Construction Details:

So, lets start with materials, the entire costume is just quilters cotton that I hunted for in the right shades. The trim is brown bias tape that actually matched the brown in my skirt very well! The white sakura flower on the right side of my chest is a white dull satin and the obi is also a dull satin in a light yellow =)

So I'll start from head to toe, I purchased a satin headband from Joann's and just added the white bow to the top. The bow is made from white wired ribbon (that way it could stay up in certain places like Kureha's does).

The collar is made from the same cotton I used for the rest of the costume. I first used heat and bond on the back of all three layers (the orange cotton layer, the brown cotton later, and the small satin layer) cut out that funky little shape and then ironed them all together with the heat and bond so that they stuck together. The gem is a glass "rock" that goes at the bottom of like fish tanks and stuff and I simply took one of those, made a setting for it our of epoxy sculpt, and then attached it to the collar. The collar itself is completely attached at that cross section in the front and the back is separated and velcro is used to re-attach it so that I can wear the piece.

The top is McCalls 6029 where I simply took the top portion of the dress and switched the section in the front to wrap left to right instead of right to left. I also added height to the wrap over sections so that they came to a point. Now, instead of attaching a cummerbund and a skirt, I just added enough length to make my top. The triangles were cut in before the whole top was sewn together and I used iron on interfacing to give the triangles a little more shape. I get into the top via a separating zipper in the back.
http://tinyurl.com/celzcom

The sakura flower is also heat and bonded onto my top http://tinyurl.com/a2tlaro and I followed the method in this video http://preview.tinyurl.com/b7lxptu in which you iron on the heat and bond onto your fabric and then cut out your shape in order to avoid fraying. (the same method for my collar too!)

My obi was simply a rectangle I cut out of yellow satin and added a very think interfacing to for stiffness. The bow I made using this tutorial [link] as the general concept. The biggest change I made was cutting my rectangle to have a bit of a curve in the top to make "ears" that I ironed down to form the floppy point of Kureha's bow. Both the bow and obi attach with snaps. For the white stripes on the tails of the bow I used heat and bond and the same white satin as my sakura flower.

The brown skirt was just a pleated skirt I made to have two side seams. At the side seams I cut that triangle out that exposes my white slip skirt. The skirt is attached with ties at the sides that I tucked into my slip skirt so that they wouldn't show.

The white slip skirt is just an elastic waist skirt that I added triangle trim to. The skirt is made out of the white dull satin.

For the arm wings I followed this tutorial http://tinyurl.com/a4jkm5b except I added a lining to my wings (out of the same orange cotton). I also added interfacing to the points so that they would keep their shape better. For the trim instead of ribbon (as shown in the tutorial) I used bias tape that matched the brown in my skirt. As for the ties on her arms, I also used bias tape, but since my wing were so heavy I also had to used double sided tape to help keep them in place.

The boots were purchased offline and I just spray painted them white. The brown ties are also bias tape and I just cut them to the right size, wrapped them around my leg/boot top, and Velcroed them in place.

Now for my bow! My father helped me A LOT with this! It is a bent pvc pipe and in order to get those strong curves in her bow I first drew the shape on a piece of plywood my dad had and then around the curves we hammered in nails to help hold the pvc pipe as we reached that curved point. Now, we started with that strong curl at the top and with a heat gun heated up the pvc pipe. Then we slowly eased the pip into that shape. And curve by curve my dad and I shaped the bow and eased it into the "nail path" we made for it. The nails helped it stay in its curved shape while it cooled. http://tinyurl.com/b4a779b in the photo you can see how we used the nails as a guide for the pvc pipe.

PRO TIP: Put sand in the pvc pip to avoid the pipe kinking under the heat! Now, my dad and I used kitty litter instead of sand (it worked fine!) but in places that maybe didn't have enough sand or maybe got too hot, they still kinked.

After it cooled we spray painted it and with epoxy sculpt I added an elastic string to it. The wrapping on the bottom is also elastic.

How was the wig colored?

None

Styling Notes

I first straightened the wig. then I braided it (to get a wave in her hair as opposed to curls) and put it under a heat bonnet to set the waves. After that I just trimmed the bangs and styled them to match Kureha's.

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