Cosplay in the Family!

 

Cosplay. Who doesn't love cosplay? I've been doing cosplay, sometimes without knowing what it was called, for about 17 years now.

For those of you who are a bit out of the loop, Cosplay is short for costume play. I've had people say "So you basically pretend its Halloween every day." Well, kinda, but not really.

There are dozens of different kinds on cosplay, but what I love most, is no matter what kind of cosplay you choose to do, what genre, what size you are, no one makes fun of you. It takes alot of guts to let your geek out in that way, even at a convention surrounded by other geeks. Everyone gets it. No one makes fun.


Mom and her steampunk witch

My entire family does cosplay. Well, most of them anyway. We all have our favorite genres too. My mom adores Steampunk. Corsets, gears, trains, and one of her favorite movies is Back to the Future Part III. She has also dressed up as a Japanese school girl, and can be seen running around town in a Pikachu inspired kigarumi. A kigarumi is basically a giant onesie, usually based on an animal or animal like character. She also really enjoys the work of YaYa Han.



Mom in her kigarumi, and my daughter in her minion shirt



First attempt at a fake beard

Dad has been a crew member from Star Trek, and been Gandalf the White. For his Gandalf costume, I learned how to use crepe hair and spirit gum to give him a realistic looking fake beard. He has a new Steampunk costume to match my mom, and we are thinking of a Gandalf the Grey and a Severus Snape costume for him.



My sister and her Neko Maid



My sister as a fox

My sister loves the neko maid costumes. Neko is Japanese short for cat. You can often see her running around with cat ears on, or in her fox Kigarumi.



My daughter is nearly two, but we are definitely raising her in the ways of geek. Her first cosplay was super simple, just a super girl bib that came with a cape. Since then she's been a neko, a costume she still plays in, Tinkerbelle, a minion and a moogle. We'll continue to take her to conventions and let her dress up as long as she wants. Now if I've been a good geeky mom, she'll want to cosplay for the rest of her life.

My daughter's moogle costume. Definitely her favorite.

Ryan is looking forwards to dressing up as the green arrow. The only person who doesn't dress up is my brother Jeremy, but only because he's been in the army and serving our country for the last four years.




My first cosplay, I was in fifth grade. I wanted to be Neo Queen Serenity for Halloween. I begged my mom to make the costume. Somehow she did it. She made me a white tube top dress, with sequins at the top. I had to wear a long sleeved leotard under it due to the school's dress code. My mom put my hair in buns and attached gold ribbons to them to make me look more like the character. No one knew what I was dressed as, the dress kept needing to be pulled up, but I didn't care. For six hours, I was Neo Queen Serenity, and I was awesome! This has stayed with me for the rest of my life. I love dressing up, and have no intentions to stop. I even wore a Japanese kimono to my high school graduation.


First attempt at Sally in 2010

Second attempt in 2011

 

Lilly Evas=ns cosplay. Gen Con 2015

In this house, very rarely do we buy a costume. Normally we make them. The exceptions are kigarumi's. Even then we could make them. The biggest obstacle is finding time. I've made my daughter's kigarumi, and last year I made my red steampunk outfit out of a pair of curtains from Goodwill. CURTAINS!!!! I was so friggin proud of myself, and its my favorite cosplay to date.

Pattern modification for my daughter's kigarumi.

Steampunk costume made from curtains

Back of steampunk costume

I've been commissioned by a friend to make a certain cosplay. We've mapped out what we are going to do to put this together, and come up with a strategy. It will involve marrying two patterns. We knew exactly what patterns we would need and waited until there was a sale at JoAnns. Today was that day, and what would have cost us $40 ended up being $2 plus tax. I'm one of those people who will use patterns several times and when the original tissue paper starts to wear a bit, I'll copy them onto an old bed sheet or if I can afford any, muslin. You can get alot of wear out of them.

Now I'm just waiting for my friend to come down so we can go fabric shopping. I'll definitely keep you updated on this one.

So where does one cosplay? Where ever you friggin want. I normally keep it to conventions, craft fairs and Halloween, but I'm trying to work more steampunk into my every day wardrobe. But if you fancy cosplay, and you want to wear it every day, and you can't see any consiqunces? Go for it. I've seen a meme that said something along the lines of "I was told to dress for the job I want, not the job I have. Now I'm sitting in a disciplinary meeting wearing a Batman costume". If this really happened, to that person I say you're awesome. Don't ever stop wanting to be Batman.

Thanks so much,

Britanni

To Be of Purpose. How Butterfly Dark Came to Be and What I Hope it Will Be.

Hello!

   Thanks for stopping by. Today I just want to share with you how this blog, and my business, Butterfly Dark Creations came to be and what I'm hoping and working to turn it in to.


My first business card

   Butterfly Dark Creations is a creative photography, craft and fine arts small business. I started the Etsy Shop back in 2012. I'd just finished all the classes for my associates degree, and was taking a semester off. I wanted to sell some jewelry, or the hair flowers that I had been making. I wanted to use as much recycled materials as possible. My shop lasted six months. Until I moved to Nevada and lost the internet connection.


I think I've perfected my hair flowers.

   I spent those two years honing my creative skills. Not just in crafts but in photography too. A process I truly enjoy. During that time, I was blessed with my flower.

My Masterpiece 2014

   With my flower came a lot of hard decisions. How to provide for her properly, without being on welfare was the biggest of my worries. I made the decision to move back to Indiana for a while to be closer to my parents, and took a job that would lead to full time and benefits. During this time, I'm really liking how my crafts have evolved and thought it was time to try my hand at selling again.


   Now don't get me wrong. My jobs are good jobs. They allow me to provide everything my daughter needs, with one exception. But being a Pharmacy Tech is not where my passion is, and it takes up a lot more time than I'd like it to. So the logical thing to do would be to make my artwork my living.

   This has NOT been easy. First, I knew nothing about business. But I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about the subject. I've learned a few things. How to market, how to get into fairs, keys to Etsy. I'm still learning. I'll keep learning. Eventually I'd like to be selling work in fairs, particularly steam punk work, selling on Etsy, and doing photography.

   Butterfly Dark Creations is not near where I want it to be yet. But with some help from my family, and a little flower for motivation, eventually I'd like to make this my full time work from home job.

My current professional business card

   I'd like you to think about something. When you are thinking of making a purchase from an artist or crafter, or any other creative professional, but think their asking price is a bit too high, compared to a similar item you can get commercially from a big box chain store, keep in mind that the item is a work of love. The professional put in a lot of time and some money into that item. The item came from their mind and they brought it into the physical world. Custom request require even more effort because the professional is not only trying to bring their creativity to life, but please the client. So when you purchase an item from a small business owner, you are helping them provide for themselves, for their families, and supporting them in their passion.

  
  So what advice can anyone offer? Really I'll take any kind of constructive criticism. What kind of pictures would you want taken if you had a photography session? Or in general? If you were shopping on Etsy, what would or wouldn't you buy?

   Thanks for reading!

Make your own laundry soap.

Hi everyone!

Today I'm showing you my super easy way that I make my own laundry soap. As with most things, alot of what I do was created out of necessity. When I found out I was expecting a baby, I knew I wanted to do everything possible to have her lead a happy healthy life. I weighed alot of options for my baby, and consulted a certified Doula. One of those options was cloth diapers versus disposable diapers.

I chose cloth diapers. I was willing to put in the extra work, and maintence for them, partially because they were better for my baby's sensitive skin, and partially because I knew they'd save money in the long run. Now for those of you who haven't looked at cloth diapering since the turn of the century, they're not what they used to be. Gone are the days of safety pins and rubber pants. Now they come all together, with an insert, and plastic snaps, or velcro that adjusts until the child is potty trained. I loved them. Plus the cuteness of a cloth diapered baby butt.

Now to keep these diapers from build up, they required a little more upkeep. Chemical buildup on diapers can happen when you use diaper rash cream on your child's rear end, or wash with normal laundry soap, or a number of other things. To prevent this build up, and reduce the time between strippings, I made my own soap. This soap is the basic of basics. Perfect for those of sensitive skin, or people trying to live with less chemicals in thier lives.

What you need can be found in almost every grocery store in the cleaning aisle. Baking Soda, Washing Powder, Borax, and Zote Soap. Now if you find Zote Soap flakes, you can skip the next step and just mix it all together.

If you buy the zote soap in the bar, theres a few ways you can go about breaking it down. I've heard of people using a cheese grater. I cut it up into five parts and put it into the microwave at five minute intervals until it gets all fluffy, like below.

At this point the soap should crumble when you handle it. Crumble it into a large container. I used a container about the size of a shoebox, you can find these at most dollar stores.

Next I poured in a half a box of Borax, half a box of washing powder, and a whole box of baking soda. I used my hands to mix well.

Now, I don't use this for washing cloth diapers anymore. I had to switch from cloth diapers to disposable. (Its a long story). But I still use the soap. It gets my clothes clean, and I don't have to worry about it irritating my daughters or my skin. Using a small old formula scoop, I use one scoop for a small load, two for a medium and three for a large load. This whole container lasts me a year. You really can't get any better than that.

So there you have it. You're own home made laundry soap. You can add in scent boosters or crystals if you want. You can find those in the laundry aisle. I just choose not to. As long as my clothes smell clean, I'm a happy girl.

Thanks for reading!

To a New Year and Trying New Things

To A New Year and Trying New Things

I don't know about the rest of you, but 2015 has been a whopper of a year. So many ups and downs, personal and professional triumphs. I'm interested in seeing what 2016 has in store.

In 2015, my goal for Butterfly Dark was to become a legitimized business. In Indiana, you don't have to have a business license, but be registered as a business. Butterfly Dark Creations was registered as an LLC in September. In addition I opened a bank account and a credit card for the business. Two things I NEVER thought would happen.

Another goal was to participate in a craft fair. We ended up participating in 3 at the end of the year. I had never participated in a craft fair and I'm still learning the ins and outs of running a business, but what better way to learn from experience, so we hit the ground running. In all honesty I was disappointed in the monetary outcome, but I learned so much, and we aren't giving up. We've seen what we're doing wrong, what we could improve on and going from there. And I do mean "We" I have a partner now. My mom is my crafting partner in crime. Her idea for all in one tunics was genius!

Our Booth at the Center Grove Craft Fair

All in One Tunics. This is just one of the HUNDREDS of ways to wear them

Our customized ornaments for 2015

We branched out in photography a little more. I had some clients with an unusual request, something I'm not quite used to, but we made it work.

So for 2016?

Butterfly Dark Creations will be blogging more, for sure. Hopefully once a week, bringing you a new tutorial every month if we can.

   We are looking to reopen the Etsy shop, hopefully in the spring.


We want to enter more fairs, starting in May. We're already taking the steps to build up inventory in a new direction. We're keeping the tunics, and the photography, but taking our jewelry in a steampunk direction, and adding clothing to the inventory.

One of my favorite products that we will continue to sell. Handcrafted hair accessories, this one, made for fall, is my favorite.
 

Our tree of life necklaces, colors can be different.
 

We're hoping to build our social media presence. Right now, we're looking at Instagram, twitter and Pinterest, in addition to our Facebook page, which will be more active, and hoping to offer more to our followers.

We like to keep things simple. These seem like achievable goals to us. We don't want to promise something that seems out of reach. Hopefully we can develop a routine and achieve these goals.

So what are your goals for the New Year? Are you ready?

Love Music and Feathers!