April 2017 – Nerdy, Sparkly & Gothy! Plus size & Budget Friendly! Shoppable links in posts!

A Couple of Announcements from Us

Posted on April 27, 2017April 27, 2017 by Kimapult

Scout and I have a couple of announcements. First off, we have more duckies! I know we ran out during WonderCon, and some folks were disappointed. If you want a duckie, let us know. If you can shoot me a little for shipping, I’ll send you some ducks!

Our other announcement is that we will be adding some posts about make-up.

When we started this blog, we wanted everything to be age and size inclusive and cover nerdy fashions, cosplay and lifestyles. We are all about body positivity and confidence, so deciding to start posting about make-up was a decision we did not take lightly. After all, everyone has to wear clothes so they don’t get arrested, so you might as well be fashionable. Now make-up, not a requirement in life by any means. So, why cover it? Well…

We love make-up in this house! Like, a lot! A whole lot! However, our attitude about make-up is that it is strictly for funzies. There is no, “A lady must not ever go out without make-up.” BS around here. We would like to bring the sense of fun to this blog and share our enthusiasm about make-up with you all.

So, ground rules which we will always follow:

There will be no mention of “covering your flaws”
There will be no mention of “anti-aging” or “looking younger”
There will be no mention of wearing make-up to attract a date or mate
We will be filling up posts with fun and how make-up is basically an accessory to your fashion. We are all land-mermaid/unicorn/fairy princesses!
We will talk about great products that are good for your skin’s health (ex. sunscreen)
We will talk about good skincare. Self-care is always a body positive concept
We will talk about age, but only to address how your skincare needs change (example would be, good formulas for tweens and teens as opposed to good formulas for the over-35 crowd. Scout needs oil-free formulas, and since I am almost 50, I need as much moisture for my skin as possible)

We hope that you will enjoy these upcoming posts on make-up.

As always, we welcome your comments and thoughts.

Until next time…

Love, Kim and Scout

*All professional photos by Justin Davidson Photography. Book him here.

Cons

WonderCon Recap Part Two

Posted on April 24, 2017April 17, 2017 by Kimapult

For the second part of our WonderCon recap, we wanted to share our new “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2” Cosplays. We updated our Star Lord and Rocket for the new movie and added a Baby Groot, cause, Baby Groot!

We booked the great Justin Davidson Photography for the shoot. We, as always, had a great time while he shot some fantastic pictures.

Here are some of those fantastic shots.

Later on, he added some details for the Star Lord mask and recreated the “Obviously” poster.

If you want to get some fantastic photos, book Justin here.

Next time, a recap of our panel at WonderCon 2017!

Love, Kim and Scout

Cons

Cosplay How-To: Rocket’s Jetpack

Posted on April 20, 2017April 16, 2017 by Kimapult

Before we get into the rest of our trip to WonderCon, we wanted to give you a step-by-step tutorial for making a super easy cosplay jetpack. We made ours for Scout’s Rocket cosplay, but the instructions would work for any jetpack.

Here’s what you will need:

Posture Corrector Brace- Available at Amazon here
Metallic spraypaint for the tanks of the pack. We used this one and this one
Hot glue gun
Water or soda bottles for the tanks
Two colors of net fabric for the “flames”. We used these in yellow and orange

Step-By-Step Instructions:

Order your posture brace
Get the appropriate bottle or bottles for your tanks. We used two square medium sized bottles for Rocket’s tanks. Pick bottles that are simply shaped. For example, if you use the classic Coke bottle, it won’t look like a jet pack tank at all. Also, choose the appropriate size for the cosplayer. Discard the tops
Spraypaint the bottles

Take your brace and put it on. Have someone hold the tanks up to the back and mark for placement
Hot glue the tanks together (if you have two tanks) and then hot glue them onto the brace

Take your two fabrics and cut them in half. Roll the two different colors together in two bundles. Put the two rolls into your tanks and adjust for length (For example, we didn’t want to burn Rocket’s tail off, so we made the flames a little shorter)

Hot glue the fabric to the inside of the bottles

Then you have a super-easy, super-awesome cosplay jetpack!

Make sure you send us pictures of your creations.

Next up, more on our trip to WonderCon.

Love, Kim and Scout

*Professional Photos by Justin Davidson Photography. Book him here.

Welcome!

So Ya Say You Want To Cosplay?

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Kimapult

Fantastic article about getting started in cosplay!

Cons

WonderCon 2017: Part One

Posted on April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 by Kimapult

WonderCon is hand’s-down, our favorite con of the year. We were so disappointed last year when it was held in Los Angeles at the Convention Center. This year, however, it was back home in Anaheim at their Convention Center.

With two hotels, the Hilton and the Marriott, right next to the Convention Center, the con has a real “nerd camp” feel to it.

Day One: Cosplay and Hitting the Floor!

For our first cosplay, we cosplayed Kevin the Receptionist and Holtzmann from “Ghostbusters”. “Ghostbusters” was one of our favorite movies of last year, and we were super excited to cosplay characters from this film.

17799177_10212332686095087_4574543994522184046_n — Photo: York In A Box

We also got to hit the con floor for the first time. Every year, this con takes over more and more of the Convention Center. This year was no exception. The floor had a nice variety of booths. There was a lot of great fashion, including the company I work for, Hero Within. We previewed our summer collection to great feedback from our customers.

Day Two: Marvel Group Photo and Cosplay Photo Shoot

Day two of our adventure included the Marvel group photo shoot, which is always a highlight of our cons.

20170401_162245 — Waiting on our group for Marvel photo shoot

We wore our updated “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2” cosplays.

There was quite a turnout:

FB_IMG_1491524013236 — Photo: Avengers Initiative

The Guardians group was all girls, which was awesome! We were the only all-girl cosplay group.

FB_IMG_1491613171368 — Photo: Avengers Initiative

For Part Two of our WonderCon adventure, we’ll show you the results of our cosplay photo shoot.

Until next time…

Love, Kim and Scout

Articles

Raising a Geek: Social Media Guidelines

Posted on April 13, 2017April 13, 2017 by Kimapult

Recently, the kiddo and I were on a panel entitled, “Cosplaying With Your Kids” at WonderCon. This was our second panel, and I noticed that there was a lot of interest in both panels on how the parents on the panel handle social media when it comes to our kids.

When I made the decision to start cosplaying with my kid and then opening our own cosplay page and then adding this blog into the mix, I opened the door to both our lives. If we were going to have any kind of presence at all online with our cosplay, that would naturally have to include pictures of my child.

Before asking her if she would like to start a cosplay page with me, I had a heart-to-heart with myself. As we all know, the internet can be a wretched hive of scum and villany, so how do you navigate those waters with your kid and keep their self-confidence intact?

Best advice is, “Don’t feed the trolls.” I know, I know, women are always expected to, “not make a scene”, “not draw attention to ourselves”, etc. Not feeding the trolls does play into that idea of keeping quiet, knowing your place; but let me make the point here that by not engaging them, you are denying them exactly what they crave and they can’t survive in a vaccuum. I do know how to stand up for myself. I’m teaching Scout that everyday by example. If someone were to say something mean and nasty to my face, never fear that I would engage and stand up for myself. Online life is different. Trolls are a unique animal in this regard. There is no “win” to be had. There is no argument that you can make that will make the troll apologize or walk back their comments. You aren’t going to have a spirited debate with actual points being made and mutual respect being given. That is not what trolls are about.
Know your kids’ handles and passwords. Have set rules about who they may “friend” or “follow”. All online purchases have to be approved by a parent. Monitor their sites on a regular basis. Now, I know this is very helicopter parent of me. As parents, we have to walk a line between keeping our kids safe and letting them fly around the nest for a bit and learn to navigate the world. Some parents will disagree with this, but I think just like everything else, introduce your kids to social media earlier rather than later. Reason being so you can take them in hand and walk them through it. Help them set up their page. As they get older and more confident in how to handle their online presence, you can back-off and give them their much-needed and much-deserved privacy.
Talk about basics like not giving out your passwords to your friends, not using your last name, not using your address and/or phone number.
Respect other parents’ rules for social media. If you have the kids out on a play date, ask the other parent if it is OK for you to post their picture online before you do it. If they are more buttoned down than you are, respect their wishes.
Lead by example. Be respectful in your comments on someone else’s page. Don’t feed the trolls, etc.
Another basic rule, if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t type it online!
Talk to your kids about how easy it is to pretend to be someone else online and that some adults do that to con kids into giving personal information. This is a tough and dark subject, but a necessary talk to have with your child.
Look online at parenting websites, like commonsensemedia.org for more tips and guidelines.

Not all the news is bad! The internet can also be an amazing place. We’ve had people approach us at cons and at Universal, etc. and introducing themselves because they follow us online. We’ve made scores of friends and met scores more just from our cosplay page and this blog. I’ve had people come up to me and tell me that we inspire them to be more body confident. This never ceases to impress upon me the responsibility that I have taken on. Neither the kiddo nor I take it lightly. Your positive comments and stories constantly inspire us to keep going, keep posting, keep sharing. It has been and always will be a rewarding experience!

If you have more tips, please share them in the comments!

Until next time…

Love, Kim and Scout

*Professional photos by Justin Davidson Photography

Fashion Alert, Videos

Fashion Alert: Hero Within’s Summer Collection

Posted on April 10, 2017April 9, 2017 by Kimapult

Geeky menswear company, Hero Within, has a new Summer collection that is available for pre-order. *Full disclosure: I am the Operations Manager for Hero Within.

The new collection features short-sleeved button-down shirts and a new unisex denim jacket.

SONY DSC

As with previous Justice League pieces, theses pieces are meant to be worn anytime, work or play. The designs are subtle and just like the jacket collection, although the collection is a “men’s” collection, women can and are ordering the pieces and making them their own. We will feature some pictures of this collection when they are available.

SONY DSC

The Wonder Woman denim jacket was met with some controversy since a male model was modeling it on the site. CEO, Tony B. Kim, addresses the controversy here. The rest of the internet came to Hero’s defense as well.

My thoughts on the subject are this. Hero Within is a men’s wear company, so using a male model for the jacket made total sense. Second point is that Hero never considered NOT including Wonder Woman in their collection. Quite to the contrary. We couldn’t wait to include her in the collection! We only took this long so we could coordinate the release of the pieces with the release of the film. Lastly, we had several patterns for the button-down shirts, including a Wonder Woman print. We gave our customers the opportunity to vote on the top four designs they liked. Wonder Woman easily landed in the top four.

Pre-order your pieces here.

While waiting for your new shirts and jacket, please enjoy Hero Within’s first promo video!