Happy Holidays!

Season's Greetings, everyone!

I know the holidays have mostly passed, but I hope they went well for everyone.  My own were very peaceful and simple, which is all I could ask for.  I'm not sure what I'll be doing for New Years Eve yet, but it would be nice to do something out of the ordinary.  Normally I just stay at home, but if Brenton and I decide to go out it would be very nice.

As far as cosplaying progress goes, this past month wasn't very productive.  The wigs for Justin's and my Magi cosplay came in-- scored a good deal at Arda Wigs' Black Friday sale.  I spent most of the month sewing and knitting Christmas gifts.  I made animal hats for everyone using a Simplicity pattern. I was a little nervous because I am not that experienced in reading patterns, but it was surprisingly simple to follow! In fact, I liked it so much that I had to keep the first one I made for myself, and got more fabric from the store in order to finish everyone else's!

The hats turned out super cute!  I was a little afraid that everyone would think that the hats were too dorky, but everyone really seemed to like them, so I'm happy.  They are super warm and cozy.  The lining is blizzard fleece, and then the fur is polyester fake fur.  I did learn one big lesson from this whole project, however.   Fake fur is my new number one enemy.  It shreds, and shreds, and shreds! Once you sew it up and seal it, it stops falling into little bits.  But for three whole weeks, my entire craft room was covered in little fur bits.  No surface was left un-furred.  Nothing that the vacuum and a few sheets of lint roller couldn't fix, but dang it was annoying.

Since I worked so hard on the hats, I decided to have some fun taking pictures with the hat I kept for myself! I don't know, they might be goofy, but here goes~!

Serious picture is serious.

Gratuitous artsy photo with blurring (haha jk I just moved the camera as it was taking the photo)

Cutesy photo to show off the rest of the hat

Posing with the king of the jungle!

Showing the king who is boss!!

I always try to make New Year's Resolutions.  I have some cosplay-related resolutions this year. One of them is to be a more consistent in blogging.  Another is to stop adding dumb captions to my photos (Ha! Unlikely!) What are some blog posts you would like to see? What are some of your resolutions for 2014?  I like to talk, so you can always hit me up on Twitter or comment below!

Best wishes for 2014!
-Alycia

Mod Podge Coasters: Fandom Edition!

Happy December everyone!

I can't believe it's December 7th already! The temperature here is clocking in at -4° F, and thats without factoring in wind chill! Needless to say, I have very little motivation to bundle up and venture out in search of holiday gifts for people.  That got me to thinking about home-made fandom related gifts, because more often than not, merchandise of your favorite show and character isn't just pocket change, or easily accessible for that matter.

This step-by-step post today is going to demonstrate a neat little DIY gift I learned how to make at one of the awesome Craft Day sessions I attended (you know who you are!)  Basically, it involves coating layers of Mod Podge and pretty paper on to tiles, and voila, you have a cute, custom coaster.  And did I mention how inexpensive it is to make?  Read on for more details ;)

Supplies:
>4 (or more) 4x4" white ceramic tiles-- available at Home Depot for 16 cents each!
>Mod Podge-- $6.38 on Amazon (the bottle will last a long time!)
>Mod Podge Sealer-- $5 to $6 on Amazon  (will last for many uses!)
>Foam Brush-- around 10 cents at craft store
>Scrapbooking paper-- around 60 cents a sheet, or $1 for fancier paper
>Images relating to your favorite show/video game/manga -- at most office supply stores, you can get color pictures printed for 10 to 25 cents
>Craft foam or cork board -- price varies, but not expensive

Picture time!!
1) This is step hard, and probably the most difficult choice-- Picking what characters or images to put on your tiles! Do you want them all from the same series, or just a mish-mash of your favorite characters of all time?  If you are making these for a friend and know their favorite show/game/manga, you can choose a theme or any sort of image.  If you can draw your own art, fantastic! That is probably the best option here.  But if you are choosing images from online, don't use someone else's fanart; and while using official art may also become a gray area, don't sell the coasters for profit if you aren't using your own art.  These are gifts and are supposed to make people happy! Sorry for the PSA, but sometimes these things just have to be said.  Here are the characters I chose for my own coasters!

 Also, here is the scrapbooking paper I decided on:

 2)  Decide which 4x4" portion of scrapbooking paper that you want to cover the front of your tile.  Cut out your images carefully for placement onto the background.

I made a sturdy guide out of cardboard 

Trace the area to be cut on the back of the paper so you don't leave ink on the front!

 You can be as creative as you want! I wanted a simpler appearance, but feel free to spruce it up with stickers, or multiple images on each coaster.  Do whatever you want!

3) The fun part.  Take your Mod Podge and put a thick layer on just the tile.  Carefully place the 4x4" scrapbook paper onto the tile.  Then another layer of Mod Podge, then the image you want comes next.  Then, you guessed it, another layer of Mod Podge! I prefer to do all 4 tiles at the same time.  I use 5 to 7 layers of Mod Podge, and it dries pretty quick, so just wait until the layer beneath is tacky to add the next one.

 And don't worry, the Mod Podge dries totally clear! Try to keep your brush strokes going in the same direction, because it will dry in the pattern of your brush strokes.  Adding multiple layers of Mod Podge will make it smoother.  Oh! and the Mod Podge is pretty smelly, so try to do this in a well-ventilated area.

 Uh oh! A bubble? I was pretty upset when that happened, but as soon as I let the Mod Podge totally dry overnight, the bubble worked itself out! If you run into the same fate, hopefully it works the same for you.  After the Mod Podge has a chance to dry overnight, seal it with Mod Podge sealer.  The Mod Podge will remain somewhat sticky unless you do this, plus sealing it will help keep any damage from happening to the Mod Podge.

4)  The final step is putting a backing on the tiles.  The back of the tiles is hard and scratchy, therefore likely to ruin any surface it would scoot across.  While cork would certainly look classier, this is a gift to myself, so I used craft foam.

 Tah-dah! Thats it! Some personalized fandom coasters for you or a friend! While inexpensive and easy to make, they are actually pretty thoughtful.  And you can't go wrong with hand-made when gifting to a friend.  Here is a closer look at my finished coasters:

What do you think? What characters would you want to put on your coasters? Or would you choose characters from the same series for your coaster set?  Don't feel like you are limited to four coasters, either! Make 5 coasters, or 8, or 10! Whatever feels right to you.  I hope this helps someone with their gifting ideas this holiday season.

Stay warm, everyone!
-Alycia

Final result: Morgiana Cosplay!

Hi, all!

So I think saying "I'm done!" with my Morgiana cosplay is a little misleading, but all the sewing is done! All I have left to do is decide on wig and contacts to order, then a little bit of beading for the necklace, then I will really be done!  But none-the-less, most of it is done and I am very proud of myself.  Aside from the top, which was built on top of a bra, this is the first cosplay I've done where I made all the pieces myself instead of repurposing old clothing.  Actually, ignore that last sentence.  That is a lie.  My Erza Scarlet cosplay was done the same way-- I made everything for that except for the bra top that the armor was built over.  But back to this cosplay-- although it might look simple, it was a bit of a challenge for myself because I've never really made anything like this outfit.  And booooy, was it a learning experience in the last stretch.  I'll explain as I go.  For now, here are the photos of the last stages of the sewing!

>>Here they are, the notorious embroidered circles!  Lovingly embroidered onto silk wired-ribbon, then painstakingly hand-stitched into place so they would match up on the front and back of the skirt.

See my beautiful, even stitches! Mostly..... 

Front view

Back view

 >>Now, I needed to construct some sort of belt to keep the two skirt pieces attached and secure on my body.  So I made a strip of material and reinforced it with fusible interfacing, then hand-sewed the two skirt pieces to the "belt".  To make an attachment, I used two hook/eye combos, as seen below:

The eye

The hook

The final result 

It all comes together now!

 >> Now, for the overlapping material on the skirt.  This was the part that gave me the most frustration, as I didn't abide by the "measure twice, cut once" rule and ended up doing a section about three times.  I decided to build the different sections of draping, for lack of a better word, into separate sections that could be snapped and unsnapped, just for the ease of getting the cosplay on and off.

 Above is the first front flap I made.  It turned out to be a little too revealing for my tastes, so you'll see later on that I replaced it for a more modest drape in the front.

Snaps are easy to install, easy to use!

An example of the draping.  The back drape is a bit bigger than the front one, and hangs down a little more in the back.

>>Lastly, there is fabric that hangs down on each side, connecting at the top and draping at the bottom.   I sewed it onto the top, and then it will tuck into the bottom and be plenty secure.

Voila! The finished cosplay! Okay, mostly finished.  Once I get the wig and contacts, I have a photo shoot plan in my head that I can't wait to do.  It will be worn in "debut" at the 2014 Sakura-Con, to which I am elated to say I already have tickets purchased for and hotel booked.   Also-- exciting news, Justin is joining me in this cosplay as Masrur, who in the Magi series is one of Sinbad's Eight Generals.  Seriously, if you haven't checked out this series you are missing out! I'll be posting progress of this cosplay, because it will involve making some armor, and will be a bit different than any other armor-related cosplays we have done before.

Any questions or comments? Don't be afraid to leave a comment or send an e-mail or tweet! I enjoy your feedback.

Take care, everyone!
-Alycia
heartandsoulcosplay@gmail.com or @whimsyAly on Twitter

First November Update: Progress has been slow

Hello everyone!

It's been a couple weeks, hasn't it? I've been working hard, I promise!! I just finished the hand embroidered ovals I talked about in September on my Instagram video.  I really enjoy hand embroidering, I always have, but it's pretty slow work on slick material like the ribbon I used.  The finished trim turned out great, though, and once I finish sewing it onto the skirt and finish a good portion of the skirt I will make a progress post with photos for everyone.

I've also been visiting a lot of local craft fairs and vintage markets.  I went to my first "Vintage Whites Market" here in the valley, and was really impressed and got a lot of crafty-inspiration.  It's actually quite terrible when I go to craft fairs, because instead of seeing something I want and buying it, I tell myself "Oh, I can make that, no problem!" But honestly I never end up making it, unless I'm really, really motivated to do it.

Oh, and you also may have noticed some graphic enhancements to my blog! Instead of coming up with content for a blog post (actually, one of the things I was gonna do for a blog post molded, eep!) I spent time drawing the header for my blog, and making the background.  The header was sketched in "Sketchbook Pro," on my Mac, and although it may not look like much I spent a good few hours on it and am pretty pleased with myself.  And the background was super fun to make.  I think I could have a future in photo editing ;).  The image is comprised of different photos of objects I have in my craft room.  Its 7 images layered on top of each other, with the backgrounds made transparent so that they would sit pretty with each other.  All the photo editing for this was done in Gimp; it's a free, open-source version of Photoshop, and while a little tricky to figure out, it does a great job.

No photos this time around, sorry! But next post I make will definitely have the progress photos from what I'm doing.  Do you like my work on the background and header for my blog? Wanna scold me for not working fast enough to bring you progress updates? Just wanna say hi? Send me a note on Twitter, or jot out an email to heartandsoulcosplay@gmail.com!

Stay cozy!
-Alycia

Nail Art! Rin Matsuoka from Free! ending song

Happy Fall, everyone!

     

      I've finally come to terms with the fact that Autumn has fully set in.  It's a little hard to deny that fact when all the leaves are gone from the tree right out in front of my kitchen window.  But hey, Halloween is only a few days away, which means that I can dress up however I want.  Not that I don't do that anyways, haha.

     An anime I absolutely fell for this summer was Free!, also known as the swimming anime.  I won't go into too many details (watch it for yourself on Crunchyroll.com!) but personally, I feel it was really well done.  And while its in a modern day setting, the ending song puts the main characters in an "Arabian Nights" sort of setting.  Something I noticed right away was that one of the characters (Rin Matsuoka) had a neat nail design on.  I went all summer without thinking too hard about it, but then the anime ended for the season a month or so ago.  In my anime withdrawal-wracked brain, I decided I needed to something to commemorate the anime, hence this blog post about my first attempt at nail art!

Firstly, here is the picture I used for reference:

His nails look so nice and evenly done, yes? Do you think I can accomplish the same feat? Let's find out!

I started with two base layers of a white nail polish. One layer is shown in the photo.  Polish is Andrea's Choice in "Reverso"

Because I'm all about the glam, I added a couple layers of a gold sparkle polish.  Polish is Hard Candy's "Crush on Gold"

very glam.  much sparkle.

 Next, after the first few layers of polish dried, I cut a little triangle shape out of some medical tape.   This will serve as a stencil for the black polish to go around.

For tracing around the edge of the stencil, I used a nail-art brush that has a very thin brush for making fine details.  The brand is "Art Club."  

I carefully traced around the edge of the stencil, rather than slopping paint all over it, because the tape I used was a little porous and I wanted to keep sharp, clean lines rather than blotchy shapes.  I filled in the rest of the nail with a non-art brush, using Sally Hansen's "Black Out" polish.

Repeated on all my nails, then finished with a clear coat to preserve my hard work!

 Final thoughts-- I love it! I've gotten more compliments than I anticipated, from coworkers, friends, and even strangers!  I will admit, my right hand didn't turn out quite as even or pretty because I had to use my non-dominant hand to paint with.  But from a distance its fine. Regardless of all that, this design works well because it creates the illusion of longer, graceful nails when in reality my fingernails are kept really short for work.  It's edgy without being overwhelming, and is kind of Halloween-themed also (I've gotten several comments that it looks like cat claws.)  I especially liked adding the gold sparkle, but I think a creamy gold color would be pretty also.

Thank you so much for reading! I love hearing feedback, so don't be afraid to leave questions or comments.

Stay warm, everyone!
-Alycia
heartandsoulcosplay@gmail.com, @whimsyAly on Twitter

Photo Shoot: Erza Scarlet Heaven's Wheel

Hello friends!

TL;DR-- here are some photos of me cosplaying as Erza Scarlet's Heaven's Wheel cosplay from Fairy Tail.  The cosplay was completed in spring of 2012 after a whole winter's worth of work.  Photos taken by my husband at the base of the trail to Strawberry Lake in the Rocky Mountains.  Skip the big chunk of text below to get to the photos ;)

The long version:  In summer of 2012, I decided I wanted to do a photo shoot of my Heaven's Wheel cosplay.  I had spent hours, blood, sweat, and tears on this cosplay.  It was my first "armored" cosplay, and I learned so much from doing it and was so proud of it that I wanted a photo shoot to get some good photos to do it justice.  Well, let's just say my photoshoot didn't quite turn out the way I anticipated, but I learned a lot from that experience as well.
          Lesson 1:  Always bring a mirror, especially if you are going to shoot the photos in the middle of the woods! This should've been a no-brainer, but I didn't own a a hand held mirror and assumed I could rely on the rearview and side mirrors of the car.  Well, that didn't quite cut it.  My headpiece ended up sitting much lower than intended.  Being the perfectionist that I am, I wanted to scrap all the photos we took over two hours and start over, but that leads us to lesson 2....
          Lesson 2:  Hot glue, craft foam, and wax-based paint do not hold up well in 85ºF weather.  My armor ended up splitting apart at the seams, and I'm pretty sure there was more silver paint on my body than was left on the armor by the end of the photo shoot.  So redoing the photo shoot is not an option unless/until I re-make the cosplay.  I'll admit, it was pretty discouraging to have my cosplay come apart before my very eyes, and I may or may not have cried a little.  However, I have since discovered thermoplastic materials such as Wonderflex and Worbla, and any armor cosplays I do in the future will be built from those materials.

I have to say, it is thanks to the encouragement of my husband that I have decided to post these photos.  For the first six months, I was adamantly against even looking at them because I felt so silly that I couldn't even get my headband in the right place without a mirror, but eventually my husband got it through my head that the photos still turned out nice.  So, here they are and I hope you enjoy :)

Don't pay any mind to my melting wing haha

Gratuitous out-of-focus artsy shot

Thank you for taking the time to look at my photos.  I think my husband did an awesome job taking the photos, and the forest was beautiful despite all the horse-flies pestering us.  The whole experience with this cosplay taught me a lot, and I'm looking forward to making more armored cosplays.  I have another one of Erza's that is really on my mind, in fact :)

As always, feel free to leave a comment or hit me up on email or Twitter!

Sincerely, 

Alycia

heartandsoulcosplay@gmail.com

@whimsyAly