First video! Hermione's Yule Ball Look!

I just got around to finishing my video on Hermione's Yule Ball makeup. I just started my first college class and life has been kind of crazy. Sorry, guys. I'm back now though. I put the video on my Youtube called GeekinUpYourMakeup. I'll link you up to it. Hopefully I can crank out a few more videos soon, so I'm looking for requests! Here's my Youtube- youtube.com/geekinupyourmakeup. Check it out ! Much love!

Anyone interested in any particular character/tutorial...?

As you read in the heading, I'm eager to help with costumes. Whether your getting ready for a summer convention or for the DVD release of Deathly Hallows part 2, let me know! I can do pretty much anything. I'm notorious for searching hours on the internet until I'm satisfied with the information I find, so I promise you I will offer you at least some help. I can even help you come up with character ideas! Shoot me a comment!
Also, I'm thinking about doing some makeup/hair tutorials. I have the Emma Watson pixie, and would totally be open to doing a video on how I style my hair everyday if anyone is considering  chopping of their locks into a pixie (I highly recommend it. It's very "liberating," as Emma would say.) For the makeup tutorials, I would probably just take requests then do some research on what the makeup artists on set used, and create a video for you guys. I was thinking it would be fun for my first video to do a day look and night look, for the day look I would feature probably Hermione since she is the most popular girl and has such gorgeous makeup, and for the night look since hardly any of the girls wear anything more than a sweep of natural eyeshadow and some blush, I would do maybe a Bellatrix inspired, or get a little creative and do a "if Snape were a girl" makeup look (HA!) I think that would be totally fun, but let me know. I can totally change my ideas for you guys.

Oh, and I hope you guys have all seen DH by now. Talk about amazing =D.

Hogwarts Uniforms!

So, this is probably the most common of all costumes you're going to see: Hogwarts uniforms. You'll see the good, the bad, and the ugly. I already gave some basic robe information in my previous post so refer back to that if you wish. I'll start with the girls uniform-
In the girls uniform they wear a pleated skirt, gray or black depending upon the movie. Comment on what movie your basing your costume on and I'll tell you your color scheme because it does vary. The pleated skirt is knee length. Underneath the skirt is either knee length stockings or tights, again depending on the movie. For shoes, just go with black mary janes. I have looked at pictures and they don't have a "basic" uniform shoe for the girls, for instance, Luna and Hermione wear different shoes so I would recommend doing a little shoe research before purchasing your shoes. For the first layer of the tops, wear a white long sleeve button up dress shirt. This is really easy to find pretty much where ever. It's important that is has a collar, too. Over the white shirt goes a grey/black (depending on the movie) sweater with accents in your house colors. In some movies it's a v-neck sweater and around the v-neck and bottom is the accents of house colors and in other movies is a button up cardigan. For the sweater, you can either use just a general plain grey sweater if you're not super picky or you can go to alivans.com or whimsicalley.com for an accurate version of the sweaters. In between the white shirt and the sweater goes the house tie. This is pretty self explanatory. You get get ties from a lot of sites such as Alivans, Whimsic Alley, or even on Ebay you can pick on up. Over all of this, finally goes the robe. The robe is black. Always black for students and as I explained before, lined with their house color in the sleeves and in the hood and on the collar. Again for the robe, go to Alivans or Whimsic Alley or Universal Orlando's site sells Harry Potter robes from their theme park that are nice. I've seen them in person. They are a little more expensive then the other two sites, though. If you can't  afford any of those robes, check Ebay and Etsy. Sometimes you'll find something good there. You may have to do the lining yourself or add the house patch yoursef, but that's really pretty easy. I'm not going to go into accessories that individulal characters wear because I'm just trying to explain basic uniforms in this post, but if you have any questions about individulal characters, I'd love to help.
Now onto the boys- For the boys, the bottom half is easier because you don't half to worry about what socks you're wearing as much. For pants, black dress pants will do. These, again, are easy to find. For the shirt, same as the ladies. A white dress top and then the grey/black sweater with house colors and the tie. Then the robe. For shoes, just a nice pair of black shoes should work.

.

So, since this is my first big blog post, I'm probably skipping over something very obvious, so feel free to point out my ignorance in the comments and ask your questions without feeling dumb because if you don't ask it, that's something you may never know about you costume. Who wants that? I'm also going to insert some pictures to help refresh your memory on what these wonderful uniforms actually looked like...OH!! And.....*drum roll please* DEATHLY HALLOWS IS OUT!! I personally loved it, and bawled like a child when Severus died, but that is off the subject. I just thought I'd express my excitement since this is Potter related.

Some very basic information...

So, I'm Laurel. I ADORE costuming. I love showing off my newest creations at midnight premires and whatnot. So far, my favorite costume is my Lily Evans costume because she is one of my favorite characters, I'm so much like her, and it's very unique. But, enough about me.
To me, costuming is like a game. Almost a scavenger hunt. You have to find the perfect pieces to a costume untill it's complete. I'll use the example of my Lily costume. For my Lily costume, I started off with the basics, like a button up long sleeve shirt and the pleated skirt. And slowly but surely, I found the complete costume. Since this is a Harry Potter blog, I will tell you that I got a lot of my uniform from http://www.alivans.com/. Alivans offers a wide selection of Harry Potter goods, such as wands, sweaters, and robes. I get my wands from Noble Collection which is the official maker of Harry Potter wands, but I got my robe and sweater and whatnot from Alivan's and couldn't be more pleased. The robe is made of such nice quality fabric. The one thing I would recommend if you're going to get a robe from Alivan's is that you buy the unlined robe and then line that yourself because the robes that they have lined are NOT lined correctly. They appear to be lined with a silky material, and are lined all the way through. In the Harry Potter movies, the robes are lined with a cotton like material and are ONLY lined on the sleeves and the hood and collar. I'll gladly go into more detail about anything Harry Potter costuming you want, because I don't just do uniforms. Just comment and I'll try to whip up a post about your character/s as soon as possible. If I don't get any requests, my next post will go into extreme detail about the uniforms. Untill then,
                                                                           Keep calm and Potter on.