was kind enough to gift me with a year long premium membership, so I want to give a shout out to him being awesome 
Also, he does really amazing pencil art from Kingdom Hearts if you want to give his stuff a look. I love his traditional drawings, and he's also a really sweet guy (I have him on Facebook).Tanoshiicon was marvelous! I had such a great time meeting new fans, going to my first Pennsylvania convention, leading panels, and wandering aimlessly around their dealer's room. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how good of a dealer's room they had; there was great selection as well as a good layout. Also, my panels went really well. I lead three panels there, one for the first time, and I had above half capacity on every panel. My Cosplay 101 panel (the new one) actually had max capacity! Everyone had such good questions as well during my Q&A sessions, which was really nice. I also had a fun roadtrip with Amy from Conley Craftsmen Fantasy Arms; she went as my minion/handler ^_^ Finally, one of the super cool things about Tanoshiicon is that they had a kimono dealer who didn't price gouge! I was able to buy my under kimono for $20! I'm so excited I was able to find one, so now I can wear my formal kimono to events and for photoshoots
I got my special order fabric in for Stella, so I've made quite a bit of progress on it. I'm on schedule to finish her corset today, which I'm excited about. I also finished her tutu this week. The tutu is so fluffy, I literally have no words to describe it; you'll just have to see it
The corset looks good, and I tried a new thing with the boning, but I'm thinking that I may have fudged up when placing the boning. I don't know, I mean, it looks good and followed the pattern, but I think because of my body type, I needed to alter the boning to not go over bust? IDK, I'll figure it out in the next corset I make for myself lol.I did my first bikini shoot for InGear Fashions Inc. this week as well! It was super fun; I did more of an artistic style shoot on location at a secluded pond in the middle of the woods. The location was so beautiful, and the lighting was perfect. I can't wait to show you guys how everything turned out. I'm still a bit self conscious about my post baby body, but I think that doing swimsuit modeling is helping with that rather than hindering.
Finally, I have a fun announcement! I'm officially working for AUSA again as their convention coordinator! This is like my dream job with any convention as it is basically running their traveling booth for other geek events. I've been doing booth work with them since 2012, and it's so cool to have gotten a position in the convention where my passion lies. This also means that I'm able to attend a lot more conventions on the East Coast! As of right now, I am officially going back to Animazement in Raleigh, NC MY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND, MAY 22ND!!! I've never been able to go to a con on my birthday, so I'm super excited about this ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ I'm hoping that if I can continue this type of progress, that I can debut Stella there, but no promises.
As far as my life right now is concerned, it's just been full of sewing and business decisions. My husband just got promoted at work again, so we may actually move up a tax bracket this next fiscal year; that's still blowing my mind, not going to lie. We started out making below the poverty line when we got married, and now we're almost able to actually start a savings account (after we pay off the huge college debt we've accrued). I've been finishing up commissions due by Awesomecon, and I've also been working on my personal portfolio. I've done so many badass characters lately, that I'm trying to make some girly and frilly stuff to even it out. I'm also in the process of a super secret original design costume, so I can add costume design to my portfolio. Little factoid, when applying for an industry sewing job, in order to put that you are a costume designer, you need to actually create a costume's design; not just make something from a fictional world. However, being able to label yourself as a costume designer is very broad; you just need to have 2 or more original costumes in your portfolio. Personally, I'm not really too interested in becoming a contracted costume designer; I rather like just being a stitcher, but I know it could open up a lot of doors down the road, so I figure that I might as well keep my options open. Plus, the one thing I'm working on, I've had floating around in my head for a few years now, and I was able to find an integral part of the costume base at the dollar store
