As you know, one of my cosplays for MegaCon Orlando this year was Glam Vader (Lady Vader). I wanted to share how I made some of my glittering, fabulous accessories: my chest box and belt. My crafty and skilled friend, Scotty, helped me tremendously! Here’s how I put it together:

Scotty crafted the boxes for me in his workshop and I couldn’t be more grateful to him for that. Once I had them in my hands, I gave them all a good sanding and used a clear coat to help seal them prior to painting.

I sprayed them all down with a gray primer next. Then, I painted the majority of the boxes black. Once dry, I carefully (and time-consumingly) taped off all the “buttons” and painted each their respective flat color with acrylics. Before removing the tape, I painted the buttons again with the corresponding glitter paint and then, gave them each a healthy dose of regular craft glitter. For the silver pieces, I taped off the surrounding buttons and sprayed them with a silver glitter spray paint that I had.

Once all the boxes was good and sparkley, I decorated them with rhinestones using krazy glue. The final step in this process was to give them a good glitter-sealing clear shine coat.

After giving my belt (just a regular men’s black belt) a spray of glitter, I was ready to attach the boxes. I used velcro to do this and it worked perfectly. I had originally intended to remove the original buckle on the belt and add snaps but it was getting down to the wire (con procrastination is so real) and I scrapped that idea… for now.

I gave my Vader helmet a coat of glitter spray paint and sealer also because the Glam is strong with this one. For the chest box, I used another section of the velcro tape to attach it to my corset the day of the con. Perhaps not the best solution but it held all day at the con and I can always figure out another solution for next time. (But I’ll probably just use another section of velcro tape again.)

Thanks for reading!

Love, GK