Rose Tyler {Mostly Completed Costume Pictures}

I promised pictures, and here they are! Whew! That was quick!

Anyways, this is my Rose Tyler Idiot's Lantern costume, which is mostly finished. I still have to sew the sequins onto the bodice, either find a new jacket or modify the one I have, finish the shoes, and make a new petticoat.

The jacket ended up being too long so I just flipped the bottom up and tucked it under. Otherwise it gave the dress a very ugly look. I also have to re-do my petticoat because when I got in the car tonight my shoe caught it and tore a decent sized hole in it. It's not a big loss though because I kinda didn't do the best job on it anyways, plus it's not expensive or anything.

Tonight when I wore it I left the hair down because I ran out of time before we had to leave. Oh, and I left my sleeves down because it was pretty cold. But the wig kept my head nice and warm. :D

Other than the shoes, I love wearing this costume!

The Autumn Costume Party

Saturday was the big costume party at our friends house, which was super fun! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of just me at the party, so I'll try to get some good pictures of my costume when I dress up again for Halloween. Hopefully it doesn't rain or anything.

But here's a few pictures from the costume party, which was filled with dancing, lots of laughing, and fun games!

Ellie as Astrid from How to Train your Dragon 2

Abby came in 50's glam

Peter came as Tristian from Weeping Willow (a Hunger Games fan film he was in)

Bethany as Emma from Once Upon a Time

Cinderella Dresses and other Goodies

Some of the most beautiful ball gowns, and just costumes in general, can be found in Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella on Broadway. All of the ball gowns are gorgeous, but Ella's ballgown in particular is 110% more gorgeous than any other costume I've ever seen. Let's not forget the magical transformation from the Tony's.

You seriously have no idea how many times I've watched this.

Cinderella has been getting ready for the tour which is really exciting because that means its closer to coming to Seattle where I'll be seeing it when it comes next year. Also, it means they released rehersal pictures that are fantastic for costumers like me.

The Cinderella Facebook page released a ton of pictures of the cast in rehearsal with the cast in their petticoats a few weeks ago and I wanted to share them for anyone else whose like me and want's to know what makes all those dresses so poufy and beautiful.

Below are pictures of pictures of some of Ella's dresses when Carly Rae Jepsen played Ella and now the current Ella, Keke Palmer.

Things I wish I knew before buying my first wig

I want to start out by saying that when I first started this post I thought I would have a lot of helpful things to say. Turns out I've only got 2 things to talk about. But I hope it's still helpful to anyone looking for their first wig.

So as you know I recently purchased my first wig for my Rose Tyler Cosplay. Before this I knew nothing about wigs. I didn't even know what a good price was. I did a bit of researching before finding Vogue Wigs which had a good selection of wigs for under $50 with good reviews, and that's where I ended up purchasing my wig from.

While the wig I got is, to me at least, a decent wig, there are a few things I've learned since that I wish I knew before. I'm going to share those things so hopefully anyone looking for their first wig can go into it with a little more knowledge than I had.

Number 1. Lace wigs, lace front wigs, and regular wigs.

While I was shopping around I heard the term "lace front wigs" and "lace wigs" a lot. I figured it meant it that the front looked nice and more realistic than plain wigs since they were more expensive. Which ended up being partially true.

Full lace wigs are basically where every stand of hair is put on by hand onto a very fine, almost tulle like material. This not only makes the wig look a lot nicer, more realistic, and easier to wear, but it also bumps the cost up a lot.

Lace front wigs are basically a normal wig where for all except for the front of the wig is just wefts of hair sewn onto the cap. The front, which usually tends to be a couple of inches wide, has the hair put on one strand at a time. Lace front wigs are cheaper than full lace wigs because they only have to do the individual strands for a much smaller portion of the wig. Which makes them a lot cheaper than full lace wigs but still on the more expensive side.

The inside of my wig. You can see the wefts sewn onto the elastic.

A regular wig, like mine pictured up above, is basically just an elastic cap with wefts of hair sewn over the hole thing. If I knew about lace front wigs before I would have liked to of gotten one instead of a wig with no lace because it would make the front hair line look a bit more realistic. Depending on the style you need your wig to be a none lace wig could work just fine. It all just depends on the style of the hair and what you want to do.

Number 2. Arda Wigs

As I mentioned before I spend a lot of time looking around for places to buy wigs. A lot of people recommended buying wigs off of e-bay, but I looked and either couldn't find a wig that looked right or was the right price. Besides, buying a wig off e-bay felt kinda weird to me.

I did end up purchasing from Vogue Wigs, but if I could do it again I would go with Arda Wigs. Not only do they have a good selection of both regular wigs and lace front wigs, but they're affordable! The company is run by Cosplayers so they know what other Cosplayers are looking for. I've read a lot of reviews and I have yet to find anyone with anything bad to say about them.

As soon as I have the money I'm going to buy their Matilda lace front wig for my Christine Daae Wishing Dress. The wig is approximately 25" long and is supposed to be nice and thick and it's heat resistant. Plus it's only $65, which is an awesome price for any lace front wig.

Arda's Matilda in Spanish Brown (050)

But because it's not quite long enough I'm also going to buy some of their long wefts which $15 for a 8 foot strip of 35 inch long strip of hair to add to it.

Arda has everything you need for wigs. They have wefts, they have lace front needles for adding more hair to your lace front wig, they have wig heads, and wefting thread. So it's basically a one stop shop for wiggery. 

I know this isn't a tone of information, but I know I would have liked to know this before purchasing my wig. Hopefully someone will benefit from this.

American Duchess Giveaway!

American Duchess has come out with her newest shoes, a Renaissance style called the "Virginia" which means GIVEAWAY! Be sure to enter, here.

Masquerade Inspiration

Next year I'll be graduating high school, and since I'm homeschooled I'll be having my own graduation party. I've decided that I want to have a Phantom of the Opera themed Masquerade! I'm so excited!

I've already been planning what I want to do for my costume. I was originally wanting to do Christine's Masquerade dress from the 2004 POTO movie, but because our house is so small we're going to have the party outside and I don't want to spend all that time and money on a dress that's going to get dirty and possibly ruined.

My next thought was to do the stage version of the Masquerade dress, but I don't really want to spend all the time dying the fabric and hand sewing everything on the bodice. Besides, it would require a ton of tulle which I don't really like working with. Which is a shame because it's so cheap!

I've decided that I should do like my sister keeps telling me and to design my own dress. I've mostly been pinning inspiration on Pinterest, but I need to actually start sketching some ideas out soon.

But here's some of my inspiration I've gotten from Pinterest.

Please Note: All images link back to original source if I have one.

This was a mask from the gift shop when we went to the Seattle Opera.

As you can tell by the variety of inspiration, I really have no clue as to what I want to do. Well, I guess I have plenty of time to figure it out. 

Rose Tyler Sneak Peek

Just a quick sneak peek of my Rose Tyler costume, which is almost done! I'll post full pictures when I get to wear it to my friends costume party on the 25th. Until then, this'll have to do.

A day at the Opera

A few weeks ago the Seattle Opera had an open house to come and see some of the costumes and behinds the scenes of the opera. I was super excited was hoping to get to see lots of costumes and maybe even some wigs. Well, it was a bit disappointing. There ended up being only 2 costumes on display and some costume sketches along with a few fabric samples. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

This was the first costume we found. I forgot which opera it was from, but it was really pretty! I loved the colors and the embroidery and the train.

Later in the afternoon there was a demonstration on the opera stage where they talked a bit about some of the special effects they use, which was pretty cool, though it was pretty short.

The stage was huge! This is a view looking up from where I was sitting at the demonstratoin.

Lots, and lots or ropes...

This was one of the costumes from Don Giovanni, whic was pretty neat. I loved the boots on this costume!

At the very end was what we thought was going to be a 45 minute opera, but ended up being more sort of talking about opera, guys screaming, a little bit of singing, and stuff. Yes, there was a screaming contest. 

Thanks to me we got front row seats. While we were waiting for the demonstration to start we talked about Phantom of the Opera and tried to figure out where box 5 was so we could make sure it stayed empty. :D

Overall it was a great experience even if it was a bit weak from what I had hoped for. And I learned I may like opera (still have to actually go to an opera before I decide on that one).