H.M.S Winter Masquerade Ball.

Yup, The hubby and I headed out to another Steampunk event. This one was the H.M.S Winter Masquerade Ball at Balboa park sponsored by Waltz 'n Such. It was a FANTASTIC event! 

As you can tell, the two of us went once again to the Middle Eastern/Bedouin look since neither of us have had a chance to put together our Victorian garb. I pieced together the outfit from my SCA garb. The coin bra is from my LoJ costume a couple years back. I figured I worked so much on it, I should wear it again.

My overcoat is new, though. I cut out a period Middle Eastern coat years ago and finally had a chance to put it together a few weeks back. The fabric was another awesome swap meet find from way back in the day. I'll have to take some detailed shots of it eventually.

Max, donned his Morocco Mole outfit. I love it so.

Here we are with my friend Ace who went the Bedouin route as well. She decided to look more exotic. I absolutely love the hair falls she made. She also did a kick ass coat there. I wish I had a better picture of the sleeves because they were awesome.

...the random boot there is my husbands...He likes to shed boots around the house.

The reason I love the Morocco Mole costume so much is because my husband feels compelled to get into character whenever someone points a camera at him.

The event itself was a total BLAST! I really hope they do it again. by then I might even know how to waltz!

Here are some pics...done yet again with my dang camera phone.:

Steam Powered Giraffe opened up the event with a great set. They played throughout the night. I have really fallen in love with their music. And they put on a GREAT show. I'll hopefully get a chance to attend more of their concerts in the future.

Dancing, Dancing, Dancing! This was the opening dance, the Grand March which was really fun to watch.

Waltzing! This so made me want to learn how to waltz. Luckily Waltz 'n Such give lessons every Friday evening in Balboa Park. I'm hoping to start attending after the Holidays. Must learn!!

And we will end this post on a goofy note:

...yup.

Halloween Cuteness Overload

I just wanted to post some photos of my adorable nephew in his finished costume.

Just LOOK at that cutey...LOOK! That's my oldest nephew, Danny all decked out in his devil duds. The top was a titch large for him but the undershirt my sister put on him solved that problem nicely. I  am THRILLED to see one of my boys in something I made!

I also whipped up a vest for my Brother in Law, Ryan so he could match his boys.

Ryan likes to take the boys out Trick or Treating. He's a big Halloween nut and wanted to dress up like his sons. The little one is my youngest nephew, Tommie. I didn't make his devil costume but my GOD is it adorable!

And just to end this post on a double awwww...

Halloween Sugar OVERLOAD!!!

Witch-yPoo Madness on Halloween!

Our annual large Halloween Bash O' Rama happened last night and I have to say it was pretty bash-tastic! I did manage to even get the witch costume all done!

Tah-Dah! All done! That's my husband in his epic bed-sheet ghost costume. $5 sheet from Walmart. Cheapest costume I ever built.
I found a crinoline to go under the skirt which added that extra poof I needed to get the right retro feel for it. Flashbacks in the Hillcrest area of San Diego is a GEM of a thrift/vintage store! My crinoline matched the outfit being bright purple in color.  I was wearing the sweater at the time because I was feeling a bit chilly. But honestly, I really didn't need it to hide construction wonkiness, the bodice turned out really great!

The only full body shot of the dress I have at the moment. I wore my cute crochet style tights I bought at Target last year. They went really well with the dress! I considered wearing my striped tights but I figured that might be a little too much pattern going on with the dress being so crazy.

Here's a couple shots of the Hat since you can't see the details in the photos:

I wanted to dress up the hat more. The spider web pattern was cute but it needed a little more oomph. So I added the purple glitter tulle band around the back and accented it with that jeweled buckle and the roses in the back. At first the glitter shed all over me, but a little hairspray and it stayed in place. Thanks for the tip, Colleen!

 My accessories for for the night. The Awesome earrings I ordered from Persephone Plus. I LOVE them so!  The cameo I bought from a dealer at one of the cons I was vending at. I can't remember the name of the guy, alas. He cameos were gorgeous...and they glow in the friggin' dark. The big flower with the skull I made to pin onto my bow. My ribbon sash needed an extra touch. I had fun with the spider trim there.
I'm considering finding more of those skull beads and making a couple pins and clips in that style. I wanted to try and find some short boots with the big buckles on them but they weren't in the budget. Instead I wore some cute black wedge heels I wear to work. COMFORT!

Here are a couple of my friends looking awesome at the party:

 Colleen as a cigarette girl.

 Kelly as a witch and her son Dan Jr. as her black cat.

Katie went as her own self portrait.

DRAGONS!!

And Ghoooooosts!

I'm already stoked for our Bash O' Rama next year and trying to think up another theme that was as fun as this year.:)

Quick Post on the Dio de Los Muertos Dress!

So far so good!
I can honestly say I fill out the dress far better than the dress form does. Regardless, here it is so far! I just have some hand sewing to finish and belt loops to add. I'm also thinking of taking the hem up about two inches or so to get it to a more flattering length on me.
It still is a titch wonky here and there, but I should be able to fix up the final bits.

My friend Ty was kind enough to loan me one of her fabulous witch hats to play with. I love the sparkly spiderwebs on it. I'm going to had a temporary hat band to it all just to dress it out a bit more.

And, just because I couldn't resist, I picked up these beauties on etsy to finish off the look.

So excited for Halloween!!!

Tales of Costumes Paaaaast! Titania from Gargoyles.

I'd have to say this was the first intricate costume I ever made. And even though I look back at it and think of all the ways I could improve this costume, I'm still pretty dang proud of it. I mean, I was fresh out of undergrad and just changed my major to costuming. I was still learning how to sew. (My specialty was finding things to alter to look like OTHER things.) This was the first time I had the knowledge on how to build pieces from scratch.
Titania was from a Disney Cartoon named Gargoyles. It aired in the early 90's and I was very heavily involved in the fandom for years. Actually, I still have a good deal of friends I met through the fandom that I  hang out with to this day.  Without going into long nerdy diatribes of the background of the show and its creator Greg Wiseman, I'll just say that Greg loved Shakespeare. And Shakespeare's characters were worked into the show quite often, two of big players being Titania and Oberon from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

What Titania looks like in the Series.

2001. Attempt #1

Dig that sexy Body Paint Job!

Now I'll honestly say that Titania was not my favorite character from the show. She was quite the bad ass and interesting to boot but I hardly fell all over myself over her. But for the Gargoyles convention back in 2001 named "The Gathering of the Gargoyles" I chose her for my cosplay costume. Three reasons for this; 1- I wanted to challenge my new found skills I learned in College, 2- I didn't want to wear a wig and Titania had red hair like myself  3- I wanted to show off. That was a was the big one. I had new skills and suddenly a slammin' bod (in my mind) after working on it for a year. I'm a big freaking showoff and people were just going to have to deal.

Vanity, my motivator.

If only I was so motivated now... at least in the body part.

Yup, I'm green.

The costume was made up of both construction from scratch, followed by finding the appropriate items and altering it to do my bidding.  Most of my effort went into the making the cape. Titania had rather pointy epaulets and a long draping cape. I used buckram to get the shape of the applets reinforced by wire so it would mold to my shoulder shape. The clasp was an old brooch I found. I gold leafed the metal and added the red stone. Getting the fabric to drape correctly off my back and to my wrists took a lot of trial and error. The skirt was built into the belt piece which made it very easy to get in and out of. The closure of the belt was built on my hip to keep my front line smooth. I hand beaded the belt with gold bugle beads and red beads and the center circle piece was made from an old necklace my mom was planning on throwing away. I gold leafed it and attached it to the belt to make the buckle the stone hanging from it is an old earring I found. My shirt was made from a red leotard. I cut it in half and sewed on the green velvet panel and the gold trim.

I painted myself green...probably the ugliest green color you could possibly imagine. I actually looked more grey that green in the photos. It was the only green I could find at the time really and the whole body paint thing was new to me.

Body paint...yeah...never again.

The time it took to just turn the visible parts green? Epic.The ring I left around the bathtub? EPIC. The amount of green I found in my hairline about 2 weeks later? EPIC!!!

2004 Attempt #2

3 years and about 10 pounds later...

Remember how I JUST said body paint, never again?

Yeah...

In 2004, The Gathering was in Montreal Canada. I was on staff again and we managed to get Disney to come in with a film crew to shoot parts to the convention as a special feature for the Season 2 DVD release of the show. We really wanted a good turn out for the masquerade so the staff stepped it up a notch and decided to all go in costume. I was asked to wear Titania again.

Okay granted, I'm hardly a grotesque hog but I will admit I did gain weight during my time in grad school. So squeezing back into this costume was a challenge all on its own. Luckily I still looked pretty decent in it for the most part. I didn't make many changes to the costume other than adding an actual "buckle" on the front of the belt to look more like the picture.

"Hey Fox...your husband is really a woman." Fox is played by my friend, Karine.

The biggest change was the body paint. My friend Jen gave me a tin of her green face paint that was FAR closer to the green I needed. And I managed to also find a pair of elf ear tips to finish off the look.A little shading here and there and I made a far more convincing fairy queen this time around.

Overall, I'm still proud of this one. It was my first time at the cosplay rodeo and I felt I came out of the gate really strong. If I ever did this costume again (which I probably wouldn't because my belly has gotten WAY too gushy) I would probably build the epaulets out of craft foam to make it look more like armor and actually make the gauntlets as well.

I learned a lot in the process too. I still have this costume too. I have constantly told myself that I should dismantle it to use the spare parts for new projects, but I just haven't had the heart to. Titania has a special place in my heart still.

But yeah...not to shabby.

Dio De Los Muretos Retro Dress and Kiddie Devil Costume

Forgive the horrible Cell phone pictures.

Halloween is upon us! This year our Halloween party theme is Old School Halloween. Ghosts, Witches, and Goblins abound! Since my husband has chosen to be a bed sheet ghost (no kidding) I only have mine to really work on.  I decided this year to go as a witch but go in a Bewitched route. I'm making a nice 1950's dress and go as a 1950's style witch.

This is the fabric for the witch dress. I completely fell in love with it!

 

 

 Working on the bodice of the dress. So far the fit ain't half bad. At the point this picture was taken most of it was just pinned together

....oh wow that is a horrible picture. Please ignore the muffin top.

The second project I'm working on is my little nephew's Halloween costume. My sister has two boys, one that is a year old, the other is three years old. She likes to dress them up alike on Halloween while they're still young and not wanting to chose their own costumes. This year They're dressing like little devils (how appropriate!) I'm currently making a costume for my three year old nephew.

I wanted this costume to look a little older and cooler than the tiny devil sleeper that my younger nephew will be wearing. The fabric charmed the heck out of me.

Close up. Its a scrubs pattern for a kids' doctors costume I doctored up. He'll also have a little knit cap with horns and a detachable tail as well. I'll be working on that next week.

I'm just about ready to attach the skirt to my retro dress so hopefully next update will be the dress more complete...and with less muffin top.

Perambulatory Expedition to the San Diego Zoo.

A.K.A, a bunch of us went to a Steam Powered Giraffe concert in costume at the zoo.

My friend, known as Alastar de Coursyre in my SCA circle, organized a small get together last night at the San Diego Zoo to watch Steam Powered Giraffe do a 40 minute set. They are fantastic performers so I highly recommend checking out their music on their website. Their recordings though pale in comparison to seeing them live!

Anyways, since this was a costumed event, I managed to don my Regina "Reggie" Black costume once again and head on out. Unfortunately since I was coming from work, we didn't have a lot of time to do any posed pictures with the great backdrop the zoo gave us. I also left off my gun belt since I didn't think wearing weaponry (no matter how fake) in a public venue was a good plan. But we managed to snap a few pictures with our small group of steampunkers. I'm really hoping Alastar organizes another get together soon!

Look! Pics! Non Blurry!

Big thanks to my friend Lou who took most of these photos.

Alastar de Coursyre the Temporal Navigator and Reggie Black the Chief Science Officer and Undead Expert on the Air Ship Nevermore. (aka, Time Travel Guy and Zombie Hunter)

 Alastar found these beautiful Nevermore patches on etsy and ordered a few for friends. I attached it to my duster. Unfortunately you can't see the other shoulder but I added two new metals, one being my Mockingjay pin I got as a freebie from ComicCon.

Here's our whole group. we turned a LOT of heads that night. My friend Ace in front is a Bedouin Raider. I love her concept. We'll be working together on the details of her costume soon. Noelle is our cute lady in black next to Ace. I unfortunately can't remember the names of the two people on the left there but they were extremely nice and looked fantastic! On the far right our our elegant ladies, Katrina and Ellyn.

The whole group. My husband is the one squatting with the water bottle. I plan to make his steampunk gear soon. Our other friends, Trid and Christal (on the far left) also tagged along to watch the fun.

On our way out for the night.  You can actually see my boots for a change! Left to Right, Ellyn, Ace, Noelle, Alastar, and me.

Steam Powered Giraffe was kind enough to take a photo with all us wackos in costume. Lou our photographer is kneeling, and Katrina is in the blue skirt. VERY nice guys and a terrific performance!

I'm looking forward to our next Steampunk gathering. I'm hoping that I'll have an actual Victorian dress to wear. I'm also hoping to get my full Regina costume out for fun posed detail shots sometime in the future. We shall see!

Aphrodite costume for Labyrinth of Jareth and other photos.

Labyrinth Ball 2011! 

And it was a total BLAST!  

As usual. I really shouldn't act surprised that I had fun. I always do. I attended this year with a handful of gal pals all dressed as various Greek Goddesses. And my friend I call Capt'n was our steampunk "Mortal Escort" for the night. Alas, I lack photos of him at the moment. But I plan to hunt some down soon!

I made something extremely simple this year. I figured that since I was under the gun making stock to sell at Anime Expo (which fell on the same weekend) I just wanted to work on a costume that wouldn't stress me out, be comfy, and easy to get into.  

I found myself some pretty and VERY shiny fabric to make a Chiton out of. I'm pretty sure it was old Christmas fabric. But overall it worked well and sparkled like crazy.  I was going to make a more elaborate belt but I just didn't have the time. So instead I made a pretty gold sash out of some leftover fabric from a long forgotten project. 

Lately, Labyrinth Ball has been a rush job. So hopefully next year I can put more time to it.

Anyways, here are some photos!

 Here is me and my gorgeous friend, Tabitha in a stunning blue gown. I kind of look like a hobo standing next to her. The detail on her dress was stunning.

 My Fellow Goddesses! Left to right: Gaia (Jennifer), Aphrodite (me), Artemis (Natasha), and Persephone (Lacy).

 Brianna Garcia is an old friend of Jen and mine from our days in the Gargoyles fandom. It was awesome to run into her! Her female hatter costume was amazing!

And here are a few costumes I absolutely ADORED!

 The Slender Man. Scariest urban legend EVER.

 Light Up Fairy Wings!

 I called him "Fancy Man". I loved his wig.

 Beautiful green lady and amazing creatures!

 Mad Eye Moody!!!

 My two favorites of the night. The king of the sea and an amazing Victorian Voodoo lady.

 My friend Shing and her boyfriend Jason as a bird cage lady and her male accessory.

I love dio de los muertos so I HAD to take a picture of her. The makeup? STUNNING.

I already sketched out my plotting for next year so hopefully my next post will be all about my Fae Catcher prairie lady and some prelim stuff for her. I am stoked to start it and really put tons of detail into it. And since I have no major projects lined up costume wise for a while, I plan to really

Tales of Costumes PAAAAST!: Fire Phoenix

All this talk and prep for Labyrinth of Jareth had me thinking about older costumes I made for the event. LoJ is definitely one of my all time favorite parties to attend. Mainly because it gives me an opportunity to go a bit wild on some fantasty designs. Don't get me wrong, I love historical costumes! But sometimes I really need to go back to my roots and so something fantasy based.
Yes, I am a nerd.
I'm sure this was automatically established with the fact that I have a costume blog.

Anyways, I had a ton of different costumes I wore to LoJ; A Greek Nymph, the female version of Bacchus, a very thrown together steampunk fairy... But honestly, the fire phoenix is still my favorite.
This was back in the day when I was brave enough to expose my gushy belly to the world. Yes folks! Bask in the moon tan! Bask in it!
Okay, its not that bad but I am a pretty pale lass.

My two girlfriends Jennifer and Stephanie decided to team up for this even and go as a themed group. We started with the idea of the elements; fire, water, and earth. We had to leave air out since we lacked a fourth person. I chose fire mainly because my hair is red. Seemed like the natural choice! Jen chose water and Steph went with earth because of her vast collection of antlers...I kid you not.
The elements idea ended up evolving a bit more into mythical animals. I wanted wings. I knew that much. So I decided to turn my fire costume into a phoenix themed costume. The wings were fun to make. I just cut the base out of craft foam then covered the whole thing with red, yellow, and orange feathers. I wish I had a picture of the back of the wings because I had a large mass of ribbons, beads, and sequins all trailing down bellow them which I thought looked pretty spiff.
I went with a sudo Indian/belly dancer style for the look. The top came from a simplicity pattern I slightly modified. I managed to make the top self supporting. And trust me, for a big bosomed gal like me? That isn't easy to do. But I did it!  The wings were fixed directly onto the shirt since they were so light. The skirt was built from overlapping panels that were cut to be shaped like flames. And the hair clips are a combo of  painted craft foam, feathers, and ribbons.

Here's a picture of the three of us all together.

I really loved how all three of us turned out that night. I'd also like to point out that Steph did our face painting that night which turned out excellent.
Overall? A fun time!