Financial accessibility in costuming communities

Wearing my red and gold damask sideless surcoat

I wanted to talk a little about attempts to make costuming, cosplay, sewing (etc) more financially accessible to people who think that it’s too expensive to do well, to compete, to join in all.the.things that are out there.

In the last while it’s really jumped out at me – well-meaning folks who truly want to share the thing they love with as many people who want to be there as possible. There’s this big push “join us, it doesn’t have to be expensive!”

Much for all those good intentions.

However… saying this kinda thing while posting photos from 3 different conventions in three different cities it becomes clear that a lot of the ideas on “how to save money” are steeped in a lot of economic privilege.

Well-meaning or otherwise – travel is expensive, conventions are expensive, costume college is expensive… While I do not fault anyone for prioritizing these things if they are passionate about them – they are often talking to people who couldn’t prioritize those things even if they wanted to. 

A (twisted) Mad Hatter’s Hat – Complete

A Mad Hatter style hat for a costume party

Ages ago I posted the construction details for a Mad Hatter style hat for an event – however I ended up getting sick right before the event, and never finished off the last few details of the rest of the costume – and ended up not attending the event. 

Third Lunula pendant

Bird Lunula made from shrink plastic after baking and shrinking (larger than life!)

 

Since I was quite happy with the results of my first & second Lunula pendants, I decided to make a third, a bit more elaborate.

I started with inspiration from a Pinterest pin – which included three different Lunulae – and I chose the more complicated and detailed of the three. Of course, so much of Pinterest leads to Tumblr.. and Tumblr is like the wild-west of copyright violations and lack of credit/attributions… so I had no idea of the original source.

After I had already made my version though, and was just wandering around the web… I found what I think might be the original source – or at least a website selling the item pictured on Pinterest. Visit the “Slavik Paganism” page of Dragonscale.com if you’d prefer a metal (Bronze or Sterling Silver) version to my plastic one… (I would!)
Dragonscale.com describes the design as:

“Bird Lunula – Also called a lunitsa – Crescent moon shaped woman’s charm found in ancient Slavic and Norse cultures – shaped in the double bird image found in Scythian art – a reproduction of one found in a 8th century burial in Nitra-Lupka, Poland”

 

The bird lunula before shrinking

Like my previous shrink plastic projects, I used Grafix brand matte shrink plastic which starts as transparent and shrinks down to white in colour. I traced the design to both sides of my plastic and used black, bronze, and silver Sharpie markers. I didn’t sand the plastic before colouring, and found that large areas of colour weren’t as solid as I wanted.

Since my original Lunulae had short (about 1″) long ‘stems’ which folded over to create the ‘bail’ to attach the pendant to a chain or cord – and the resulting fold over was only enough to go around a toothpick… I made the ‘stem’ substantially longer on this version so it could easily go around a chopstick instead – and thus a larger cord.

Not quite right…

Although the finished shrunk plastic pendant was ok – the colours were nice and bold… I didn’t really feel that it looked metal. Like the other pendants, I opted to emboss this as well, using silver embossing powder.

Pendant covered with embossing powder before knocking off the excess powder

When the pendant was re-shaped and embossed, I decided to scratch some of the design back into the pendant, which I’m kind of fond of, though I might need to live with it for a while before knowing if it’s ‘right’.

Copper pendant along with a silver one and the bird silver embossed pendant.

More to come…

I still have a few more projects to share with shrink plastic – so stay tuned! In the mean time if you have some cool inspirational links for shrink plastic – feel free to share them in the comments below!

Some of the shrink plastic projects I’ve made recently…

 

Hand-made Lunula pendant

Lunula pendant before shrinking and after shrinking

The other day I posted about trying shrink plastic… here’s the first project!

Along with some of the other Viking and Norse-inspired pendants that I’ve been able to find from various sellers, one of the icons I’ve been looking for (without much luck in a price-point I want to spend for a costume piece…) is the Lunula.

Viking wardrobe inventory / index

When I first started to think of a Viking-Age costume, I made a bit of a list of what I wanted to make/find/acquire, but I neglected to create an inventory of what I already have (or could adapt…) I wanted to do a bit of a post on that – mostly for my own sake. I intend to keep this a “living” document that I can add to when I need.

Underdress

*image still needed*	White linen underdress – long sleeves, slit neckline, couched hem Needs: brooch for neckline, long enough apron-dress to cover the embellished hem
	Blue linen/look/blend (need to look at this) underdress – t-tunic style, long sleeves, slit neckline Needs: good to go
	Pink/purple linen/look/blend (need to look at this) underdress – t-tunic style, long sleeves, square neckline, tonal bands on arms Needs: Don’t think that the neckline is right, so maybe to be worn with a shawl or something?
	Brown linen underdress – short sleeves, slit neckline, no embellishment Needs: brooch for neckline.  Short sleeves should be worn over a long sleeved underdress unless super-hot weather, or sleeve-messing work.
	Black linen underdress – long sleeves, slit neckline, embroidery at neckline and hem Needs: brooch for neckline
	Navy blue linen underdress – very tight long sleeves, slit neckline, silk cuffs, neckline and cuffs embellished with trim. Needs: brooch for neckline
	Pale green linen under derss
	Drab grey-green wool under dress