This past weekend was GeekGirlCon up here in Seattle, which is a great little convention centered around being a fun and welcoming community that promotes the role of women in geek culture. While men and boys are welcomed and encouraged to attend, the con itself exists to “celebrate and honor the legacy of women contributing to science and technology; comics, arts, and literature; and game play and game design by connecting geeky women world-wide.” I hadn’t been in a couple of years and it was such a treat to see how much it’s grown in that time.

While I attending a number of amazing panels (Working with Worbla & Women and the Horror Fandom, to name a couple) my favorite part of the weekend was cosplaying. This was my third official cosplaying event and I was so pumped to rewear and old costume and try out a new one.

On Saturday, my friends and I wore our Candyland costumes. We debuted these at PAX earlier this year, but since then we obtained a gender-swapped Mr. Mint, filling the group out even more.

I love these costumes. Not only is Queen Frostine the first costume I made entirely myself, 100%, everything from scratch – but it also brings a certain joy to people’s faces when they realize what we are that I just love. Nearly everyone played Candyland as a child, but very few have seen the characters in any way other than a few inches tall on a game board. Not to mention all the small children who just want to follow us around because they like our “pretty dresses”. Wearing these Candyland costumes is always a delight and GeekGirlCon did not disappoint.

Now we just need the other characters! Anyone interested?

Sunday, however – Sunday was the day I had looked forward to with both extreme euphoria and fear. After months of work, my Sailor Moon costume was ready, and I couldn’t wait to show it off at the con surrounded by seven (SEVEN!) other scouts.

I’ve been watching Sailor Moon since I was a child – I remember waking my mom up to watch it in her bedroom at 7am before I even knew what anime was or how much it would later affect my life. I remember my resurgence of interest when I was 11, when I started doodling Sailor Scouts on my middle school notes and calling dibs on which scouts we were with my friends at lunch time. I never got to be Sailor Moon. This was a big point of contention for me in middle school – I WAS THE BLONDE ONE. I WANTED TO BE SAILOR MOON.

Sometimes it takes years for justice to be served, I’ve found. Fifteen years, to be exact – because at 26 years old, my cosplay group unanimously decided I was the obvious choice for Sailor Moon. I was giddy, I’m not going to lie. This costume, this group of friends dressing up as the Sailor Scouts… this fulfills a fifteen year old dream for me. So take that, middle school friends. Who’s Sailor Moon now?

I had an absolute blast. We found that walking around with a couple of scouts wasn’t too bad – you could still manage to make your way around the con and see things, but if you had more than three (or, god forbid, the whole group) you might as well just stop and pose for pictures. Because that’s all you’d be able to do.

But we loved it. When you spend as much time on costumes as it takes to make these, you want your picture taken. You want to see people’s faces light up when they see you. Sailor Scouts day at GeekGirlCon was one of my favorite days of all time, top five at least. I had the most fun, and I can’t wait to wear them again sometime. Especially since we have a Neptune and a Uranus, they just couldn’t make it to this particular event!

I want to give a special shoutout to GeekGirlCon itself for being such an amazing atmosphere in which to wear costumes – the con has very strict rules about asking cosplayers before you take pictures and it enhanced the experience so very much. I had a number of wonderful conversations with people who enjoyed my costumes because of it, as well as chatting with other cosplayers (who were all extremely friendly and nice). I also loved how open everyone at this con was, turning the “Sex Scenes from the Female Gaze” panel into good old fashioned smut story time. Where else could authors share their favorite sex scenes aloud in front of a respectful and mature audience? It was wonderful.

GeekGirlCon was a fantastic experience, and even though I swore I’d take a break from making costumes until 2015, I’m already mentally breaking that rule by figuring out what’s next.

Stay tuned to my cosplay page on Facebook to keep up with my costuming adventures!

Okay, I haven’t just “sort of fallen off the blogging wagon” – it’s completely left me behind and I’m going to need to call a Lyft to catch back up. Even though writing is just about my favorite thing to do, whenever I start to get busy this blog is the first thing to get the axe. I don’t mean to! I love this blog! But I am going to try to be better. I mean we’ll see, since next month is NaNoWriMo, but I am going to try.

So what’s been getting in the way of blogging for me? Well, I have two easy answers to that, actually.

1. Cosplay

2. Reading

Usually I have a million excuses as to why I haven’t got time for a damn thing, but lately, it’s been those two things, 24/7. If you haven’t noticed, I have recently jumped headfirst back into reading, and it’s been seriously awesome. Every once in awhile I’d feel that little tug, like there was something missing from my life – and it was totally reading. I’ve been doing a book challenge over on Goodreads to read 30 books this year (modest, I know, but I wanted to start realistically) and I am flying through! You can follow me there if you want to see what I’m reading and how much I like the books I’ve read.

And the cosplay… don’t even get me started. To be fair, I love it. I am head over heels, honeymoon phase totally smitten with it. But good lord it’s expensive and time consuming. I don’t even want to know how much money and how many hours I have dumped into this hobby already. I really don’t.

But this weekend I’ll be at Geek Girl Con here in Seattle and I’ll be cosplaying both days! Saturday I will be reprising my Queen Frostine costume I wore at PAX, as we now have the addition of a Mr. Mint and plan to enter the costume contest with them.

 

And then on Sunday I get to fulfill a life-long dream of cosplaying as Sailor Moon. That’s right – I’m dressing up as Usagi herself. The best part is, we have an entire cosplay group of every single Sailor Scout, including the outer scouts. The only sad part is that our Uranus can’t actually make the event, but we know she’ll be there in spirit.

I don’t know how I managed to snag Sailor Moon, but I am so pumped it’s actually happening. I’ve put literal blood, sweat and tears into this project. Between a sewing machine needle going directly into my thumb, to hot-gluing my finger prints off, to having to redo a depressing number of parts of this costume due to mishaps and mess-ups… this pretty soldier of love and justice cannot wait for her costume to be finished so she can just wear it and feel like a magical girl.

I will definitely be posting pictures! Be sure to follow my cosplay page on Facebook for more regular updates about our costume journey.

That’s all for now! Please don’t abandon me – this blog will be up and running again very soon. I promise. Pinky swear. See you later!

I love Renaissance Faires. I really love them.

Usually I manage to make it to about one a year but in 2014 I’ve had the good fortune of attending THREE. I got to check out LA’s Pleasure Festival back in April, then I finally finally finally got to attend Faerieworlds down in Oregon in July, and I wrapped up my Renaissance circuit with the Midsummer Fantasy Faire right here in Washington this past weekend.

I figured I would put together a compilation of photos from the events to share the experiences with you, dear readers. Photos go a lot further when it comes to these events.

Row 1: The SoCal Pleasure Faire with Ariana, Tyler, Sammy and Joe! This one was so big we didn’t even realize we’d missed a whole section of booths and shops until the faire was almost over! We spent the day shopping, eating, and enjoying the fact that it wasn’t 100 degrees out, like most Faires we usually attend.

That second picture has detail shots of all my new medieval swag (the best part of attending a Ren Faire is adding to your outfits each year; I’m totally guilty of overspending all the time). The third picture was just a funny vendor that made me laugh.

Row 2: Faerieworlds is my new favorite event of all time. It’s sort of a Renaissance Faire meets music festival, and it’s right outside of Eugene, Oregon. I attended with some of my best friends: Eia, Joe, Justin, Ariana, Jenn and Liz. You set up camp, you shop, you dance, you listen to live music and you seriously unplug from everything else. We started the weekend in elaborate mythical creature costumes and ended up wearing next to nothing as it got hotter and dustier.

That second picture is a bunch of us hanging out in a yurt that Ariana was totally in love with… they just left it open all the time, so it became our go to chill space when it was too hot during the day or too cold at night.

The stage with constant folk music playing was a serious highlight, as was the fact that most booths and food vendors stayed open at all hours of the weekend. However, my favorite part was that there were workshops and activities for everyone – I spent a good amount of time with hula hoopers, learning new tricks (as you can see in the third picture) – while the others were at sword fighting workshops. It was truly amazing.

Rows 3: This was our first day at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire with Eia, Ariana, Joe and Meagan. It included immediately getting my hair braided (because it was way too goddamn hot) and putting Eia in jail. It was her birthday, so it seemed like the thing to do. These guys publicly “arrested” her and dragged her over to be contained until she tap danced for them and sang Happy Birthday to herself.

We’re great friends.

This is the Faire I’ve been going to since high school, so it’s always fun to run into familiar faces and delight in how much the event grows each year.

Row 4: The second day of the faire was absurd when it comes to impulse buys for just about everyone involved in the trip. Also Liz joined us. I bought mermaid ears (can you believe it!? mermaid ears that look totally amazing!) and a crystal flute. I’m not even joking you. If someone told me as a child that I would spend my hard earned adult money on mermaid ears and a crystal flute… well… I probably wouldn’t have been surprised. I was a weird kid.

So that was my Renaissance Faire experience for the year, and I’m terribly saddened that it’s over for now. There are always yuletide feasts to look forward to, but I’ll miss the dusty paths of the faire, the turkey legs, the bards, the bodice ice. Until next year, huzzah!

This past Sunday I was at Disneyland with a whole group of my friends, and we decided it was time to take Disneybounding to the next level. We put a good amount of pre-planning into this trip to the park, but picking a single movie, assigning roles, and managing quite the impressive group Disneybound.

We chose Toy Story. It was a good choice, since it spans three movies and includes more toys than I can even count. We didn’t even begin to cover every character with our group, but we did a pretty good job!

I also managed to convince Joe to choose Woody, which was almost more fun to help put together than my own outfit. His little cow-print bow tie (which I found here!) is just too cute. We’ve done a “couples” Disneybound once before (Ariel and Prince Eric, as blogged about here) but this newest one is by far my favorite.

Overall it was an amazing day, everyone looked great, AND we hosted a big meet up over my Small World that an amazing amount of people showed up to! If you stopped by and said hello, thank you! I was so impressed by everyone’s outfits and I’m just so pumped on costumes right now that it really was the best way I could think of to end VidCon. What a great trip.

 

Have you ever Disneybounded? Who did you pick, or if you haven’t done it – who would you LIKE to Disneybound as? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for stopping by!

Last summer, a handful of my friends and I attended the Canterbury Renaissance Faire down in Oregon, where we became acquainted with a small business called Rose and Thorn Armory. We chatted, we tried on their sweet armor, we hung out together later at the bar – basically, they’re good people, they make great armor, and we became friends. I’ve been meaning to do a little spotlight on them for awhile now for this blog, but they recently sent me a few pieces of their armor for a photo shoot, so now seemed like a good time for it.

The armor they make is awesome not just because it’s actually totally battle-ready, but can also be just as easily used for costumes (which, as you probably know, I am all about). For this photo shoot I didn’t dress it up too much, since I wanted to be able to show off the armor itself (it’s just as stunning worn simply on its own as it is turned into a full-fledged warrior princess costume, trust me). I roped Joe into the shoot as well, to show off the male variety.

I hope you enjoy! And if you like what you see, please go check out their kickstarter! You will not be disappointed.

If you like any of the items we’re wearing above, I’ve got the female warrior princess top and a matching gorget in a combination of purple and black. Joe’s got on a red and black shoulder pauldron and some simple black short arm bracers. You can throw these over a renaissance fair outfit for some added durability and badass-dom, or you can great an entirely new costume out of them! I never even know you could buy armor this legit before I found this company, so I thought it would be fun to share with all of you.

I’ll be back soon with information about everything I’m doing at VidCon – have a great day!

I have just been terrible at updating this blog regularly. I have a number of exciting things that I’ve been dying to share, but with VidCon and the release of Job Hunters right around the corner, I just can’t seem to find a good balance for all the stuff I’m doing right now. But these wrap-up posts seem to be working just fine for now, so let’s see what’s been happening since the last time I updated.

1. I posted a video I am quite proud of, that people seemed to respond to very well – either they agreed whole-heartedly or they completely disagreed. I feel like that’s the optimal scenario in an opinion piece, so I’ve been enjoying reading through the comments. If you missed this video, it’s called “Tell Them Hi For Me”.

 

 

2. I’ve also been spending a good deal of time on costumes/cosplay lately, which I’m sure you’re probably aware of. I’ve found my forté is scouring the internet (ebay, etsy, google shopping) for that exact pair of shoes or a replica toy rifle you could paint and alter to look like the real one… but I’ve also been trying my hand at sewing. Sewing doesn’t come quite as naturally to me, but I managed my first skirt yesterday! And it hasn’t fallen apart! Well – okay the first one looked terrible so I started over but then the SECOND one… the second one was GREAT. If you want to get regular updates on my sewing and costuming woes and successes (as well as Eia’s!) you should follow our Cosplay Facebook Page.

Our current headache project is a fairy-inspired costume for an event my friends and I are all going to called Faerieworlds, though neither Eia or myself are actually going to be fairies because wings are the worst. Watching our other friend Jenn struggle with bending wire yesterday turned us both off wings maybe forever. It’s been a lot of fun (I say that now – yesterday during our sewing party extravaganza there were a whole lot of expletives coming from my living room) working on costumes for all of this stuff, but we could only handle doing one really involved costume for this event. The rest of the time, we’ll be wearing the stuff in this video:

 

 

3. The final thing I’ve been really trying to work on lately is reading more. It started with comics, which are a nice departure from longer books and something I am so thankful I’ve been learning more about. But funnily enough, it gave me the bug – and now I spend a lot of my time itching to get a book back in my hands. I’ve been doing a bit of lurking in the Booktube community on YouTube and I’m thinking about trying my hand at reviewing a few of the books I’m reading myself. Keep an eye on my channel for potential book reviews this summer. They’re coming.

Okay I couldn’t find a way to expertly make this last video relevant, but I also did a really fun unboxing video of a Ninja Crate, which is my current favorite mystery box subscription service thingy. Everything inside is kawaii and adorable and handmade and I loved it:

Thanks for continuing to read my blog, even when my projects keep me from updating it regularly! There will be a few new posts in the coming days, including where I’ll be at VidCon, so stay tuned! Hope everyone is having a lovely start to their summer!

I’ve been working on so many new things recently – cosplay, getting into comic books, doing more with fashion on YouTube etc. – it’s been somewhat difficult to balance everything I am trying to do all at once. However, I recently attended a “Bloggy Boot Camp” here in Seattle put on by SITS Girls that was hugely motivating and inspiring, so let’s get back on this wagon, shall we?

Here’s what I’ve been up to.

1. COSPLAY! Eia and I have been hard at work planning our cosplays for the summer, which currently include a fantasy costume for Faerieworlds in July, and the overly ambitious prospect of 3 different costumes (each!) for PAX in August. We’ve luckily got a fair amount of time to get started on all of these, and what with ordering wigs and things from China, it’s really never too early to start. If you want to follow our progress this summer, we’ve just created a Facebook page where we’ll be posting updates, photos and musings about the whole process. Be among the first to follow it!

2. READING! Not only have I been inspired to make reading more a part of my daily regimen for Answerly Books, I’ve also made the executive decision to dabble a bit in the BookTubing world on YouTube. I’ll admit, part of this decision was spurred by the jealousy I felt watching people have so much fun at BEA this past weekend, but jealousy is just as valid an emotion to start doing something as any, right? I’ll be starting reviewing YA books, fiction books, and even the sporadic comic book on my channel so make sure you’re subscribed if that sounds interesting to you!

This Comic Book Haul was sort of my first foray into that new direction on my channel, and it seems to have gone over well.

 

3. FASHION! I don’t know when it really clicked for me, but it just did. I think I was looking at old pictures of me from my touring days, and just honestly couldn’t believe anyone ever let me out fo the house (not to mention ON STAGE) wearing the stuff I used to own. Not to say you HAVE to have good fashion sense, or really that I was even doing anything wrong, but let’s be real sometimes I really could have used a little help getting dressed in the morning.

This all leads me to my point which is, lately I’ve found fashion to be extremely fun and rewarding and I’ve loved finding ways to mix geek with chic (I know, so original) but really, it’s still a new concept to so many people and I love being a part of that journey. A good place to follow me if you’re interested in this aspect of what I do is Instagram. I’ve also done a few fashion haul videos already, but here’s my most recent one:

 

That’s all my news for now, though I also put up my standard monthly favorites video if you missed that. Book related favorites have been creeping in more and more to these videos, and if you haven’t noticed, I’ve also recently developed a pretty permanent anime category in these videos. It’s been a year of self discovery, for sure. Revisiting old hobbies I loved from my childhood (anime) and discovering new things about myself I never knew I was passionate about (comic books, costume making, clothes). I’m so happy that it seems my viewers are along for the ride and enjoy whatever I throw their way, and please keep suggesting more things you think I might like! You probably have no idea how often I take your advice.

 

Thanks for keeping up with this blog as well, and be sure to check back soon – it may be getting a total redesign in the near future! Exciting!

Have a lovely day and remember to get outside if you can. Our weather has been beautiful and I have not nearly taken as much advantage of it as I could.

I promised big news today and here it is: The Parselmouths are having a GARAGE SALE! You heard right – back from hiatus for just a hot second, my retired wizard rock band has returned not to perform any shows, but to offer you the chance to pick up some of our sweet, exclusive merch you may never have had the chance to buy before. We have an eclectic assortment of shirts and CDs spanning the whole length of our band’s existence, including some of the very first shirts we printed back in 2007. These shirts have never been available online before, and they were taking up so much room in our house that we decided it was time to share them with you – the great people of the internet.The really exciting part is that the ‘proverbial, real-and-true’ end of the Parselmouths doesn’t just mean the end of an era… it, of course, means the start of something new! We played our last show at LeakyCon 2011 so we’ve been “in retirement” for awhile now, but Eia and I have continued to live together, make things together, and scheme together. The launch of this online garage sale coincides directly with the unofficial “grand opening” of our online cosplay presence, and the start of the DeviantArt account we’ve created to document this new chapter of our lives. This account is still in the very early stages, but we’re also very new to cosplay! Every dollar we make selling what’s left our our Parselmouth’s merch will go to our cosplay fund, to bring you guys fun new costumes and characters we’re just itching to make. If you were ever a fan of our band, I definitely encourage you to at least go check out the store and see if there’s any fun, exclusive Parselmouths merch you may have missed out on over the years. And if you never listened to the Parselmouths, we have physical copies of our CDs for sale as well, which are otherwise no longer available! Again, here is the link to our temporary store. Accio, Parselmouths merch! This is both a nostalgic and exciting event for us, and we’re so excited to finally be announcing it. The Parselmouths existed for six wonderful, magical years and being in this band brought us so many great experiences, friendships and opportunities. It’s both tragic to leave such an amazing part of your life behind, and wonderful to look to the future of what you might be able to accomplish next. Let me know in the comments either a favorite Parselmouth’s memory of yours, or a character you’d like to see either Eia or myself cosplay as in the future. Thanks for all your support, as always, and I look forward to this final month of Parselmouths fun. ^_^

 

This is the video I have been so excited to share with you all – this one shows the Anna and Elsa cosplay my friend and roommate Eia and I made in action at Emerald City Comic Con!

We had so, so much fun waltzing around in our coronation dresses all day, and I think our shared favorite aspect of the whole experience was getting to meet so many little kids who thought we really were the characters from Frozen. We managed to capture a lot of that on camera, and it melts my heart every time I watch it.

We’re going to be compiling the best photos from the day on our brand new Deviant Art account, but those aren’t quite ready yet. I’ll keep you posted on when that’s available!