Cosplay Progress

After a course of 2 weeks, I have gotten the majority of Cidney's jacket done.

Things to fix up:
- hand-stitch areas that need it
- add embroidery on back (make the embroidery)
- add details

Updated Cosplay Resources List

Hotaru - Dagashi Kashi

Have:

- headband
- flowers for headband
- sweater tights
- knit elastic
- white fabric
- black fabric
- wig
- shoes (need to locate where they are)
- contacts

Need:

- red ribbon
- style wig
- put together headband
- make shirt
- make skirt

ChuChu - Show By Rock

Have: 

- black fabric
- shiny black fabric
- thigh high (just encase)
- belt base
- legwarmers
- balloons
- headbands/clips
- purple ribbon
- robe
- white fuzzy fabric
- wig (on the way)
- contacts

Need:

- lilac fabric
- shoes
- make dress
- make handless gloves
- add onto legwarmers
- lace (? need to check all the lace I have laying around here)
- use balloons to make lightweight ears
- make tail
- get shoes
- modify belt
- make purple bow

Cidney - FFXV

Have:

- yellow fabric
- red fabric
- jeans
- zipper
- hat
- thigh highs
- gloves
- contacts
- patch
- wig
- style/cut jeans
- grey fabric

Need:

- wig styled
- yellow bias tape
- patch for back
- belt
- belt accessories
- white cowboy boots
- goggles

Ardyn - FFXV

Have:

- trench coat
- beige colored fabric (kinda)
- wig
- clay
- drape-fabric
- black vinyl/black faux leather
- maxi piping bias tape grey
- floral fabric
- ink for adding color to hair
- ribbons

Need:

- wig styling/coloring
- hat
- dye floral fabric grey
- scarf
- boot covers fabric
- vest fabric
- make hoodie
- pants

Resources for Cosplays

Hotaru - Dagashi Kashi

Have:

- headband
- flowers for headband
- sweater tights
- knit elastic
- white fabric
- black fabric
- wig
- shoes
- contacts (on the way)

Need:

- red ribbon
- style wig
- put together headband
- make shirt
- make skirt

ChuChu - Show By Rock

Have: 

- black fabric
- shiny black fabric
- thigh high (just encase)
- belt base
- legwarmers
- balloons
- headbands/clips
- purple ribbon
- robe
- white fuzzy fabric
- wig (on the way)
- contacts (on the way)

Need:

- lilac fabric
- shoes
- make dress
- make handless gloves
- add onto legwarmers
- lace (? need to check all the lace I have laying around here)
- use balloons to make lightweight ears
- make tail
- get shoes
- modify belt
- make purple bow

Cidney - FFXV

Have:

- yellow fabric
- red fabric
- jeans
- zipper
- hat
- thigh highs
- gloves
- contacts (on the way)
- patch (on the way)
- wig
- style/cut jeans

Need:

- wig styled
- yellow bias tape
- patch for back
- belt
- belt accessories
- white cowboy boots
- goggles

Ardyn - FFXV

Have:

- trench coat
- beige colored fabric (kinda)
- wig
- clay
- drape-fabric
- black vinyl/black faux leather
- maxi piping bias tape grey
- floral fabric

Need:

- wig styling/coloring
- hat
- dye floral fabric grey
- scarf
- boot covers fabric
- vest fabric
- make hoodie
- pants

Long Time No Update

So, I've been really slack in maintaining this blog. I mainly just keep it for myself though. lol.

Anyways, there's been a lot that's happened since my last update, but I just don't really want to deal with all of that. Rather, I'm making a post to kind of give myself some checkmarks in progress on what I'm currently working on.

I'm trying to get four cosplays ready for Ichibancon this year. Three of the cosplays are for myself to wear and one is for my boyfriend. In my opinion these costumes aren't going to be necessarily easy to get together and I honestly don't know if I will have the time to actually complete them.

So, I'm going to start myself a "done" list.

ARDYN FFXV 

The cosplay the Boyfriend wants... yeah, lots of work right here. Luckily not everything needs to be handmade. I've just kind of been obsessed with making everything from scratch for years, but since I NEVER try to win any cosplay awards, there's really no reason for me to actually make it from scratch. I already told him that the weapon's a no go ... unless I somehow manage to find the time to get it together.

Items Acquired:
- trench coat
- floral fabric print
- random leather fabric
- gloves


Cidney FFXV

The second that my Boyfriend mentioned that he wanted to try out a FFXV character, I started looking at the designs of all the girls in the game and fell in LOVE with Cidney's design. So, I'm making the majority of the costume from scratch - didn't want to personally make jeans, so I'm just going to modify jeans to make jean shorts.

Items Acquired:
- Yellow Fabric
- Zipper
- Red Fabric
- Jeans

Hotaru Shidare from Dagashi Kashi

Hotaru, completely fell in love with this character when I casually decided to watch this anime series. Not only is her design incredibly adorable, but she is pretty much a CRAZY character. I love craziness and I love the idea of being able to obsess over Japanese Dagashi, so I figured: MUST COSPLAY. I'm planning on making this whole costume from scratch.

Items Acquired:
- Everything

I have all my items - I just need to actually start making it.

ChuChu from Show By Rock!

I seriously love ALL of the designed characters in this series. It's so incredibly adorable and fun. I decided that I wanted to attempt cosplaying Chuchu since I feel that her character alone without the rest of the group will read pretty well. And, she has kind of a more mature feeling than some of the other characters.

Items Acquired: 
- Fur Fabric

I'm back and forth on what fabric I really want to use for her costume. I'm not sure if I want it more leather-y or less shiny... that's what's been currently in my mind.

Rambling

It's been awhile since I've cosplayed... mainly because I haven't had the time to really work on anything or had any time to go anywhere. Even on the Japanese Fashion end, I really haven't been able to dress up. I just haven't had the time. Now that my one seasonal job is finishing up, I should have more time to work on this stuff. That and I have motivation to make things, since I pre-ordered my and my boyfriend's badges for Ichibancon. But seriously, the last time I cosplayed was last IchibanCon. So sad. As for fashion - I went to a small meetup earlier in the year and dressed in my cute Infanta Dress. I plan to do fashion more - I just bought a beautiful Ma*rs dress and if I don't find the time to wear that out, I seriously will cry. 

Atlanta Trip

Long time no post. I've been completely ignoring the fact that I have a blog. lol. Yet, I decided to definitely write about my recent Atlanta trip, because it was by far one of the best experiences that I've had in a LONG time.

(No photos due to laziness)

So, I managed to get off from work Saturday, June 6th, Sunday, June 7th, and Monday, June 8th. I asked for off on the 6th due to my brother's graduation; however, the second that it was announced that EPIK HIGH was going to be in Atlanta, I asked for the 7th off. The second that I knew that my time off was approved, I rejoiced. I ended up buying 2 tickets for the Atlanta concert the second that they were released to the public. Getting those tickets were a huge success.

Saturday:

I woke up around 6am to finish packing for my trip. During that time, I also was getting ready for my brother's high school graduation that took place at 11:00. It was rough, but I managed to get things in order.

By the time that all the celebrating for my brother finished, it was already 3pm. I went over to my friend Emi's place, since I bought the 2nd ticket for her to go. We were so looking forward to this trip, because we really needed to just get out of town and have a good time. We both have been working too much, so this was a much needed event.

We ended up leaving around 3:30, but there were some slight car issues that arose, which we had to fix asap. So, we managed to leave out of town a little before 5. It was a good thing that we weren't on any sort of time schedule.

Luckily after the fix to the car, we had no issues.

We booked a cheap hotel near the Atlanta airport. The hotel itself was designed nicely. The issue is that there were areas that smelt of weed and there were really loud, obnoxious kids that kept running through the hallways. Aside from that, not many issues and we were pleased for what was paid. Though, I had a difficult time sleeping, since the pillows weren't to my liking; however, I know next time to pack a pillow or two.

We didn't feel like going out to eat, so we decided to order food online. Both of us weren't in the mood for pizza, but the only places that would deliver to the hotel were pizza places. When we checked the menus, we were thoroughly confused with the options on the menu. We ordered from a place called Best Pizza And Wings.

I ordered a chicken gyro and pizza fries. Emi ordered fried chicken. Yes... this is from a pizza/wings place. We were confused.

Anyways, the food took a good 3 hours to finally get delivered. We found out that the place was packed. Yet, we were STARVING. We kicked back and ate the food. My gyro had a ton of jalapeno peppers in it, so I was a bit surprised by that, yet it was tasty. The pizza fries on the other hand were pretty disgusting. The cheese tasted fake and the sauce was most definitely nasty canned concentrated sauce. We couldn't even get through the fries. We lazed around and watched some School Rumble, since it's a series that you can watch without needing to think.

Sunday morning, we woke up really early. It wasn't even 8:00am and we were awake. We got ready for our day and checked out of the hotel. We decided that we would go to Doraville to eat breakfast at White Windmill, a bakery that we were introduced to by a really good friend of mine the previous year.

I ended up paying for our food that morning. We spent $40 on delicious bread and taro bubble teas. Worth it? TOTALLY! Ended up eating Curry Croquette and drank Taro Bubble Tea for breakfast. The rest of the food came into the car with us.

After that, we went to the GA Aquarium, which is extremely expensive, but worth it. Dolphin Tales was an incredibly adorable show. It had dolphin tricks, special effects, and a guy who could sing really well. I was quite happy with the performance. We observed many sea creatures.... went through holes... and I touched a live sea star. All-in-all, very fun. We left the aquarium around 2pm, then went to The World of Coca-Cola.

The World of Coca-Cola was a great deal imo. $16 per person. I bought both tickets for this one. I enjoyed every aspect of this museum. Very well done! We stood in line to meet the Coca-Cola Bear and yeah... it took every ounce of me NOT to go into work mode and cut line just to get obnoxious children to stop beating up the bear. I wanted to though. As someone who knows the character field really well, I really had a ton of notes that I wanted to give the workers; however, it's not my place to say anything. Yet, when I made it to the Bear, I high-fived him and apologized that he was attacked by idiots that didn't know any better. I also explained to him that I understand his position, since I'm in a job very similar to his. After I left, the Bear walked over to his attendants and I overheard one of them saying, "Oh, so you actually liked that one." haha. Apparently, the Bear had been reporting all the assholes to these people, so they were genuinely surprised that he had good things to say about me. lol. Yet, to not get in the way of their work, I made sure to get away from the Bear. Mainly because... I would had gone straight into work mode.

Anyways, each section of the Coke Museum is awesome, but the last room is by far the BEST! You're able to taste sodas from all over the world. There were some really delicious ones (especially in Africa) and some really nasty ones (like Poland). Emi and I took shots of all of them. After that, I got to try out the new soda: Coca-Cola Life. It's tasty. It kind of has a taste to it that I can't place. On the way out, you get a bottled Coca-Cola.

After that, we ate lunch at a local area on property. Chili-Cheese Dogs, Kettle Chips, and Ice Cold Coca-Cola. Emi bought the food this time. :3 Tasty food and Emi fed some pigeons.

After that, we immediately made our way towards the concert.

We were in high spirits the whole day. EPIK HIGH made our spirits even higher!

We got into the entry line around 4:20ish. We made it into the venue around 15 til 5. The concert started at 5pm. The seats that we got were some of the best. We were very pleased with our view.

The concert started right on time and the place went crazy the second that EPIK HIGH walked out. I was a bit surprised that there was no opening act; however, I was extremely pleased that we got to see them immediately.

Unlike other concerts that I've been to, EPIK HIGH really takes theirs to another level. They are EXTREMELY personable. I absolutely fell in love with their live performances. Tablo was constantly talking to us in English and would joke around and such. DJ Tukutz spoke some English, which was the freaking cutest thing ever I SWEAR. Mithra Jin refused to learn English, which was both adorable and amusing. Everyone in the audience loved every bit of it.

Every performance was just plain fun and you couldn't help but want to participate in all of the songs, which they heavily encouraged.

One of my favorite moments was actually when they were off stage. They still had the mikes on and they were talking about what all they love about America. Of course answers like "hot dogs, hamburgers" came up, but they also said tv shows, names of celebrities, random landmarks, and Starbucks must had come up at least 4 times lol. What made me laugh the hardest was when they said "geocities". That was such a laugh to me; however, it made me feel so much older than some of the people in the room... since.... a lot of them obviously had no clue what geocities is. Yet, I thought that it was hilarious. They even began to list off a bunch of non-American things that they love about America, which sent everyone into more fits of laughter.

It was during that talk that I really felt connected with the group. It's strange how EPIK HIGH comes across. Most concerts that I've been to give you a feeling of accomplishment seeing the person/group; however, you don't really get a sense of feeling connected. EPIK HIGH felt like watching close friends on stage. They have this way of connecting with the crowd. Instead of a concert to show off, it was a concert that they did for the fans. It was awesome.

When I first walked into the venue, I was expecting Tablo to remain my favorite member; however, DJ Tukutz by far won over my heart. The second that DJ Tukutz walked on stage, I could tell that he was going to be my favorite member. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all of them, it's just that if I had to pick an absolute favorite... DJ Tukutz would be it. All of them paid attention to the full crowd; however, I felt that DJ Tukutz had a way of really reaching out towards the fans in the higher seats (non-VIP fans). I really appreciated that of him. Whenever he wanted the crowd to do something, he tended to look in our higher direction, so of course, Emi and I did everything that he wanted the crowd to do.

The venue itself was small and I found out that night that this venue is the smallest one in their American Tour. I was kind of happy to be able to be a part of that. It really made them happy too. They really appreciated the change of pace with a small venue. They also announced that it would get them ready for their Korean Tour coming up soon. Apparently, they're going to be performing intimately in Korea when they get back, so they felt like they were warming up for Korea in the small venue. They also mentioned that they originally weren't going to show up to Atlanta, but decided last minute to add it. Everyone was so grateful they added Atlanta and not only that, they were pretty surprised with the turn-out. They seemed to have a genuinely great time interacting with our crowd.

They had a segment in the concert where they answered a few questions. Someone asked how DJ Tukutz got his name and Tablo claimed that it was too boring of a question and asked if we all would like to see DJ Tukutz dance instead. Of course, that was AWESOME! You can actually see the footage from this video that someone took at the concert. Ooh, how that made me love DJ Tukutz even more. See, I suck at dancing and seeing dance moves like that really made my day. Seriously, it's an easy way to put a smile on your face.

The rest of the concert was fantastic. After the questions, everyone seemed to be even more pumped up than before. When the concert ended, the entire crowd started shouting for an encore and about 10 minutes later, they came back out to perform an encore with two songs. I was thrilled that my favorite song Don't Hate Me was one of the ones chosen. I was so ecstatic. They ended taking a huge selca with the whole venue.

Once the concert ended, I searched for a working ATM, so that I could buy goods. Unfortunately, they ran out of the awesome hats, but I did manage to get my shirt. I was kind of bummed that they didn't have any albums for sale, but hey, not much that can be done about that. After the concert, we hit up White Windmill again, yet this time for dinner. Emi paid this time around and our food came out to $30. So in total, we spent $70 there. lol. We did manage free bread in the morning though! I didn't eat much. I don't remember what I ate, but I had another Taro Bubble Tea, which was to help my throat... since... well, I screamed so much at the concert that my voice was like gone. It still hurts a bit today lol. After that, we headed back to NC. We got in a little before 1:00am. Monday, we were lazy as all.

My Birthday

Today is my birthday.

Not that it's an important day or anything. It's just another day. Another year that I'm alive. Honestly, I really dislike my birthday. The people who wish me a good birthday usually do it for appearances and the ones who I want to hear from never contact me. It's even sad that people who are extremely close to you seem to forget.

I guess that's the joy of having your birthday between major holidays. Next thing I know people will be saying "Oh and your Christmas gift is also your Birthday present". Happens all the time.

Anyways, rather than hearing "Happy Birthday" from some friends, I ended up getting panic text messages and calls about how IchibanCon is almost here and everything's going to hell in a hand basket.

Usually, I'm really excited about IchibanCon... yet, this time... I don't seem to have any excitement. Everything that I'm doing is just plain awful. I have absolutely no money, since I don't currently have a job. People that I'll meet up with will want to go out for food and well, I don't have the funds to do that. So, perhaps I'll try to lay low. I bought the ticket several months ago, so I'm definitely going and I think that Emi-chan will kill me if I don't go there, since one of the days we're going to dress as the Little Twin Stars.

Actually, things have just been going downhill this year. I'm expecting things to get horribly worse next year. I don't think that I have an ounce of optimism anymore. Anyways, I plan to post about the Carolina Kei meetup that I went to. Just, I'm not feeling up to it right now.

Carolina Kei Meetup

If you didn't know already, I'm part of a J-fashion group called Carolina Kei. It's a group of people from all over North and South Carolina who are enthusiastic about Japanese Fashion. With that being said, the group has mainly been trying to do one big meetup every season; however, we also have people in the group hosting their own meetups. I happened to have gone to a total of 2 meetups so far. The first one being the very first CKei meetup back in summer, which was an official meet (you can read more about that one here) and this one that I went to this past Saturday in Wake Forest, NC.

Shironuri coord!

Wake Forest is a little under 3 hours via car from my home location, so I had to get up really early. The meetup was scheduled for 2pm; however, it was known beforehand that the town was going to have a parade at 12:30. With that in mind, I wanted to make sure to get there in enough time to deal with crazy traffic and closings of streets. I decided to go to the meetup with my friend Patti (ang3licdr3amer). I woke up around 6, then made breakfast. By the time that we left it was already 9. Getting ready took awhile, because I wanted to try out a style that I've been interested in for awhile: shironuri. If you're not familiar with shironuri, I highly suggest looking up Minori.

Since it's close to winter, I wanted to do a winter coord. Also, since I knew a parade would be in town, it would be more likely that shironuri would be accepted. So, beforehand, I had been working on my outfit. I customized a bunch of clothing that I found at the Goodwill. After that, I wanted to make something extremely me, so I created a scarf out of teddy bears, which people seemed to really love. The teddy bears worked great, considering that I wore teddy bears on my tights too. Keeping with "winter" in mind, I decided to use snowflakes.

I originally had intentions of wearing a mini-hat that I made; however, I was having major issues getting it onto the wig and with the clock ticking, I nixed that idea, which is a shame, since I really liked the hat. Instead, I lazily threw snowflakes in the wig.

I originally was going to use a different wig as well, but I didn't like how the color clashed, so I went with a simple blonde.

After getting the outfit on, I immediately worked on makeup. The makeup itself is what took the longest. I started with BBCream, then placed white liquid foundation on, followed by white foundation powder. After that, I touched up areas with a white eyeliner and white primer. Then, I decorated a bit.

We ended up making good time and ended up in the area a little before 12, which was great, since we got a good spot for parking in the parade parking slot. We then walked to the general area and it really was street fashion, for all sorts of people there to watch the parade surrounded us, asking us for photos and such. There also were people letting us know that this is interesting, because the people of Wake Forest don't dress like that. lol.

The Start of the Wake Forest Christmas Parade.

We watched the parade and afterwards went to The Olde English Tea Room. Upon entering, they escorted us to a nice location that was beautifully decorated with Christmas decorations. It was absolutely stunning to see. The menu and napkin were arranged quite nicely on the table and I really adored the tea cups. I'm a HUGE tea set fanatic, so tea anything makes me happy.

We waited a little bit for the majority of people to show. We had quite a nice little group. Everyone was so beautifully dressed too! There were several lolitas, then two shironuri, and dolly kei. All styles that I love. My friend from college, Carl, decided to show, since he loves learning about culture and such. He was fascinated to learn about J-fashion and is beginning to research it more now.

My tea pot was green! My favorite color!

Top Left: Peppermint Tea. Bottom Left: Strawberry Soup. Right: High Tea Meal.

I decided that I wanted to have high tea. High tea at The Olde English Tea Room is Complete Four-Course‏ Meal: Soup, Tea Sandwiches, Petite Desserts, and Beverage for $21.95. Such a great deal in my opinion!

For the beverage, I went with peppermint tea. It was absolutely delicious. I had way too much fun placing lumps of sugar in my tea.

Anyways, for my soup, I got a delicious strawberry soup. I wasn't disappointed in the least! Strawberry soup is a cold soup and has a dessert-like quality to it. The soup was topped with a bit of whipped cream that you could mix in.

Since four of us ordered the high tea, they brought out food out on tiered leveled trays. On the bottom level each of us got four sandwiches. The sandwiches included tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, and cucumber. All very delicious; however, I must admit that I find my homemade cucumber sandwiches to be much better. hehe. The middle level included our scones with a choice of jam or devonshire cream to use. I ordered the white chocolate berry scone. I never had devonshire cream before, so I was excited to try it out. LET ME TELL YOU. Devonshire Cream is my newest obsession. If they had the option, I would had purchased a whole tub to bring home. It's amazingly delicious! Sweet, but not too sweet. I feel that it complimented the scone perfectly. I also think that the cream would go perfect on breakfast foods such as pancakes and waffles.

The top layer were our desserts. They included cheesecake, chocolate-covered strawberries, biscotti, and cookies. All really tasty and perfect for the finish of filling me up.

Of course, a meetup's not complete without a fun group photo!

The whole group who were dressed! Everyone looked absolutely stunning!

Rachel looked fantastic in her dolly kei coord! Absolutely did the style justice!

A couple of the lolitas and the dolly kei! All so beautiful!

My full coord on left and ang3licdr3amer on the right. I made the floral hairpiece that ang3licdr3amer wore.

After the meetup, a bunch of us decided to go shopping in the small town. Of course, that means we must hit up the candy shop! So many delicious candies were there! I bought $20 worth! And the shopkeeper was so sweet! She loved the fashion!

The antique shops in the area were fabulous! If I had more money, I would had purchased all the tea sets, china sets, and jewelry there. Yet, I only came out purchasing a gift for my mother - a gravy boat with a classy plate on it. I also accidentally haggled and got the gift even cheaper! Kind of proud of that accomplishment.

Yet, after awhile, Patti and I knew that we had to leave. So we bid everyone farewell and left around 5:30. On the way home, we hit up Arby's, since we both saw the sign and started craving it. Got back home around 9pm. Had such a great time!