In my last post, I whined about not having made any progress with my DIY goals (or any of my summer goals), but I managed to finish two pairs of shorts in one night, and make a youtube video.
I finished the studded shorts and corset shorts. I inserted both decorations by hand and ended up really hurting both of them in the process. The first pair of shorts have 97 studs total and the corset shorts have 18 grommets on each side. I made a little tutorial type video for the grommet shorts and intended to upload it last Saturday, but with every thing I plan on--it didn't work out. This week I plan to tackle the skeleton shorts, the bat wing crop top, and pixie skirt/shirt.
Earlier in the summer, I made a post about intended DIY projects that I planned to do. Lack of motivation and materials prevented me from making much progress.
I did attempt two, a pixie tank top made from an old skirt and a pixie skirt made from an old pair of pants. Both have failed so far. The tip of the skirt just won't hang right and the skirt-turned-shirt is a huge mess at the moment. It's all very discouraging. Tomorrow I'm going to unstitch the skirt-turned-shirt completely and see what I can salvage. If I can't, then I have the underskirt to work with at least. If that all turns out right, I think it will give me motivations to finish the other current failure.
I have some materials on the way to work on other projects and I'm hoping these turn out better.
As for my other goals, I've made quite a bit of headway into removing clutter and junk from my room, extended my wardrobe a bit, almost finished a cosplay, but haven't managed to lose weight.
I've finally got the full outfit together for Levy McGarden. All I'm missing is the wig, which should be arriving soon.This cosplay was pretty cheap and easy to make. The whole outfit cost no more than $20 to make, and that's because I used lots of thrifted items.
The dress itself was a lucky thrift store find. It had a similar shape to the dress Levy wears, but the color was a more vibrant orange. That wasn't a big deal for me and I prefer the color on her, so I got it. I unstitched the straps and stretchy back part. This ended up making the dress really big, so I just added some new white colored straps with no zipper or stretchy part. It goes over my head fairly easy, still.
The bow was difficult. I originally wanted to make it detachable, because I liked the look of the dress without it, but that didn't work out at all. I mad a super simple bow by scrunching a rectangle and sewing it and the wrapping two strips of fabric around it and sewing those down. I then hand sewed the bow to the dress (there was NO getting that much fabric through my machine).
The sleeves were easy to make. I measured the length of my arms and sketched out a flare shape on the fabric. I cut it all on the fold so I only had to sew one seam on each and sew the raw edges at the bottom. The white tops of the sleeves were made from strips of an old t-shirt and elastic. I couldn't sew the t-shirt material by itself on my sewing machine, so I used stitch witch. I then pinned the new straps to the tops of the sleeves and sewed them.
The headband was a challenge. Making the plain yellow fabric strip was easy enough, but adding the black lines and flowers was irritating. When I made the first black lines, the fabric pen made black ink seep throughout the fabric making smudgy lines. I re-did it with an ink pen and it worked. Cutting out foam is hard, so my first flowers weren't very pretty. It's too short to tie around my head and have the pieces hanging down, so I just pin it to my hair to create that look.
The shoes were an easy find. I see strappy red sandals ALL the time in thrift stores. Mine only cost $1.
I'll be ordering my wig soon, and I will be uploading a video/blog post about that as well.
So I haven't really done much that's worth posting about. As a result, I've slacked off on my youtube and blog. I started making a video last week about making DIY corset shorts, only to realize I didn't have grommets, but button snaps. -__- To be fair it was my own fault for not reading the order description properly.
I have, however, made a ton of progress on my Levy McGarden cosplay. I'm putting together a video of the progress and will hopefully have it up soon. I currently lack the wig and shoes. I'm possibly also missing contacts--I don't know if my circle lenses have expired yet.
Below are some progress photos. Once the video is up, I'll make a separate post with more details about the whole process.
So I finally got a video up with all of my con stuff, but I didn't get to vlog about it like I wanted to. It just turned out all messy and awful, so the video contains only pictures.
My aunt and uncle took me for the Saturday events and we left for Texas at 4:30 a.m. I got into cosplay in the car (makeup and all) and we rolled in at around 10 a.m. I didn't get to make it to any of the panels, but I did do some shopping and met and took pictures so many amazing cosplayers. I didn't get nearly enough pictures- there were so many amazing people and I couldn't track everyone down.
I was debuting my very first cosplay at my very first con, so I was a little nervous. However, as soon as I was through the door I was getting asked for photos of my cosplay. It was really amazing and flattering.
All the pictures I took of/with people with my camera are on the video, but I haven't managed to track down all the pictures taken of me by others. I didn't manage to take pictures of everyone I saw, and I tried with my aunt to find this one cosplayer (who we nicknamed Elusive Kiss Guy). He was dressed as Paul Stanley with silver platform boots and everything!
As far as shopping goes, I was very proud of myself for not blowing all the money I had. (You do NOT need an $80 Totoro plush Sydney). I did get two t-shirts from a booth called TeeTurtle. One has a mix between Spirited Away and Attack on Titan and another is a mix between Game of Thrones and Pokemon. I got another regular Inuyasha shirt, a little plush Totoro with a clip and zipper pocket, several buttons, a Daenerys dragon egg charm, a cupcake necklace, and a kitty ears headband.
* I've put all my cosplay photos within the video, so I wouldn't have to spam it all in this post. If you would like to see them just skip towards the end.*
I fully intended to finish this cosplay in January. Then school, lethargy, and general lack of motivation prevented me from finishing it. I also intended to have three more cosplays finished by this time, but now what I lack is materials.
Anyway, this was supposed to be a simple starter cosplay. For the most part it was. The hardest part was the staff and the pants, mostly because they each took a lot of brainstorming and re-dos to get them done just right. I'm really happy with how this cosplay turned out, especially considering it was my very first one. I would say it cost me around $60 total, because of re-dos and such. The pants, hoodie, and ribbon are from wal-mart. I used Tulip brand fabric paint for the pants and hoodie and the staff was found in the woods and is held together with some bolts, nuts, and washers from the hardware store.
The Wig
I got this wig off of ebay for like $20. It came unstyled and plain and I ended up ruining a pair of shears and using a lot of gel to style the damn thing. But it turned out pretty damn good considering it was a cheap little wig. I have to do some adjusting on the sides to hide my real hair better.
The Hoodie
This wasn't even the original hoodie that I bought. I had gotten a dark navy blue one, but I realized (after I began painting it) that it was much too dark to be a Jack hoodie. I think I used about two tubes of fabric paint on this hoodie. I sketched out the design first with a white charcoal pencil and then painted it on.
The Pants
These pants were awful to work with. I bought a dark brown pair of jeggings from Wal-Mart and tried to make them lighter/rough up the texture of them with white fabric paint. It worked at first, because I watered it down, but then I got the bright idea to just paint it straight white and then remove a little bit of it with rubbing alcohol. Three tubes of fabric paint were wasted on these pants and almost a whole bottle of alcohol remover. I finally got tired of it and just went over it all with two tubes of a lighter brown fabric paint. I then sewed on some pieces of a light brown ribbon to the bottom. I also roughly cut off the bottoms of the pants.
The Staff
I originally bought three large dowel rods to make this staff, but then my uncle found me a staff in the woods that had a natural crook, so I used it instead. He cut it into pieces and drilled holes into it for me and I painted it. It's definitely not an exact replica, but it still went great with the outfit. Helping me with my staff is what inspired him to take me to my very first con (upcoming post/video about that!). He and my aunt took me and I am so very thankful that they did. After we got back to the hotel from the con, Rise of the Guardians was actually playing on T.V. and he decided that we should definitely improve on the staff and make a more accurate crook shape.
I also received my very first Sugarpill order, so expect lots of new makeup posts and some tutorials.
I have one inspired by Gajeel Redfox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVG_HQqyTuA. I made that about a year ago and recently thought up a companion piece for Levy. Also tossing around a Lucy-inspired design.
I'll be at FanExpo in Dallas this weekend. It's my first con and I'll be debuting my first cosplay. I'll film as much as I can and upload a vlog after the weekend is out.
Pretty soon I'll also be opening up commissions for drawings. I'm going to be working out prices and all that junk this weekend and uploading some work on DeviantArt.
