HTTC - Costumed Canines, Auntie Bellum

Abby is quite stylish in her Auntie Bellum costume.  She may not be the greenest thumb though, she has planted many a tennis ball tree, yet so far, none have grown. :(

HTTC - Costumed Canines, Igor

Every mad scientist needs the crazy assistant. Dino was born for this role. Just look at that face.

HTTC: Little Kid Ghost

I learned a very important lesson while making this little guy; I may love the look of the draped fabric ghost, but I do not have the patience or the math skills to pull one off without pulling out my hair.  At first I tried to make a cute light up ghost with a tomato cage, a sheet, and some Christmas lights but that was not even close to looking anything like a ghost, more like a lit up tomato cage with a piece of garbage trapped on it fluttering in the wind!  I worked off of McCalls's Crafts pattern 2329 with a few changes.  Some of the things that were needed as per the pattern were ridiculously priced or would not add enough to the craft to be worth the cost so they got nixed.  You really don't need the pattern to make this guy all you need are a few tips and you can make one of your own with all the customization and upgrades you want!

Little Kid Ghost:

2&1/2 yards 120" white muslin
scrap of black felt
one wire hanger straitened out
masking tape
pair of shoes
stuffing
30"x 30" square of white fabric
2 36" 5/8 inch diameter wood dowels
scissors
glue gun
cording or twine

Start by cutting/ripping the 120" inch wide piece of muslin in half width wise so that you have two 60" wide pieces that are 2&1/2 yards long.  Cut/rip off two 2 inch thick by the 60 inch wide strips from each of your pieces of fabric.  You will have four strips total, set these aside. Place the two big pieces on top of each other, these will be the covering for your little guy.

Next take your pair of shoes and stick your dowel rods in them.  Pack around the rods with fabric scraps or stuffing so that they stand up in the shoes.  Measure and mark four inches down from the top of the dowel sticking out of the shoes.

Using one of your 2" x 60" strips of muslin, starting from the marks on the dowels and working down, weave the strip in and out of the dowels securing them together.  Tie the ends together.

Bend over three inches of the end of the wire hanger.  Using one of the strips wrap the end securely and tie into knots. Repeat with the other end of the hanger and another strip.

Cut out and sew hands in whatever pattern and fabric you like, making sure that they are long enough to cover a bit more than half of the wire hanger.  My hands kind of look like muppet hands.  Clip all curves and turn right side out.  Stuff to the wrist and slide the hanger in so that the covered metal end ends up in the stuffed area.

Repeat with the second hand and wrist.  Place both hands on the hanger, one end overlapping the other, and tape in the middle with the masking tape. 

This is where I deviated from what McCall's wanted.  The pattern called for using an 8" styrofoam ball as the head, and if I had one I would have used it, but I didn't.  So I trek off to Joann's to get one only to find that they wanted $16.99 for it! Yeah, no.  So a 30" x 30" square of white fabric filled with stuffing and tied onto the dowel with white cording around the neck may not be a perfect round head but its free and I like it! 

Using the last strip secure the arms directly beneath the head on the dowels, tie the ends tightly.

All that is left is to cover your you dowel with head and arms with the fabric, glue on two eyes cut from the felt, and decorate as you see fit.  I made the little garland from the pattern, but how cute would this look with a little trick-or-treat bag!  Check out Abby giving a disapproving photo bomb. As the fabric is draped on him and not stuck down he is not weather proof.  He will stay inside until Halloween and then he will go out to entertain the kids looking for candy. He can be taken apart at the end of the night to be packed away until next year!

I hope you make some great crafts for Halloween this year and thoroughly enjoy your candy haul.

Keep it spooky ,

Kelly

Some nerdy crafting to get the Summer started

For me this is the start of convention season: Anime Central, Heros Con, and Chicago Comic Con.   I am excited to have been able to incorporate so many crafty things in my costuming this year.  I have two costumes that I have put together and I am very proud of both! I wanted to have a Captain Hector Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean too but that had to get pushed back a year so I will smother you with all that piratey goodness next year.  Additionally, I got to attend the Anime Prom at Anime Central so I even got to use some crafting putting that outfit together.  The prom out fit is the one I want to chat about now.

It all started with the aforementioned Barbossa.  I had planned to wear him to the prom because the rules, yep there are prom rules, state that you have to wear formal type clothing: suits, tuxes, gowns etc.  I figured that his long jacket, vest and cute little breeches would work well in that setting, he also has a suave hat.  I am a good seamstress, but not Barbossa good, so I was going to have the costume made.  The wonderful woman who was going to make it had something come up so we couldn't get it all put together before the con season started.  It's not a problem though as we will just work on it for next season.  So I have a ticket to this formal dance and nothing to wear, ok brain what can we pull off.

I realized that the ninja I was going as for the rest of the convention, more on him in a later post, could attend a prom just like every one else.  My very smart husband came up with the idea that we could get a suit for very little money at the Sears outlet near our house, I even got the dark read shirt I wanted! Go sears outlet.  I needed to make the suit a little more "him" so I whipped up this cute deserty, he hails from the land of sand, boutonniere from some fake flowers.  I thought it looked very desert grass. 

I amped up the tie with his ninja village symbol embroidered, that's right I used ninja and embroidered in the same sentence, on to it.  I really think it brought the whole sand village ninja prom outfit together. What do you think?

I love him in every way so this whole experience made me very happy!
I hope your "seasons" are going into full swing soon!
Keeping it ninja,
Kelly

HTTC - Dogstumes Sage and Sprout

Sage is all decked out and ready for hunting season.  The cookies should be shaking in their bowls.

 

Sprout is not one to be too girly so she wanted to go as a ballerina pirate.

 

 

Happy Haunting...........BOO!

 

Kelly, the origami ninja

 



Costumed Canines: Welcome to Dogwarts!

His favorite class is Bone Reading...though the bones never last long enough for him to read.

Good boy Sage!

Have a great Howliday!

Kelly, the origami  ninja

Why I love May......

This past weekend was my most favorite weekend of the entire year.  As previously posted, I am a big fan of anime, which are cartoons from Japan.  I also like their counterpart to the American comic, manga.  I have loved this hobby since before I knew what it was.  I grew up watching Voltron and Thundercats.  Many a childhood hour was spent in the company of Optimus Prime and the Transformers.  As you can guess I never have been all that girly.  I would much rather be the hero than the damsel in distress. Then in college my friend and I discovered Sailor Moon.  This anime helped bring the whole of this wonderful world to the US, not just for me but for an entire generation of viewers.  Along with several others Sailor Moon reintroduced me to a hobby I though was only appropriate for little kids....yeah not so much. 
Anime and manga can be for kids, but it can be so much more.  It can be bright and fanciful, dark and deadly, horrific and disturbing.  It can have ghosts, robots, magic, and on the bit of the odd side, sports.  Its got ninjas, pirates, wizards, and elves.  It brings everything I can imagine into a pocket sized comic that reads left to right.  Don't get me wrong, I do love a good American comic book, but there is just something about Japan's delivery that keeps me coming back for more!
So this past weekend, in the Chicago land area, was one of the Biggest and Best conventions in the United States for fans of Anime, manga, gaming, and J-pop culture, Anime Central. This is my sixth year at the convention, and I love it more every time.  There is costuming, art, crafts, merchandise, gaming, videos, and raves. To pay respect to ones favorite character parading around in their chosen attire is the order of the day.  This is known as Cosplay.  One of my favorite series is Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto.  In this very well staffed epic ninja adventure is a secondary character by the name of Kankuro.  He is a ninja from the Village Hidden in the Sand.  His weapon of choice are deadly puppets...yes I typed it right.....puppets.  I know, I know, I get it all the time. Really?!?! Puppets?!?! Yep, puppets.  For the Cosplay I choose an older version of him, he has learned to store his arsenal of deadly marionettes in scrolls he carries on his back.

 
The costume its self is not that difficult.  I actually used the pattern I had to make the jammy bottoms from Craft Club and there was a top in there that matched his pretty well.  I got some nice comfy black fabric that does not wrinkle all that much and is machine washable, because no one should smell at a con. 

I am uber proud of the scrolls, as I worked very hard on them.  They are PVC piping with plumbing parts glued together to look like the rolled paper.  With some spray paint, felt, and fabric I think the look as close to perfect as possible.  The epic cool part is that we made one end of all the tubes detachable so we could store stuff in them.  This was a big help and a big hit at the convention.  People commented on how cool it was.

What do you think? I think they rock and I am super proud of this whole costume.  The good thing is that I get to wear my pride and joy again at Wizard World Chicago in August.  Let me know your favorite costume or if you even know what I have been rambling on about in this post. 
I really like the costuming thing and I have already been thinking about a new one, but for a few years down the line.  I do have an un-natural crush on a certain pirate......and it's not who you think.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me........

Kelly, cosplaying ninja