Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

Happy Birthday Closet Geek

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Can you believe it’s been a year? I can’t!

Yes, that’s right, one year ago today, I opened my Closet Geek store. Something that started as just sewing for my own children, for Amy and I to cosplay and for Liv to wear to WDW, turned into this tiny little business selling hair bows, pencil cases and girls dresses.

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Now a year on, I honestly can’t believe how much support and love I’ve had. I hit 1000 followers on Instagram a few months ago and I’ve had over 1500 sales on Etsy. In addition to the dresses, pencil cases and hair bows I started with, I now sell Disney ears on a fairly regular basis, bunting and cushion covers. I take inquiries for custom skirts and cosplay, along with anything else people are interested in.

Though I’m yet to crack it yet, I bought a laser cutter a while back and I also experimented with screen printing. In the next few weeks I hope to dedicate more to time to them. I’ve also signed up for 4 days of Christmas Market in Lincoln during December, so prep for that will begin soon. I made a post called “Almost a year on…” on the Closet Geek blog, discussing some of my popular items and some of my favourite.

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I’d love to explore the possibility of Subscription boxes throughout the next year, plus more fandoms that just Disney and Harry Potter. I can’t wait to be writing a post that’s “two years on” and I hope that you’re all still following me to see it! Thanks again for all the support.

MCM Birmingham – What we wore

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Last week myself, Lily and Amy all attended MCM Birmingham Comic Con. It was something we decided fairly last minute and as such we decided to wear “put together” costumes instead of handmade ones. I’d previously posted about putting together a cosplay costume, where I’d showed you how I intended to make a Gogo Tomago outfit out of clothes bought from the high street. It was this that decided us on Gogo and Honey Lemon from Big Hero 6 and since I sell a Baymax dress at Closet Geek, Lily wore this to go with us.

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Though I definitely didn’t feel as happy dressing up in store bought clothes as I do when I make it myself, it was still a lot of fun to do. Amy and I both wore wigs and while they weren’t as nice as some of the wigs we’ve previously worn, they did the job. Majority of both mine and Amy’s costumes were bought on Ebay, though we both did make alterations. While I don’t know how much hers cost to put together, the total cost of mine was around £40, plus the wig.

gogo1jacket – £10 (eBay, second-hand)
t-shirt – £4 (Peacocks)
shorts – £4 (Sports Direct)
2x leggings – £3 each (eBay, new)
trainers – £8 (Shoe Zone)
wig, gloves and sweatband not pictured

I have to admit I did feel a little fat in it and I didn’t really think of Gogo being sporty until I was actually wearing the outfit. I was pleased at how easily it came together but sadly I don’t think I’ll wear it again.

gogo2Luckily I was pleased with the selfie instead!

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Lily on the other hand looked cute as a button! (excuse my washing in the background!).

Making a Cosplay Costume

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In Summer, Amy and I (plus Kariss who we met there) attended SFCC (Sheffield Film and Comic Con). Last year we were attending LFCC (London Film and Comic Con) but unfortunately the timing just wasn’t right to get to that one this year. I’ve also attended MCM Comic Con in London this year, back in May. However in the end we decided not to cosplay for that, so SFCC was our first cosplay of the year.

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Amy and I decided on Disney cosplay (surprise surprise). She was going as Briar Rose and I was Belle. Both choices are their “peasant” dresses, so in a way we’ll be a pair.

I started on Amy’s first as I couldn’t get the fabric I needed for mine without ordering. The first thing I did was find a pattern that would work for what I wanted (I only ever work from patterns). It was pretty easy and didn’t take me too long. Ironically it was another Disney pattern, one used to make Elsa’s Coronation dress.

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Next was to pick out some colours. Luckily both costumes comprise of basic block colours, so cotton poplin is perfect for what we need. I headed off to Boyes, picked out come colours and then started to work with the pattern and fabrics.

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So once I cut out all the pattern pieces I was sure about, there was the grey to figure out. I picked one that I thought might be a bit dark and when placed together with all the other fabrics, it was decided between Amy and I, that it was too dark. Sadly this began our own 50 Shades of Grey disaster which took about 8 fabric samples from Ebay before locating. However with the grey only effecting the skirt, it was easy to still continue and make a start.

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Once the top was done and the grey was found, it didn’t take long to sew it all together and add the zip. It was lucky too as I ended up making Kariss an Alice in Wonderland dress and apron, before also making my own Belle outfit. I was fairly pleased with how they all turned out too.

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I have a post on Closet Geek dedicated to all the Cosplay outfits I’ve made so far. But keep an eye out as I will be updating it before too long I’m sure!

Easy (Disney) Cosplay Tips

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So as you know, I love to make costumes and I love to cosplay. I’ve been to a few conventions now – LFCC last year, London MCM in May of this year, SFCC in August and a small Lincoln one in September, two of which I cosplayed for. However not everyone has the ability to sew (or the money to buy handmade) so I decided to share some tips about costumes you can threw together easily, using clothes readily available in stores and online.

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For MCM Comic Con, I was originally choosing to go as Go Go Tomago. If you haven’t seen Disney’s Big Hero 6 then you’ll have no idea who that is – and if you haven’t seen it, then you should! Go Go is an awesome female character and her “everyday” look is really easy to replicate.

The costume is basically made up from a black leather jacket, white t-shirt, black (and purple) leggings, black shorts and black trainers. Depending on how exact you’re wanting to be with your costume, sourcing the exact items might prove tricky. However if you’re happy to improvise, you should get most things fairly easily.

I started with the leather jacket. Of course I wasn’t going to get actual leather, as that would be expensive. I headed off to Ebay to find something cheap and secondhand. The important thing to note about Go Go’s jacket was it’s style – the way it zips up, neckline etc.

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Can you spot the difference between the two?

After the jacket, the rest should come fairly easy. A simple white t-shirt, relatively non nondescript. Black leggings, with purple poking through rips – either a double layer of leggings, black over purple with tears cut in the black – or black leggings with rips, patched up underneath with purple material. Black fingerless gloves. Black trainers. Black shorts. Depending on how close you’re wanting to match, I’m sure you can find black trainers with a splash of purple and black shorts with a splash of red. Failing that you could always add your own – paint for the trainers and ribbon for the shorts.

Last but not least, this leaves the hair. Of course if you’re radical you could cut and dye your own (I actually tricked all my facebook friends into thinking I’d done that) or you can buy a wig.

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So long as you plan fairly far in advance (allowing time for shipping from China) you should be able to pick up a relatively cheap cosplay wig. Mine was around £10 mark and took about 3 weeks to arrive. There are some great bargains out there, for all things cosplay, the more time you allow and the further it can travel from!

38/52

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Today’s 52 Project photo is actually taken today. We attended a small sort of a comic con in Lincoln called “Geeks” and both girls dressed up. Lily had wanted for a long time to be Harley Quinn, so I made her a dress for the occasion. Megan wasn’t really sure what to go as but since she had the Belle dress from when we went to Florida, and the apron, she decided to go as Belle. Neither were really cosplaying, more just inspired, but it was lovely to see them enjoying dressing up!

What I’ve been up to!

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It’s been a quiet week on my blog and that’s basically because I’ve been busy! The girls were back at school this week which took up a lot of my attention, but I’ve also been working hard on my new site, Closet Geek. I’ve been making and sewing, sourcing and thinking, browsing the web and just constantly thinking!!

Closet Geek labelIf you missed the memo, my new site is sort of One-Stop-Shop (or it will be, eventually), for geeky apparel. Right now it stocks jewellery, hair bows and pencil cases, along with Disney inspired dresses for children. In the near future I want to add adult clothes, but at the moment I just do them on a custom order basis. If you want to keep up with what I’m going, Instagram seems to be my main platform as its great for visuals.

So this week I’ve been finishing off a Wendy cosplay that I’ve been working on for a while. It’s almost finished but not quite so I won’t share it here yet. However I have completed a new Woody inspired dress for girls and started working on some other projects.

Woody Inspired Dress

I have two custom orders in process at the moment, the first one of which I’ve ordered fabric and have a pattern for, the second being quite a big project! The first one is the Prom Dress from Back to the Future. Know which one? Marty’s mum, Lorraine wears it.

Back to the Future, Prom Dress

The second is a Cinderella cosplay which I’m still looking at fabrics for at the moment. I’m pretty excited, but also a little terrified too! As well as that, I’m making a Briar Rose inspired dress and hopefully a Snow White rags inspired dress, fingers crossed they’ll be done over the weekend. I have loads more planned but I really need to get on with my custom orders.

Finally on top of all that, I spent almost one whole day making hair bows. I had some in my store but I’ll be adding more, again you can see those on my instagram. My favourite by far is Eeyore though. It was quite fiddly but such a good outcome.

Eeyore bow

In the future I’ll be adding a range of Villains bows. I’ll also be adding some Superheroes too!

So this is what I’ve been up to. How about you? I love working from home but I tell you, its hard to separate being at work and not being at work – switching off your brain and actually getting “me” time seems a thing of the past!

Sew Sew Busy!

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First of all I want to apologise for my lack of online presence at the moment! I’m so busy with other things – especially sewing and launching my online store – that blogging has taken a bit of a back seat. I don’t want it to though – as I have books to review, Inside Out to discuss and today we’re going to see The Railway Children so I’m sure I’ll want to tell you all about that! Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to make another couple of posts and schedule them for the next few days, but right now I have to get the kids ready and make a packed lunch! My trip to York includes a stop for sewing supplies too so I imagine that will mean even more sewing to do!

Promise I’ll be back soon but in the meantime here is some of the stuff I’ve been working on and some that will be stocked at Closet Geek!

Custom cosplay costume for a Kariss – Alice in Wonderland

Pencil Cases, various – for Closet Geek

 

Pinocchio Girl – Disney inspired dress – livvybirdadventures IG

 

Briar Rose cosplay costume for Amy

Just Sew Geeky

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As you probably know from my previous posts, I love to sew. My mum and dad bought me my first sewing machine at the age of 18 and I used it for a good year or so before it got stowed away and barely used. Since having kids I’ve used it every now and again, but it has never had more use than in the last 12 months. Last summer a group of us decided we would go to London Film and Comic Con and that we would cosplay. This was my first ever experience of cosplaying and I wanted to make my own costume. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, especially since I hadn’t used my sewing machine in a long time.

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Sadly now when I look at the photos, all I see is how much weight I had on at that time. I was beginning to lose weight at that point but since then I’ve lost about 1- 1 and 1/2 stone and feel so much better for it. Anyway, when I try to focus on the costume itself I’m pleased but I know I’ve done so much better since. In the following months I made young Anna and Elsa dresses for my two daughters, I made a Snow White costume for my best friend Amy and I made a whole stack of Disney inspired dressed for our holiday to Florida.

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Since getting back from Florida I’ve flipped flopped back and forth about starting my own business – sewing clothes. I have had an online store on Etsy selling jewellery for some time now and I’d love to combine everything geeky that I like to do and make a little business from it. Anyway… the title of this post was one of the names I toyed with – Just Sew Geeky. However I felt it was too sewing orientated (and I want to do more than sewing) and in the end went for Closet Geek. The sewing section of my site will probably be the largest – for the most part I’ll be offering inspired dresses and clothes for children. In the future I hope to be able to offer custom cosplay too, not just for kids but for adults. I’ll also add my Jewellery Ever After stock (and add to it), along with the inspired hair bows that Megan and I were making a few months ago. On top of all that I hope to add murder mysteries to the categories, but that’s a little way off right now. It’s a lot of work and I’ve really only just started. I have the bare bones of a site in progress, social media platforms set up and business cards ordered.

businesscard2At the weekend (just gone) I sat down to get some sewing done and discovered the foot from my sewing machine was gone. I’m absolutely certain I’ve put it somewhere “safe” but after two hours of searching, I still couldn’t find it. In the end I ordered a new one, costing a total of £8.79 (only £3.80 for the foot but £4.99 postage!). To be honest I toyed with buying a new sewing machine all together. I checked out sewing machines online and I found a really good range at Tesco Direct but as yet I haven’t made a decision. There is nothing actually wrong with my sewing machine at the moment but I have to admit I can tell it’s definitely on it’s way out. As I said, it was bought for my 18th birthday – and I literally just had my 36th last week. It’s old… though not as old as I am… and it’s going to need replacing soon, especially if I expect to be sewing on it even more often than I have been recently.

Though I’m bubbling over with ideas of Disney inspired dresses to make, my first project is actually a cosplay one. For now I’m going to keep it a secret but I’ve ordered vintage Simplicity pattern 9825 and turquoise jacquard material that I could really only find in the US. I’m excited to crack on with it so my sewing machine foot better turn up soon! In the mean time I’m going to head for Pinterest and start pinning some more ideas and also work on my online store! I’ll let you know as soon as I have an update.

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