FishingForBirdies

i'm going btw, just thought i should just throw that out there two days before it starts

here's everything i'm bringing and the prices:

plushies:
lumas - 15
pitfall seeds - 20
deadpool logos - 20

hats:
link - 20
kirby - 20
ditto - 20
drifloon - 35
dragonair - 25

misc:
gravity falls 3 book - 30

if you want anything reserved for you, comment here and i'll save the thing for you. (as a note, drifloon and dragonair hats are both high demand items and i have extremely limited numbers.) i'll be at youma all weekend trying to man the table as constantly as possible, so if you don't pick up the thing by saturday, it'll be sold to someone else on sunday.

Wow guys, my last journal entry was over a year ago.

It's getting to be that time of year again, time for every Michigander's favorite anime convention.
However, Fishing for Birdies will not be going this year.
This is due to several reasons:
1. New rules. They just made a new rule for this year that AA sellers can no longer sell only hats, which is what we do. Hat sellers have to sign up as a dealer, but we were a little late to that party.
2. The location. They've told us AA was going to be at Cobo, but that's all we've gotten, and that really concerned us.
3. The lack of information. There has been NO communication about this year's AA, and considering Youmacon is only three months away, this is not a good thing. Last year they said they were really behind when sign up was in June. It's August now, and I haven't head a word from them.
4. Gordon and I are both pretty busy with school and making cosplays, so there isn't much time for us to be making hats.

So, we're sorry, but we will not be selling at Youmacon. However, we will still be attending, but only as guests.
We will also be making hats periodically and posting them on our Etsy accounts, which can be found here:
www.etsy.com/shop/FishingForBi…
www.etsy.com/shop/Charexl

I like speaking with unnecessary lisps.
But that's beside the point.

I just wanted to share with you guys that I'm writing a novel :'D
And not just ANY novel, a FANTASY novel. Why that makes it so special, I'm not sure.
But I'm writing this journal because I'm currently procrastinating my 1000 words a day, even though I should really get on it since I've only done 500 so far. My main reason for bringing this up in a journal is not only because I sometimes like sharing my personal life, but I'd really like to know what kind of fantasy cliches you people despise more than anything, just so I don't accidentally go about putting terrible cliches in my plot and stuff. I'd like to avoid that as much as possible since my ultimate goal is to get it published.
And for those of you who are like 'LOL WUT?' because I make hats on the Internet and have never posted one piece of my writing, I'm actually going to college to attain a degree in writing and rhetoric, so I know my stuff ;D
(Or at least I like to pretend.)

Then the other half of this journal that makes the title contain 'shtuff' rather than 'thing' is this:
buttersafe.com/comics/2012-02-…
Today's Buttersafe comic :'D
Fishing for Birdies, anyone?
(Although I would have used a balloon. But this guy seems to be doing a pretty good job.)

So it's January, and that means it's time for me and my friends to start arranging our cosplays for Youmacon next year.  I've got my three, and they're going to be three characters I've never done before, so that means lots of sewing for me in addition to what I'd have to do to sell in the AA again. To lessen the load, I want to get the hardest one commissioned, but I can't find anyone who I would trust with a few hundred dollars. What people I have asked have either denied the project or just haven't gotten back to me.

The cosplay I'm going to do is this:
29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwh…
The Thieves Guild armor from Skyrim. (The one on the right. Because contrary to popular belief, I am a female.)
It's got a lot of leather (Or in my case, fake leather to be cost efficient) and is just overall too big of a task for me. I don't think my sewing machine can handle all of that leather, and I'm not about to try it when I have orders that need to be filled.

So this is where you guys come in. I have 126 watchers as of the time I'm posting this, and I have a feeling that at least half of you cosplay. Even more of you probably know people who cosplay. So the bottom line is: there's a lot of people here who could potentially give me a little advice.

And the bottom-most line: Would you kindly tell me the names of any people you know who are accepting commissions that you trust and whose work you have seen personally?

I'm looking for any names or websites at all, just so long as they're trustworthy. When it comes to buying things like this on the internet, I'm a little afraid of handing someone a large percentage of my bank account just in case they don't hold up on their end of the bargain. Call me paranoid, but it's happened to many people before, and I'd prefer it didn't happen to me.

Any help at all would be appreciated more than you could possibly know :3






(And if you're curious my other two cosplays this year are a Spider Splicer from Bioshock i29.tinypic.com/pnfk8.jpg and Fado from Wind Waker 24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li2… )