do-it-yourself


Materials Used:
• black Halloween cape
• lavender gloves
• purple leotard
• purple rit dye
• pair of tights
• styrofoam ball
• rhinestones, red paint, and glitter
• drapery trimming
• yellow bias binding
• fabric for dickey and shorts
• fabric for epaulettes
• snaps
• belt (optional)

The first place you'll need to stop at is a dancing shoppe for the leotard and tights. It may be hard to find the right color for different sizes -- talking from experience here so you may have to buy whatever you can fit in in white and then use purple rit dye to make it the right color. Make sure to follow the directions; you don't want to use too much when it comes to the tights because then they won't turn lavender. The gloves I wore were given to me to wear in a wedding so unless you can sew really well, you might want to buy yourself some as well.

Now, for the epaulettes I recommend Fun Foam but if you can't find it then a good styrofoam ball shouldn't hurt either. What I did was cut one in half and then covered the halves in black fabric, then used a glue gun to attach some normal drapery trimming for the golden fringe. After the glue dried, I sewed a few snaps to the black cape I bought as well as the epaulettes and snapped them together. To make Sylphiel's red jewel, I took a smaller styrofoam ball and painted it in red and coated it with red glitter.

I'm not really able to explain how to make the shorts since I had someone sew them for me. The most I can say is to find some fabric and a pattern at your local fabric store. Be sure to get enough for the dickey, as well as some for boot covers if you wish to go all out. For the dickey you need to make two pieces; a collar for around your neck that uses two snaps to close it together and another long piece that resembles a man's tie. After sewing them together with the bias binding, you now glue the red jewel and add some other rhinestones then let that set to dry.

You want to use the bias tape as the gold trimming that's around her costume, mainly her shorts and the dickey. I don't recommend the gloves unless you sew them yourself. Store bought won't be able to stretch over your arms once the bias binding is sewn onto it. For a belt you can use Fun Foam again or buy a novelty one. Now you have all the pieces to the puzzle done and ready. It should go on like this: Tights, leotard, shorts, belt, dickey, epaulettes, gloves, boot covers.

If you can, try to make all the pieces snap together so you'll have less to worry about. And be sure to just make SURE they're secure! Wear the costume often under stress so you can be sure it'll stay together. You do NOT want to wait until the last minute to test these things, trust me. Have fun cosplaying! ^^



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