My First Convention Experience

So, even though I've been going to conventions for a few years now, I thought it'd be nice to write about my first time ever going to a convention. It was a fairly small Anime convention not especially far from where I lived (from my perspective at least). When I first started going to anime conventions, I wasn't very much into anime. Sure I'd seen some anime episodes and read some mangas, but I wasn't totally banzai fangirl over it. I'd never really dressed up in costume outside of Halloween and dance performances that I'd been doing for a major part of my life at that point. Maybe it was because of my dance career, but I felt that it was necessary to dress up for the convention, even if it wasn't cosplay. I appreciate that not everybody feels comfortable wearing costumes outside of Halloween, so I've never felt the need to force everyone to dress up for conventions. I personally just feel it makes it more fun.

Another thing that I've done since I started attending conventions is wear different outfits every day that I go to the con. In previous years I've gone so far as to wear two to three different costumes in a day. My fist time going to a convention wasn't quite that elaborate though. I went to the con two different days, so I wore two different outfits. The first one was a cute China dress I'd gotten to wear for a birthday party a few years prior along with a sash and a shirt underneath. The second day I wore a Lolita-like outfit I'd put together. It consisted of a black A-line skirt I'd hemmed to knee length, a white polo shirt, some lace and roses I had lying around, some quickly made wrist cuffs, and a cute teddy bear that I had wearing a Gothic Lolita like dress. (The bear can be seen modeling my Mini Cherry Tophat here.) Unfortunately, I don't know where any pictures of either of my outfits are at this point in time, but I'll be sure to post them when I get the chance.

As you can probably guess, I didn't really get any compliments on my outfits, no one recognized me from such and so an anime, but I didn't mind. I enjoyed seeing everyone else's cosplays and outfits and had fun despite my lack of experience cosplaying. So this is to anyone who's never been to a convention before and is unsure if they have to dress up: Do whatever you want. If you feel comfortable dressing up in a costume in public, go for it. If not, don't worry. There's plenty of people who wear a anime themed T-shirt or a colorful wig and call it good. There's nothing wrong with that. There's also plenty of low quality cosplays. You don't have to look like Yaya Han to have fun cosplaying, just go for it and have fun. Have fun at any future conventions you choose to attend, Anime, Sci-fi, fantasy, or what have you and don't feel like you have to have an amazing costume to have fun.

I'm on Twitter now!@animlolicouture

Lolita on a Budjet: Hime Lolita

Who doesn't want to be a princess at some point in their life? As girls, many of us dream of being a princess and with Hime, or Princess Lolita we can make dreams reality! Hime Lolita is definitely a extravagant style, so it can be fun to wear on occasions when one feels like going the extra mile to look glamorous. Perfect princess hair and makeup is only part of the look, and here I'll show you an affordable Hime Lolita look using items from Bodyline! This outfit costs $114 to $167 plus shipping and handling.

The base of a Hime Lolita look is always an elaborate dress. I feel that this pink flared sleeve dress is perfect for the Hime style and it's got the added benefit of removable sleeves, making it so you can wear it as a Sweet Lolita dress as well. And what outfit is complete without a great pair of shoes to go with it? These ribboned heels are pretty and cute and give you an extra boost of height for that added confidence as you stroll along. I felt that a pair of lacy tights would work best with this look and was pleased to find that Bodyline! offers cute bow patterned tights. For that extra touch of glam, a pair of pink lace and bow nails is just the perfect touch. And for icing on the cupcake, put on a cute flower headpiece that is elegant and cute. Or you can glam it up and get a tiara, which unfortunately can't be gotten from Bodyline!, but can be easily found at stores around Prom season. Not everybody has perfect Hime Lolita hair or the time to do their hair up, so if that's you you can also get a Hime wig from Bodyline! in just about any color you want! I hope you enjoy this Hime Lolita outfit.

All of the items in this outfit plus more in this style can be found on the Bodyline website. No pictures due to the fact that I haven't received permission to use Bodyline!'s images. Check me out on Twitter.

Wood Shop Jewelry Box

Back in high school I had the opportunity to take a wood shop class where I learned how to make objects out of wood. I had several projects including a birdhouse and a cutting board, both of which I gave to relatives, as well as a jewelry box. The Woods I chose to use are cherry wood and walnut, both of which are my favorite dark colored woods. The other kids in my class used a small dowel for a hinge on their boxes, but my lid was cut too thin, so I salvaged some hinges off of another jewelry box I had that I didn't care for. I found out that brass screws are very soft and so they are hard to get into a hard wood without damaging. Fortunately, I positioned the hinges on the inside of the box, so you can't see that the heads of the screws are a little messy looking from the outside of the box.

All pictures are by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.

DIY Clay Decodens

Recently I've been getting interested in Decoden, cute little items such as kitty faces and cupcakes or other food or kawaii related items. Since these items tend to be rather expensive and a little difficult to find, I decided to try making my own with some colored clay I had. I started by making cherries, then moved on to cookies and macaroons as well as frosting and whipped cream. The cherries turned out alright, but my favorite items are the frosted star cookie I made and the macaroons. For all of the cookies I mixed some pale yellow clay with a bit of brown clay to get a color similar to other decoden cookies I've seen. For the frosting I mixed small pieces of colored clay and some white liquid clay together until the solid clay was mostly broken up, then drizzled it on the cookie. I attempted the same thing to make frosting, just adding more solid clay, but it didn't turn out especially well. This could be because I was using a oven bake clay instead of a self hardening clay like most home made decoden are made out of. It's also possible I didn't add enough solid clay to make a good mixture since I was getting rather tired of breaking up and mixing the clay. Anyways, here's a picture of the decoden I made minus the whipped cream which was added afterwords.

The larger macaroon is in half still because I put whipped cream in the middle after the initial baking. Sorry for the low image quality; I'll try to get better pictures of the items up later. All images were taken by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.