cosplay contest!

I'm finally back! Band and school has taken over my life and I honestly forgot all about this. Butttttt... I'm really feelin' this writing/sharing lameness, so I'm up to it now. 

Way back in October, my school's Comic Book Club held a cosplay contest. Since I'm a short haired, mini girl...I decided to cosplay Toph Bei Fong from Avatar: The Last Airbender!!                                                                                                We had to draw a draft and document every single step of the way (perfect for future blogging :-) This is my first cosplay ever, so I didn't know how to do anything at all, but I think I did a damn good job, if I do say so myself.

So here's my Toph cosplay just to show you, and here's some ideas if you wanna make your own. 

What I Used

• 3 yards of pale yellow fabric

• 1 yard of green fabric 

•  Leftover fusible fleece (used wayyy less than a yard) 

•  Cotton Balls 

•  Thread, seam/hem tape, an iron, and a sewing machine (I pretty much hemmed everything, but I honestly hate sewing and love ironing, so I used the seam/hem tape for all of it.) 

•  Wide, rough, brown ribbon 

•  A basic black headband and some bobby pins 

•  Green sweatpants and short sleeved sweater from Goodwill   

•  Buttons/clasps (I like clasps better, I used about 18 ?) 

Here's the draft of what I wanted

shout out to my toes

  

It started as a newspaper cut out because I had no idea how to make a shirt (??) or anything like that.  I wasted a ton of fabric with this step so I had to add the bottom toga-like part at the bottom to the back piece later. I left a weird flap-like thing to connect the back and front, and then added 2 clasps. Then I sewed all these pieces together so they fit slightly loose. 

I measured some fusible fleece over my head and cut it to fit, then wrapped the front in green fabric and fused it together. Then, I took the yellow fabric and cut it out just like Toph's, and sewed it right on top. I used Elmer's glue to stick some cotton balls together and fabric glue to stick the larger balls onto the headband thing. Finally, I used bobby pins to pin the fabric to a plain black headband. 

I took green fabric and the ribbon and measured across my ankles and wrists, and then sewed them together. I used 2 clasps per wrist thing, and 1 clasp per ankle thing to keep them together. The ribbon had a metal outside part that made it easy to just fold it under so I didn't hem the sides of these.

  

These fab felt-y pants were like 2 bucks. Just hemmed them quite a bit.

And that's it!!

We took pictures doing things like our characters, so me and my friends went to the park to take some sweet ass pics B)

Our adventure included walking around town in our costumes (and me mostly in bare feet in the end of October), getting Burger King, and talking to lots of strangers where we learned that if you dress weird, people think that gives them permission to talk to you. We were planning on using these for our Halloween costumes, but it rained and was cold as shit so we all did different things, so we only really wore these for this and the contest ;P

Finished Product

✧*.◟(ˊᗨˋ)◞.*✧ᗯ੨~ɪ̊♪ْ˖⋆

My BFFs and me being dumb as hell
photo cred to our fab friend talia

Behind the tree, is Kristen. She mixed Jeff the Killer and Slenderman and made a KICK ASS costume, complete with face paint and doctoring her own tentacles out of tights and cotton. And then, Kayla, next to me, cosplayed Marceline the Vampire Queen ^-^ complete with grey face paint and a paper mache bass!!! 

And guess what??? ME AND KAYLA WON!!! 

٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

Thanks for reading, 

               love, rachel rae

back, back, way back

Long time no talk!

Yesterday, I had an uber cool time at the Yankee Peddler Festival in Canal Fulton, OH. Basically, it's this big park full of vendors that dress up from like revolutionary times and sell weird, rustic crafts like primitive soaps or like wooden calligraphy or some shit.

Bunch of people in pilgrim like outfits, white people dressed as Native Americans, and a fluTE PLAYER NAMED MICHAEL SEARCHING BEAR. (hes white lol) Listened to some hymns over banjo playin, and learned what a tricorn hat and cockhat are and why they're completely useless.

Clearly, I'm a total sucker for anything remotely old (aaand talking to cool old people) and this place catered to both. I bought some stuff that I really like so why not share it woohoo

Alright so first things first (im the realest). My mom is lame and skipped this, but I sat down in the back to watch this chill ass couple sing some hymns. She was alright (she sang and played this weird scrapy thing) and this dude's banjo playin was TOP NOTCH. 8/10 would recommend

They had little teepee museum like exhibit thangs with I guess how wee old 'Mericans lived. Had some killer lanterns and that really cool chair thing made out of blue, red, and yellow painted sticks up above there. It looks very uncomfortable, probably better than the ground though. Also: they were very colorful, stylish people for how little they had 10/10 for style

Animamals and fur and antlers and weapons, oh my. Someone call PETA 

vegan rachel: 0/10 :( // actual rachel: 9/10 COOL AS SHIT

you can look at this website to see some better pictures ---> xx

ONTO THE BAG O SWAG

all of these are 10/10 and so are the people who sold them

!!! these guys are all rock necklaces !! the 2 on the outside were both $1 (plus a dollar each for the cords) and the dude in the middle was $10 ! they were also selling mugs with the faces on them, but they were pricey and a bitch gotta save money 

these little flower guys were $3 (plus tax dAMMIT). i'd never heard of this thing caaallled "quilling" but it's pretty sweet. so they roll up paper and make whatever they want and it's lovely and delicate. 

i would flip this around but im lazy just turn ur head

this is probably my favorite item here. it's a sweet ass ADJUSTABLE ring with a cameo of a skeleton with killllller hair. they came in all different colors (plus there were necklaces and chokers and brooches) but i got black and white so it'll go with everything forever

it was 14.95 but well worth it (check out the sweet box)

these guys are sculpy clay ! there were alot of halloween like stuff (since its almost halloween) so i had to get a witch and the angel is just too cute with her wings and star

5 bucks total what a steal

little pewter figurines!!!!!11!1!!! the left dude is like a headless knight and the other guy is a SKELETON ARMY GUY :3 i got 2 so they could fight, obiviiiiouusly

i think they were like 3.50 total, super super cheap, i'll add the guys website later once i find his card

me: *gets married in these*

and lastly, SKULL EARRINGS B) 

only 5 bucks and they're absolutely adorable 

plus 10 points to the asian lady who sold them to me for being the kindest lady alive

have a picture i took on the way there, when the clouds looked really pretty and fluffy

that's all for now! hopefully i'll do something or think of something cool soon and i can write about it 

'til then, au revoir!

corners of suburban sprawl

I thought about waiting to post these, but I figured I'd just get it over with. First time I've tried this sort of thing, clearly need a lot of improvement. I shot these around my town and edited them on Picasa. Summer-y and bleak kinda??

 I was listening to "Sprawl I" by Arcade Fire (plus more of the album The Suburbs) and "Radio" by Lana Del Rey while I was taking these. So there's that to go with the pictures.

   Thanks so much for reading/looking!