Kid-Atomic

Well my friends know what I have been working on for the past few months.  Vanellope von Schweetz from "Wreck-It Ralph"!  I first went to E-Bay to find a wig.  I entered an auction for what I thought was a dark haired wig with an up-do.  I was wrong.  Turned out to be a longish cut with a clip on ponytail that goes all the way to my waist.  Of course it is going to be cut, soon (tm)!

Next step was to find the clothes.  As you know I am all for my quick n dirty cosplays aka I cheat the system.  Looked up "mint green hoodie" on Amazon.com.  It showed me several in the $60-$70 price range.  Way out of my pricing.  I checked etsy.com for other sweat shirts in mint green.  Went back to Amazon.com and found a Champion "glacial heather" in just the right color, it even had the grey inside the hood! Then I looked for hot pink laces so I could exchange the green ties it came with for the proper pink ones.  Word of advice, Champion actually sews the top part of their laces into the hoodie, so I had to pull out my trusty seam ripper and go to work.

Next up was the skirt, I went to a couple of Goodwills and found one that would work.  Since I suck at sewing I took it over to my friend's home and she was kind enough to figure out a solution! I took her to lunch for her efforts in joining my craziness.

I checked etsy again and a wonderful shop called Beadborg had Vanellope's tights for a great price!  She also makes them for Taffeta in case anyone is looking, along with clockworks, dolls, monsters and other fine art for the legs.

I had the shoes (though a bit worn) so that part is taken care of.

Now back to that wig.  I won the auction! $10 for a wig that could easily be worth $60 not bad, right?  Using lots of coupons I began gathering materials to make the hair clips and pins.  I hunted through lots of $1 bins and found sticky jewels and little jewelery pieces that looked like candy over at Michaels Craft and Floral.  I also twisted and hot glued pipe cleaners to form the big licorish tie around the ponytail.

I'll have pictures up shortly.  Once I show it off at Wizard World.

Yep you read that right.  Here's the deal.  Back on Labor Day weekend I fell ill again.  But something was very "off".  I had a bad headache to the point I was seeing zigzag lines and not just the standard spots.  Along with all my usual pneumonia symptoms of massive cough, running nose and whistle breathing.  I woke up that Saturday morning with my left hand and leg not responding correctly.  Even now I have to stop and tell myself words before typing or writing them out.  Went into ER at St. V's for 8 hours and due to lack of insurance they refused to admit me.  I could have died, I found out later, but they still released me to go home.

Got an appointment with the doctor later in the week.  She used a lot of big words and ordered more blood tests.  Turned out I have an extremely elevated white cell count and my immune system is in overdrive.  Then we discussed my having an MRI.  MRI's start around $5000 and go up.  So I went and appealed to OHSU.  They were kind enough to grant and underwrite for outpatient procedures.

The MRI on November 8 showed several small strokes and something possibly pressing on my spine.  Next was a CT scan of my chest which showed "broken glass", a medical condition associated with the lungs.  More blood tests at OHSU this time.  And I have appointments pending with Neurology and Pulmonary.  

On top of all this my kids and I have moved back in with my parents after nearly being evicted from our townhouse.

Its been a very eventful two months and as we head into the holidays its going to pick up steam.

Stay safe out there.

Well Star Girl and Green Arrow are almost complete.  Sadly I am not going to be able to make the Cosmic Rod for Stargirl as I am running out of time.  I just have to finish adding the strap to Green Arrow's quiver and that will be done.  Still working on Miss Martian. Argh! This outfit is giving me pains.  Seriously considering storming back to the craft shop and grabbing a couple cans of spray fabric paint to spray on the X instead of using fabric and Wonder Under (tm).  Bought all the make-up supplies, sponges and brushes for this.  So hoping the wigs will be here shortly, I haven't heard anything from Amazon.com and I paid for overnight shipping on them, along with some gloves.

Managed to get a van rented for this trip.  The weather is looking very stormy come the afternoon so I am praying we manage to get out of here before 10am.  

All right enough of my meandering.  Time to go back to work.  Only have 2 hours left then its pack time. Oh my nerves.

Its that time again.  Getting ready to go to ECCC (www.emeraldcitycomicon.com) and join in with the geek masses.  The kids and I are going to try some cosplay this year.

My daughter and I along with a very awesome friend of mine, went shopping yesterday.  T has been begging me to put together a Stargirl costume for her and Q wants to be Green Arrow from Batman Brave and the Bold.  Both fairly simple outfits.  

I am working on putting the stars on T's outfit.  They are actually iron-ons that I created using my new HP Laserjet. I also made Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts for a couple of friends of mine for Read Across America/Dr. Suess Day at the kids school.  I was the Cat in the Hat (bit of advice if you can get the costume without the mask do it.  That mask was so warm!)

So anyway the costumes are not requiring a lot of sewing. Mainly a lot of searching in stores.

As I was saying for Stargirl I am using iron on stars.  The rest of the outfit consists of red gloves I found at Joanne's Fabric, a Lands In  mock turtleneck from Sears, running shorts from Target, a red belt from Trend Jeans and the hardest piece to find. . .red boots from Trend Shoes (they actually fit and have zippers to make things easier!).  Wig will be an Elope Alice in Wonderland wig if I can get it.

For Green Arrow we are using a men's size small forest green t-shirt for the tunic, which is proving rather hard to find!Kiwi it seems is the "in color" for summer this year, from Sears. Still trying to find a nice pair of tights or leggings.  The hat will either come from Costume Avenue (a great costume rental and accessories store, I have an account with them, the employees and owner are extremely nice), Amazon.com or else from Halloween Warehouse (we won't get into my feelings on that place!).  As for glove and boots I'll either use the ones we have, if we still have them or order another set of Captain America boot covers/gloves for him.

You're probably wondering how I will do the masks for the above, right?  I am actually going to use make-up.  Such as I did for my Green Lantern costume back at Halloween.  It lasted all day and did not smudge off.  I used Zazzle, available at Michaels Craft stores or online at their website.  I suggest buying a pack of various paint brushes, making sure they come to a nice point.  You can also use non-toxic school acrylic paint but it does not move as nice as the actual face paint.  Elmers also makes a face paint but their yellow and green tend to be gummy and slide off when you sweat.

Here are some reference pics I am using along with my own picture and a video on how to do that type of make-up Enjoy!

Video:  youtu.be/wRNaBqhYMPk

Reference pics:
   Stargirl: www.comicvine.com/stargirl/105…
  Green Arrow: www.comicvine.com/544b106/105-…

Halloween make-up:  www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbi… hope that works!)

Been awhile.

Enjoying my summer and taking things slow and easy.  I caught pneumonia again a couple days after Girl Scout camp ended.  Actually had to fly down to California for vacation with it.  This was after spending several previous hours in the ER for new medication. Energy levels are still down.

However I am going out tonight to be social.  Its a friend's birthday and they begged me to make an appearance.  Who am I to deny them?