I’m getting behind on posting here on the blog.. mostly trying to keep up on Instagram, but wanted to get here here before I lost the pics! This year was split 1/2 with my friend Robin, and 1/2 with my youngest. The teenager opted out of going this year:(
I brought old standby classic Wonder Woman, comfy Spider Gwen, my teenager’s Riverdale Veronica, as well as a few new exciting costumes! Lady Death Bunny was my super cool bunny hutch costume, the green Absinthe fairy, the sand snakes from Game of thrones for Robin and I, Margot Tennenbaum, AND …. Eleven from Stranger things and Mary Poppins for the 8 year old!
She did the Masquerade costume contest and although she didn’t win, was inspired to make her own costume for next year and do it again! We packed a lot in, and had more fun than ever this year.
Highlights were hanging with Wonder Woman Artist George Perez and the WW photo shoot, brushing shoulders (almost ) with Peter Capaldi (while waiting to enter his panel), and everyone loving my little Mary Poppins! 
Getting the hotel room for Tuesday/chill out day was a bonus. It’s quite a hard transition back to real life after such a thing like dragoncon!
The parade was pretty awesome to walk in this year… it is super fun to go as a recognizable character that the kids love. Many high fives and hugs going around ❤️ 
My one big panel choice had to be Matt Smith. The 11th Doctor. My favorite!
the girls both wanted to be Suicide Squad Harley Quinn. They had a blast doing the big group shoot and got featured on the scifi channel!
I finally finished this Once Upon a Time costume of bandit Snow White. Not as much fun as I had hoped so this one got sold pretty soon after :/.
and another costume I worked for a long time on and just didn’t really enjoy wearing. Katniss from Hunger Games (Catching Fire chariot dress.). It lit up like fire and fit well so I actually ended up wearing it to a Christmas party later that year 🙂 I skipped the bunny hutch this year because I had the kids with me on Thursday, but am looking forward to next year.
Here are some scenic shots of my still in progress original design Wonder Woman armor. Thanks to Deborah for taking them. Sunset on the cove at Fort Clinch on Amelia Island was perfect. I now have a hooded cape to go with this outfit, so will add on photos with that at a later date.
It is always hard to describe DragonCon, but it has officially replaced Halloween as my favorite “holiday.” That speaks volumes!! It is basically a 5 day nonstop costume party with your favorite stars, artists, authors, and activities thrown in.
This VIDEO shows some of the randomness and makes me so happy. It was Saturday after we had just walked the parade, so I was super tired and hot, but still could dance a little 🙂
I wore Lynda Carter Wonder Woman for the parade and half of Saturday. I must have given out 60 hugs and hundreds of high fives and fist bumps. It is amazing being a classic and getting so much love from the kids.
Photo above by Bentpic5 and one below by Michael Ash
Thursday night was the annual Bunny Hutch kickoff party. I made my first bunny suit based on Spider Gwen, and wore it with headphones and leggings underneath because it was so skimpy in the rear! I even found another Bunny Gwen there!
I ended up wearing my other normal Spider Gwen suit another night to give my feet a rest from all the high heels! I met some other nice Spidies, and some really awesome folks.
Other random shots I took included the Saucy Ghostbusters, a teen aged Cinderella who made her dress all by herself, and Pikachu (with the girls.)
As always, we had a blast and can barely wait for next year! Three things I am going to do differently next time are:
- Incorporate more flats into my costumes
- Get a closer hotel (although 3$, 8 minute uber rides aren’t bad)
- Take more pictures and get more names.
Here is the pretty amazing Bombshell Batwoman statue by Ant Lucia and Tim Miller. I do love this Character from the DC Comics Bombshells series. This version is Kate Kane, a lesbian, baseball playing protector of the home front during World War 2 . Sorry to not have the photo credit for this collage, it was a huge help in making my design!
A lot of this costume ended up having to be store bought. The socks, gloves, and cleats were each around 7$, and the hat was 3$. I shortened the gloves and added cording to the wrists. I painted the cleats black and added red bat emblems on the back. The hat just needed some ears and vinyl emblem added. I pieced together the dress and made the belt myself…I am lucky enough to own a silhouette vinyl cutting machine, so I printed out the bat for the font of the top and the team/number for the back onto heat transfer vinyl. Last step was to add red accent trim around the sleeves and collar. Oh, and the bat! We inherited an old wooden bat when we bought our house, so I regripped the handle then added the little end bat and Batwoman wordage to the side. A little black makeup for the mask and a red wig, and it is done!!
I hope to get some field shots soon, but for now… here are some pics from SC Comic Con taken by my 11 year old. This is going to be my comfy-est go-to costume for a while, I think!
I will probably end up making a new, more screen accurate version of this once I get the hang of some new materials. This is my first attempt made in the summer of 2015 based on the preview shot of her costume. I have worn it several times now, and love that it is so comfortable (for a corset and heels.)
It is made of faux leather, craft foam and modge podge mostly. The leg armor is one piece attached to knee highs and worn over wedge heels. The corset is steel boned with a separate skirt/belt. The sword is just a plastic one I repainted and weathered attached to a leather strap. My hair is brown, just brown 
and doesn’t take color well, so I have given up on trying to dye it black. I don’t really mind… it is more me as Wonder Woman, which I love 🙂
The above photos were from SC Comicon in Greenville April 2016.
Below is a shot of the costume when I first made it..(on my mannequin and showing the sword.) Since then, the skirt has been shortened a bit, but all else the same.
This is one of my favorite shots, taken by my six year old. It shows my other daughter (11) in a rare picture as my professional corset lacer 🙂 The older one is normally my photographer and does an outstanding job!
In an alternate universe, Gwen Stacy (the girlfriend of Peter Parker) becomes the ultimate Spidey Heroine!
Picture above is my first version. It was a frankensteined/ ad-lib pattern and ended up being too restrictive to do much in although I loved the color of the pink accents, perfect blue puffy paint webbing, and huge hood 😦 Drafting and sewing spandex is definitely NOT my favorite thing, but since I loved this character I ended up purchasing a cheapish pre-made suit to play around in.
The new suit was worn to Ath-Con 2016 along with an old wig my daughter had used for Nine Tales a few years earlier.
Some paint on a pair of black flats was all that I really did to go with the new suit.
AthCon2016:
This suit, despite giving exact measurements, was super short on me… so they exchanged for one with longer legs that ended up way to long (easy fix.) This was my first venture into spandex, so am still unsure which I hate more…patterning and sewing spandex or dealing with overseas sizing and issues. (neither, please). It was also a brownish maroon color for the accents, unusable (see through) mask, had an awefully small hood.
May 2016, for Free Comic Book Day and the Twilight bike race in downtown Athens, I got to hang out with a super Spidey. He was awesome and was introduced to me by our mutual friend, Dan, who took some great pics.
***How the hell does Gwen keep her white spidey fingers clean? We only climbed a few nasty Athens poles***
Photos above are property of Dan Jackson, thewebheadedhero. and Miala. Please contact for redistribution credits.
Due to the extreme commitment and dedication of my fellow spiderperson, and because even a superhero with bleach cannot clean stained white gloves, I am experimenting on this suit. I don’t think I am quite dedicated enough to spend hundreds on a new one (yet). In the works is:
acrylic paint base to lighten up the brown accents, hot pink paint pen to stipple that to match the hood I originally made. (that is huge and lovely and will replace the crappy one)
turquoise puffy paint webbing
homemade lenses and maybe a modded faceshell to try to make the mask work
and maybe ..just maybe…if the suit turns out amazing, I will paint the toes and side soles of my favorite black converse style hi tops. Having some grip and/or powers would be cool.
PROGRESS: The suit turned out great! I have hand washed this stuff before and does not bleed, so think we are good! From left to right, this shows the original print, then dabbing with paint, then adding the puffy turquoise and the hot pink paint pen.
The face shell and handmade lenses did NOT work . Wig it is for this weekend!
I originally made this six or seven years ago…post HERE
With new generations falling in love with Star Wars (and old ones rekindling,) I have made over a dozen of these beautiful recreations in the last year or so!
I have learned a lot, changed a little, and even worn my own personal costume several times. My wedding anniversary happened to fall on the premier of “The Force Awakens”, so of course hubby and I had a night on the town fully dressed 🙂 Some Padme/Obi Wan jokes were made, but , hey, we are in love 🙂
I still use the one basic blended mermaid skirt pattern for and faux leather for both the steel boned corset and the gloves. (Yes, I realize my gloves are too short.)
The main thing I am changing is to conform this to Rebel Legion Standards. At first, I thought this meant it needed to be front zip, but after some research, have learned that the back closure is not an issue and just that the front needed a hidden closure flap. Totally doable. 🙂
We were also this Duo for Halloween 2015:
I am going to try to gather up some customer photos to add to this updated post. And as always, have my ebay and esty searches on alert for vintage beads and black lace for this classic 🙂
Close up picture of the Lace I use:
This is my favorite Leia outfit and have been wanting to make it for years. Unfortunately, I never could find a vintage white snowsuit, so had to start from scratch! Here are a few of my favorite reference photos that I used (as well as the Padawan’s Guide). It is basically a white suit with belt and quilted panels with a cream vest and grey boots. As of now, the costume is not complete because I had to wanted to wear it before the vest was finished! I will update the bottom of the post once the whole thing is complete and I have more photos 🙂
I had made a pattern for a one piece suit when I did the Dune still suit that was about my size, so this is what I started with. It took many alterations once pieced together, but was easy to do since it was for me! It was a vintage pattern from the 80’s merged with the “Elvis style” zip front suit pattern.
The wrist communicator and the ID for the vest were made out of sculpy and hand painted with acrylics. I used reference photos found online for these and just made sure to make my pockets for them fit the areas on my patterns. I glued them onto fabric squares that were smaller than the outlying edges of the pieces, then sewed the fabric onto the correct places on the suit.
The taupe/grey boots were a score on ebay. It was hard to find ones that were leather, with a wedge heel, and in my size, but I got lucky one week. I made simple grey vinyl covers that were open up the front and added velcro strips around to hold them in place.
To make her hairstyle, I just made two long braids behind the ears and wrapped and tucked them around. I had ordered a “braid headband” that did not arrive on time, but my hair was just long enough to look ok without it.
The scuply pieces were finished weeks before these shots, but had to do the suit in just one day! I sort of want to go back and redo a few things.. finish it nicer, but think it will probably have to do. Here are some of the shots
More to come shortly!
Here is a photo of the finished vest… Later this year I will be able to add more pictures of the completed suit.
Little Elsa and Batgirl walk the “Wild Rumpus” downtown Athens
Photo by Blane Marable
I made this from Duck tape! It was so fun to be Batgirl. I will add a tutorial on how I made this soon 🙂
Batgirl and “mean Johnny” from Karate Kid. The bodysuit, belt, gloves and boots arrived on Halloween morning. Luckily, I had the bat emblems, cape, and cowl ready to go!
Mine and their best friends all wanted to be a “Frozen” troop this year, OF COURSE. Here are older Elsa and Anna.
Elsa had a removable glitter painted cape, and my daughter painted the Anna skirt herself!
Olaf. She glued all the cotton balls on her “flurry cloud” by herself!
The Whole troop!
Blane Marable also caught a picture of my friend in my Monet Waterlillies painted dress
Young Anna in her green outfit.
Halloween 2014 was the best one yet. I had so much fun making all of our costumes, walking in the Wild Rumpus parade, getting a night out on the town, and continuing the celebration the next day with our annual Halloween/Football party.
MiaLa costuming blog 