Halloween Town Kairi, 2011

I use to have a friend that was a Kingdom Hearts fanatic. She was obsessed with Sora and his friends and it was always her dream to make all of his outfits and to someday get a big group together to play his friends and have outfits that matched his.

I was the designated Kairi for the Western states; the other was in Florida. I was inspired to make a Halloween Town Kairi. I admit, I had ulterior motives in hoping that this would inspire her and others from our group to make costumes and we'd have something for next year.

I didn't really have a lot of time last October to really make a costume. I was busy with Anime Banzai. But I did have in my possession a skirt and top that were given to me for a gift that were perfect for what I wanted to accomplish. I searched through my accessories box and found a lot of gloves and tights and various other decorations to pull this outfit together.

Halloween was over by the time I got it done and the local corn maze was close, but not yet harvested. My photographer and I went out and shot some pictures in the field before it got plowed under.

The hat was the only thing I made. I bought black craft foam and had to make a couple of attempts at drawing the perfect heart shape. I cut out two and trimmed one to be a little smaller and painted it purple with blue and black. I used the mask of Sora's Halloween Town costume as a reference for the face. I used purple ribbon for a trim and glued everything onto a witch hat I found at a crafts store.

Halloween, 2011

All for one and one for all! For Halloween 2011, I had three nephews and my family wanted to do the Musketeers; nephews and their dads. Now, my family and I live where it can get really cold in October if it wanted to. When I first was talking to my sisters about making tunics for their boys, their main concern was how to keep the boys warm. I came up with a solution to sew pieces into the sides and make it more of a big shirt; that way, the boys could wear sweaters and not get cold. They loved the idea, but I then had to figure out a way to make it work.

I made the tunics first and sent them to a friend to get them embroidered. When they got back, I found a shirt and sleeve pattern and altered them to just be strips with sleeves and then I sewed them to the tunics. Voila!

And the boys were so cute as the Musketeers and their dads were looking awesome as "evil" Musketeers.

Ordon Village Link, 2011

I love Legend of Zelda; it is my all time favorite video game series. Twilight Princess isn't my all time favorite, but it was a new way to approach the story of what people are already use too. I fell in love with the art of the game. I wanted to Princess Zelda, but I lacked the time and skill. I saw a lot of pictures of people doing Hero Link and I thought about doing that, but I didn't want to be like everybody else. I went back to the game and I saw what Link was wearing while he was in the village and knew that was going to be the costume I was going to do.

The costume itself was fairly simple: a tunic, pants, sashes, an apron and a sleeve. The apron was my first attempt at quilting and I didn't do too badly. I was pleased with how well it turned out and everybody who saw me in it was really amazed. This costume makes me very optimistic about future Zelda projects that I want to do.

This one is my favorite.