Astrid Costume

If you’ve been on my blog for, oh, say, a few seconds then you probably know that How To Train Your Dragon is my favorite movie ever, only bested by its sequel. Well, How To Train Your Dragon 2 came out on DVD today and I’m sure no one is surprised that I ran out and bought it first thing.

I can’t wait to watch it tonight, I’m so excited that it seems as though I’m watching it for the first time except this time I KNOW it’s fantastic and I’m not worried that it won’t live up to the first one.

 To celebrate, I’m posting my last minute Halloween costume.

Astrid Hofferson

This costume took two and a half days to make, two days to put together the skirt and pauldron/shoulder piece, and the last few hours before I had to leave to throw together the axe. Luckily I was able to save some time by using a tank top that was the perfect color and the furred gloves from my viking costume. Even with these time savers, this was a time intensive costume. Each bird-skull-thing had to be molded by hand from clay, baked, painted, then hand stitched to the skirt. The pauldrons were whipped together from craft foam, then painted to look aged and adorned with metal studs.                               For the skirt, I made two pieces, the fur underskirt than an overskirt consisting of the leather straps (this is what the skulls are sewn to). Astrid has big spikes down each strap, I wanted a more realistic size since I am converting this from an animation to real life. I lucked out and found these absolutely perfect spike beads at Michaels (On sale!!!) they were the exact size I wanted and since they were beads they sewed right on.  Since I didn’t have the time or fur to make Astrid’s fur hood I had to make due with the rabbit skin shoulder wrap from my viking costume. Since she rarely wears her hood up I don’t think it made a huge difference in the costume’s appearance.After that, I threw on some leggings and added some fur to my boots and I was ready to go train dragons. Or take a child trick or treating. Whatever.

Ready to take on a legion of girls dressed as that damn Frozen lady. Come at me, I dare you.

 I will try to take some close ups of the costume for those who are interested. I’m pretty proud of how this last minute costume pulled together and I can’t wait to wear it again. Maybe for Snoggletog? (Extra points if you know what that is!)