, got some fabric samples, and made a Barbie sized mock-up. Did you know making a Barbie kimono is actually pretty easy? Well after you've made an adult sized one, it is. The corsets on the doll are kept together with fabric tape and a little thread in front - to test how the fabrics look together, not for a durable toy! (For those curious, this is an Irish Barbie from a dolls of the world collection way back in the mid-90s)

Cutting and pinning the Barbie kimono, and Sketches

Colored fashion sketch

Patterns, Sketches and Concept Art

 I used four different patterns for this costume - there's the robe itself, full corset, half corset, and skirt. The first full corset I made was too short for the look I wanted, so my friend bought it off me, and I adjusted the pattern to make it longer. The half corset was also modified - I didn't attach the two halves in back, so that it could just lace up with the full corset. Oh, and gold lame bias tape is amazing! I used that instead of making my own bias tape and loved the final look. I have a handy-dandy grommet setter tool, so no hammering for the grommets. I love that tool. The skirt was the simplest piece, then the robe/kimono wasn't too hard since I had made a kimono with the same pattern before. However, the shoulders on it are way too big, so if I were to wear this costume again, I would try and fix that.

Back of half-corset

Front of corsets together before grommets

Cut out robe

Finished robe

Sewing was the easy part though!

Next came the wig and crown - neither of which I had experience working with. Always ready for a challenge though, I asked around and found a good website to order a long red wig from, browsed the craft stores, and got to work.

If you ever work with a wig, get a styrofoam head form and synthetic hair conditioner spray. Those were essential to the wig styling. Oh, and prepare for a LOT of shedding! The styrofoam head is stuck on a fan stand, a jury-rigged idea that was really handy. I started out just brushing, brushing, brushing. Then I sectioned out pieces for the bump-up, the part to go over the crown center, the front wrapped locks and the side loops (which I braided at the hotel as a last minute change). A lot of sectioning, with lots of ribbon and clips and pins, but so worth it to get the right look! I did some backcombing for the bump-up and used one of those Conair accessories to help hold it up, which worked well. That's the only part of the wig that got hairspray, the rest just hung as it was. I cut the front wrapped locks short to match my concept photo, the trimmings of which later came in handy for the crown.

 For the crown, I needed something SHINY! What I finally found, after a lot of searching, was a roll of brass craft metal, in the clock making section at Hobby Lobby. Together with foam core board, metal tape, foil tape, a gold colored sheet of poster board, LOTS of spray adhesive, a headband and electrical tape, I made a crown. 

 I started by gluing the metal (which had to be flattened) to the board, and the gold poster board on back, then making my stencil for the crown. Some handy paper on the wall was helpful in getting the crown the right size - big enough to balance the costume, but not so big I couldn't get through doors! This was before my fab pre-con haircut. I cut some cardboard templates, tested them together, then traced and cut out the many layered crown pieces. Making the three dimples on each side was fun. But cutting out the pieces was not. I finished though, then edged them with foil tape, taped them all together in the middle with electrical tape, then onto the headband the same way. The trimmed hair edges wrapped over the tape and around between the crown and headband gaps for coverage and cushion, tied and glued in place. The final touch on the crown was the wire going between the top bars with a little pearl on it. Altogether, the crown isn't very heavy, and the headband makes it easy to put on and take off. The foil tape was a little annoying to apply - but I needed something to guard from sharp metal and cover the foam core.

Crown taped together

Crown with wire, pearl, and hair

Back of crown - not as shiny

Finding the perfect shoes took a lot of footwork - literally, because that day I was walking to all the shops. I lived near a mall at the time with more shopping centers on connecting roads, but no car at my disposal meant pushing the stroller around a lot. I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for - my make-it-work idea was getting some platform flip-flops and bejeweling them with lots of pretty gold stuff. I didn't find anything that worked at DSW or many of the mall stores, but Bakers had these gold darlings that were just perfect! And I got the gold lace I needed to finish the corsets that day, so it was a gold-strike!

A gold medallion on a chain completed the wig and crown ensemble, and a bag from my wedding was perfect to hold my camera and essentials - my husband carried the rest of the important stuff. I had fun with the makeup, using mostly gold and bronze shades along with a gold eyeliner that also made the dots under my eyes. I tried finding stick-on face gems but nothing was the right shape or size, so paint-on was the way to go. Plus I didn't have to worry about them falling off! My lipstick was a Covergirl colorstay style - paint on the color then seal with the clear gloss. It worked well, and though I had to reapply after eating, it stayed perfect when on the con floor.

Of course, I was making the costume for GenCon. So we had to drive quite a ways for the convention. Transporting the costume from Detroit to Indianapolis was fun... the biggest hurdle was the wig, which I carefully wrapped in scarves and placed in a box just the right size, and also brought the fan stand with for keeping the wig nice in the hotel. I didn't wear this costume until Saturday, and GenCon starts on Thursday. So I had the perfect big amazing costume sitting waiting for two days. I like my other costumes, and get asked for pictures in them some at the convention, but I was most excited for my new costume.

The morning I was going to wear the Scarlet Empress costume was fun - it took a lot of work to get dressed up in it, but so worth it in the end. There's something about being in costume and seeing the awe on others' faces that is fun, it's like the feeling I get when someone really likes the jewelry I made or my daughter's costumes, except it's on me.

I had a lot of fun walking around in the costume, posing for pictures even though I felt a little awkward sometimes - I thought it would be in character to look serious, but instead in most of the photos I look simply blah. Next time, mysterious smiles might work better. One of the best parts was going to the White Wolf panels and showing off my costume to the game developers, and going to the White Wolf party at the Industrial Club and sitting up on the VIP stage in it. Outside of the White Wolf group and my friends, not many recognized the character, but that's okay. One girl called me Azula, which made me smile - Azula and the Scarlet Empress would probably get along.

For my first specific character cosplay, I think I did pretty well. There are some things I will change the next time I wear it, but overall, it was a good costume and a fun experience. I love showing pictures of me in costume to friends who haven't seen it, then they ask, "What's that?" And I say, "That's me, I made that!" They might think I'm weird, but I like being a costume nerd.

I'd like to thank White Wolf and the Exalted development team and Melissa Uran for her Scarlet Throne Artwork Without them, I wouldn't have had a costume like this to make!