Cosplay & life update. Also my birthday :)

Pirate Miku.. well you see... I... I decided not to finish her before my trip. For many reasons though; more to pack, it'll be cold (I get cold super easy), want to be comfortable, the trim has been sold out at the fabric store for over a month, etc etc. It's OK though because it doesn't mean I'll have any less fun when I go! Which I'm really excited for! WTF only a week away!! Ahhh!
I finally found my camera charger, my larger memory card, and well... my camera too. So I have pictures! People prefer pictures after all. They're much more interesting than words. It's also easier to just SHOW people than trying to explain it.

I guess Pedobear is a real bear from something? I mean I guess it makes sense but dang! I was thinking about buying this until I saw the price tag. Uh yeah no.

These masks were super cute! Enjoy me being choukawaiidesunedaiyotenanidesuka desu desu... dehzoo. My dad is in the background wearing Anpanman XD Again... something I thought would be fun to get but they wanted $15 a mask! Maybe if they had Sailor Moon?... heh

That night Rey and I made cookies; he had never made them before and I've made them so much that I can practically do it blindfolded so I figured it'd be a good experience for him. I split the dough so he could have the white chocolate chips he wanted so much.

Made curry for the first time! Super tasty. It contained onions, potatoes, beef and broccoli. I was thinking about making it again without so many onions and without the beef. It was really good though and lasted a few days. The leftovers were still delicious. Maybe even more so :3

Finished product. I don't like plates with food like this... Bowls are just better. I have a bias I guess...

It was my birthday last week on the 11th (11/11) and I turned the ripe old age of... *cough* old. So as with my yearly tradition for myself I made a cake and shared it with people. I ended up halfway through deciding to split the recipe so I could make a dozen cupcakes and the other half just make one layer of a cake instead of two. I knew it'd be easier for me to portion control with the cupcakes as well. And it gave me more of an opportunity to play with what I bought.

The cupcakes were fun to decorate. But I think the "starmallows" were a bit too much for the smaller portion.

I just wanted to have fun with baked goods I guess. Half of it got eaten by Rey, my Dad and myself before I took it to my sister's for her and her children to consume. I can't eat so much sugar anymore. Gives me a headache :(

In the realm of sewing and cosplay I feel a bit accomplished! I was able to finish the apron I wanted to have done so Kem could wear it :) Yes this Sailor Moon apron will be worn by a rather muscularly fit young man. It will be awesome. I asked him if he wanted the pink gingham or the red. He was fine with either. But knowing he likes red I chose to go with it. Also for contrast! Hooray.

No straps on it yet. The pocket is a bit high on me personally but whatever. I had a lot of fun making it and I based it off of a dress-up apron I had as a child :)

Pirate Miku only has trim on half of her right now. The fabric store sold out of it and if I want them to order it just for me I have to buy a minimum of 5 yards. I may as well buy the whole thing by then and just get it for 40% off! I will contemplate this... for it is possible. Here's a shot of it just pinned there. I'm enjoying making this actually. It's a bit of a challenge but nothing that has me pulling my hair out :)

New Sailor Moon fabric I got!! Super old and super Christmas! I, again, have no clue what I'll be doing with this haha. I thought of making a gift pouch of some sort but I rather it'd be something really useful and cute.

Trying the apron on. A little over sized since Kem has a broader chest and is taller than me by a bit. This needs to be ironed rather badly but I was just too excited so I took a picture :) plus it'll just get wrinkled in my luggage anyway.

Over the past 2 days I spent a large amount of my time going through boxes of my "anime crap" aka collectibles. I was able to diminish three large boxes down into two small totes to keep and one large box to sell off. While sorting I found these toys that I was going to use to cosplay Mew Ichigo; I also have Mew Lettuce's castanets. I was thinking of getting a group together for SakuraCon or Kumori. I think it'd be a blast.

Both pieces connect together. It'd a little awkward to handle after that though.

I was rather excited when I found a pair of rubber boots that fit me that didn't cost and arm and a leg! They're really useful when living in Oregon since it rains a good 10 months out of the year (not sure if I'm exaggerating.) Usually the ones I like that I find are around $50 but I was able to pick these up at ROSS for only $16. I had to jump on it. They're cute, my colors, fit perfect and well... weren't expensive.

LOL upside-down wut? Oh well. You get the idea :)

As for this weekend I will be picking out the clothes I will be taking on my trip and cleaning up my apartment more. I need to bring nine days worth of warm/cute clothes with me So I'll be doing a lot of layering and coordinating so I can bring a minimal amount. Skirts and socks are my best friends when it comes to making and outfit work :)

I should really do a review of my orders from Sock Dreams :)

Life. Progress... but no pictures?

Thanks everyone for your kind words about the BS of my job. To answer/reply to a few comments and questions... my manager hates me because of my "attitude problem" (aka I -generally- don't hesitate to speak my mind and I hate beating around the bush) but the department boss likes me a lot so it helps balance things out (they won't ever get rid of me either because I'm their most productive worker in my job position. Yay manufacturing?)

Yeap. And Stuff.

I've been a bit under the weather the past few days so not a whole lot cosplay-wise has gotten done.
A lot of crap is hitting the fan at work. Starting next week my hours will be cut down to 7 and a half each day instead of 8 ($125 lost after 1 month) and there is a rumor, or more so "through the grapevine", that they'll be switching my hours to where I will start at 2am and get off work at 11am. Which in turn the company I work for will take my shift-difference away (approx loss of $200 a month.) Making ends meet while trying to save up, even now, has been rather difficult. If they do this all though I don't know WHAT I'm going to do.

And here I was hoping to actually buy a car soon... *sigh*

No photos today. Enjoy a video that always helps to make me smile though. I highly suggest looking up more stuff by him and about him.

As Charlie Brown would say:

AUGH!!!
Luckily the crisis was adverted! Though it wasn't really a crisis in reality.
Upon being done cutting out my pirate Miku top I just realized it'd be a good idea to line it! However the fabric store isn't having it's fantabulous sale for another month (and being the cheapskate I am I wait till the sales to buy anything). So I found some crapass cream colors lining I had bought to mess around with and figured it good enough. WHAT. CREAM COLORED? OH HELL NO. That's ugly! Why would you do that?! Just why!
Cause I don't have any red li-.... WAIT. I DO... I had some for the Rei Ayanami kimono... thing.. I was going to make a while back. After some digging it was recovered and boy oh boy is it soft and nice. Granted it's a brighter red than what I'm making the top out of but it's at least RED, right? RIGHT?

I decided to also just say ix-nay on the boot details since this is just a costume to dork around in for now. I'll be wearing my plain brown lace-ups with it. However if I ever wear it to a con I will make sure to finish the little details and such :)

Brighter red lining  vs  outer fabric  vs  cream color lining

Yeah no... Silly Anza.

In deciding a direction...

This will become my corner of the interbutts to rant and talking about current, future, and [probably not] past cosplay plans. (Who wants to know about past crap? Really.)

Some place to post pictures and crap and to keep myself updated without cluttering the ever useless cosplay.com and the uncaring inhabitants of facebook.

In all honesty I have a LOT of cosplays I -want- to do but possibly never will so I'll just post things I'm currently sewing here.

Soooo~~~ What I am currently working on as far as projects go are as follows:

Pirate Hatsune Miku

She's for when I got to Aquarium with Kem. He said he was going to wear his Luffy and well... I wanted to cosplay too! So to go along with his costume I'm making this :) I've started drafting the pattern and already have the fabric! (Though I'll need more of the gold trim I got.) Also I decided to base it more off of the original concept sketch instead of the in-game version. I like the large white under dress, bloomers, and long coat tails a lot more compared to the in-game hardly any white showing, skirt, and short looking vest thing. To me it's just.. a better design.

Sophie from "Tales of Graces"

I fell for this design when I first saw it! I really wish they'd bring the game over to America but that will probably never happen. So I'm left to studying Wiki pages and watching all the Youtube videos I can. It's really the next best thing I can do to actually playing the game :( I originally had her planned for Akicon bu~t~ I'm not going anymore so her debut will be up in the air. So far her construction has been really fun and challenging though!

"Project Diva 2nd" Magnet Miku

Magnet has been one of my favorite Vocaloid songs for some time and the default outfits have been stupidly over done; granted I still want to do them. I just fell for the pseudo-kimono design Miku has as well as he overall color scheme. It's really very simple looking but it leaves a lot of room to add detail and make it my own. I'll be using lace for the "traingle edge" along the collar and sleeves instead. I wanted to get a nice print for the gold edging or the blue body part but I already have fabric on hand I could use. Just have to get skirt and obi parts; which is where I plan to play around a bit more with texture and prints.

I've got a few other things in the works but these are the main 3 I've been working on to get done. ESPECIALLY Pirate Miku so I can wear her at the end of November :3 I'll do my best to get it done and perhaps post photos? I always forget to even TAKE progress photos. I think having a full length mirror would help... hmm... lol

Welllll crap..

I guess I caved and joined another site! Woo!
I'll probably type lots of random sh*t here since no one knows I have this thing (yet) and because just about every other site used for such musings is so... unfriendly these days.

So perhaps this one won't turn to crap... I guess that all depends on me.

Currently am making pot stickers before I head to bed in the next 3 hours! Graveyard shift has gotten rather old after 4 years...