March DisneyBound Challenge 2016

Thursday, 31 March 2016Friday, 22 April 2016 Starr4 Comments

You may have noticed it’s not Friday but a post is up! That’s because I have a surprise post here with the end of March but also a surprise review with a Q&A that I think you may be interested in hearing about coming atcha tomorrow! Who am I? I don’t even know…

Ah, March. You know what that means?

March DisneyBound Challenge month! (You did read the title of this post, right?)

DisneyBounding is a movement founded by fashion blogger Leslie Kay as a way for people to channel their love for Disney characters into every day outfits. This is especially popular in Disney parks because adults are not allowed to wear costumes (for fear of confusing guests). Usually this is done by incorporating a color scheme with some small details, rather than wearing a full-on costume. (As I mentioned last year, it’s the difference between wearing a mermaid tail with a purple shell bikini top and wearing a purple shirt and green pants to portray Ariel.)

I have been a big fan of DisneyBounding and put in a bigger effort to put bounds together for the March Disneybound Challenge, even though I never come close to doing the 31 days of outfits that many other folks in the community put together. (Those people are amazing! This year, a few of them are even doing #31bounds1movie, where all of their outfits for the month are inspired by one single movie.)

This year, I struggled at the beginning of the month because I wanted to put together some fresh outfits and not do any that I’ve done in the past. Of course, I picked easier characters in the past so I was reaching out of my comfort zone, so I’m glad that I was able to mix things up a bit!

I wore these throughout the month, but I didn’t photograph any of the outfits until the very end of the month OOPS here we go:

I rediscovered my love for Dumbo when I rewatched his movie last year with Ben (in my ever-present efforts to make him a Disnerd). It’s one of those older Disney films that makes not-that-much sense to me (“Pink Elephants on Parade” really freaked Ben out) and Dumbo doesn’t have any dialogue in hte movie at all. But if I ever watch “Baby Mine” without crying, you know that I’ve been replaced with a robot.Read More »

Halloween 2014 Costume Reveal!

Friday, 31 October 2014Wednesday, 20 April 2016 Starr4 Comments

Happy Halloween!!!

As I’ve mentioned before, most of why I love Halloween as a holiday so much — despite how much I hate being scared — is that I love dressing up! I think that might even be why I have always been so drawn to acting and, in a past life, modeling. Getting into character is a lot of fun.

For those of you who don’t know, I work with Yelp, and one of my favorite things to do for my job is to dress up for themed events.

At DC’s recent Jet Set Fete, I was a flight attendant / stewardess / air hostess / what have you:

It was an easy look to put together once I had the dress and my manager provided the hat. The neckerchief is from my cousin, who works for Princess Cruises, and I thought that the travel-themed silk scarf was perfect.

Last weekend, we had our regional Halloween party. My actual Halloween outfit wasn’t quite ready yet, so I took some inspiration from Britney Spears and was a ringmaster:

Britney Spears inspires many of my life choices

I saw a ringmaster costume on my roommate’s Pinterest as she was looking for costumes of her own. I knew that I had a red blazer and that all I needed was a hat. I found the perfect one at Party City and it stays on my head via the headband it’s attached to. Perfect.

Now it took me some time to arrive on my Halloween costume. As I told you all before, I had to give up on some costume ideas that I was really set on this year. Since I have been doing Disney outfits the past 2 years, I thought it only right to do another one. After all, who doesn’t love a good Disneybound? This time around, I decided to go for a villain rather than a princess:

I went with this Ursula look and I’m so pleased with how it came out, especially given how I felt like I did this all at the last minute! (I like to start planning in July, so relatively speaking, it was very rushed.) Excuse the hair chalk that got on my dress; it is really unwieldy and mostly just makes me look old. XD

Anyhow, that’s how I will be showing my face in public today! The makeup scares me quite a lot so I’m just avoiding mirrors for a bit. ^^;

What’s your Halloween costume this year?

Costume Wishlist

Tuesday, 21 October 2014Wednesday, 20 April 2016 Starr3 Comments

With 10 days left until Halloween, I find myself really wishing that I could sew or drop mad cash for the costumes of my dreams. I always start thinking about my costume in July because, as I’ve said before, I love dressing up. It’s so much fun for me to be someone else for just a short while. (This is probably why I’ve always been so drawn to theater and acting.)

Here are some ideas I toyed with but, ultimately, decided not to do this year (rediscovering Etsy made it difficult to say no, but re-examining myCostume Wishlist3 budget made it even more difficult to say yes):

Sailor Mars, Sailor Moon

This has been a dream costume for years now. I’ve always wanted to be Sailor Mars for Halloween, ever since I was given VHS tapes of Sailor Moon back in elementary school. I came really close to purchasing this costume, but I got scared off by:

Having to measure myself for a custom-fitted costume, and
The cost of the costume, custom fitting, and shipping

I’m really hoping I can buckle down and get this for next year though, especially considering I’d like to at some point attend a convention in costume. This has been my DREAM Halloween outfit for a long, long time.

Elizabeth, Bioshock Infinite

New Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth Cosplay Dress Costume

I recently finished Bioshock Infinite (yes, very late) and I really enjoyed the game. Of course, I had already started thinking about an Elizabeth cosplay, especially given that her look from the beginning of the game is very Belle-esque (from Beauty and the Beast) and could be adapted that way if I wanted to be lazier/more casual with the costume.

I wasn’t really considering the other outfit, despite my love of corsets, but I don’t think it’s as suited for me. People have amazing cosplays of that Elizabeth, but I really thought the first outfit was more charming.

Ultimately, it was proving really difficult for me to piece together the costume (getting a long enough blue skirt was basically the main struggle) and I decided not this year. Maybe next year, I’ll become better at thrifting or dropping a lot of money on a costume.

(I might still buy myself a bird/cage necklace or choker for funsies. I have a few options sitting in my Etsy favorites and wishlists.)

Ariel’s “Kiss the Girl”/sightseeing dress, The Little Mermaid

You may recall that I absolutely love The Little Mermaid. 2 years ago, I was Hipster Ariel for Halloween.

With a last-minute and unwilling (on both our parts, really) Eric

This year, I played with the idea of doing Ariel’s blue dress, because it’s actually my favorite of her outfits (I don’t like green) and I really wanted to dye my hair red again.

There is no reason her costume should cost so much more than any of the other ones I’ve been looking at?? And yet I could not find this for less than $100 without getting a really cheap fabric. It looks really easy to construct on my own, but again, I ran into problems finding the pieces I wanted, namely a plain black (read: not sexed up) corset and the dang long blue skirt that was vexing me with the Elizabeth outfit!

Also, not only were the costumes I found online expensive, but they were also just… I don’t know, they didn’t look very nice! I was really hoping I could pull this one together on my own, but the skirt and corset issues are still plaguing me. I’ll keep looking.

Alas, none of these visions will be coming true this Halloween. I’m left trying to piece together something that will still get me really excited to dress up but I don’t know if I will be excited, having hinged my Halloween dreams on these 3 costumes all year long. Giving up on dreams is hard, ya know?

I did have a successful run as a flight attendant for a Yelp event recently, but I don’t know if I want to do that for Halloween. I am playing with some Disney villain looks, so we’ll see if any of those pan out.

What are you being for Halloween?
Do you have any dream costumes that you might one day put in the time/effort to get?