Princess Daisy and Toad

Series: Mario/Super Mario Bros.
Version: Mario Party - Present
Debut: A-kon 19
Worn To: A-kon 19, San Japan 1.5
Competitions: A-kon 19 Hall Cosplay Contest, San Japan 1.5 Cosplay Contest Novice Division
Awards: Best in Show San Japan 1.5 Cosplay Contest
Awesome Extras: Interviewed by The Game Heroes (video below)

Reason: This costume decision was SO last minute, after A-kon 18 we tossed around a few ideas, but ultimately with school and work pressing down on us we threw it on the backburner for a while. Suddenly April had crept up on us and we realized we only had two months before A-kon. It wasn't until the beginning of May that we finally decided on Toad and Daisy, and we had less than a month to spare. The ultimate reason we picked these two characters was because of the overall simplicity of their outfits with the touches of complicated accessories. Besides, Daisy and Toad are our go-to picks in Mario Party and Mario Kart. What can we say, we like underdogs.
Construction: Daisy's costume gave me a bit of trouble and in the end nearly half of the accessories had to be finalized by Moreck since I'm really useless when working with epoxy glue. The fabric was not too much trouble, we managed to find some decent satin colors at Hobby Lobby and enough felt to make sure the Toad head would look mushroom-ish. The simplest parts of my outfit were the gloves (bought at a costume shop), ballet flats (ordered online), and my 3-hoop petticoat (ordered from AngelsBridal on e-bay). The earrings, flower necklace, and flower pieces on the crown were all made from white fimo clay. I ordered green gems for my earrings, but since they didn't have big enough ones for my pendant I had to order a clear gem instead and just paint a big green circle on the actual pendant before gluing it on. Because it would be really stupid to pin that huge thing to my dress, I used magic string for the necklace so it would be invisible :D My crown was made from a bucket that I had my dad cut, which I then painted gold and shalacked (sp?) for extra shine. The last bit was my parasol, which I originally bought as just a white lacy thing at a costume shop. Moreck had some extra yellow fabric laying around and he cut it to fit the parasol so I could sew it in.
Toad's head was probably the biggest obstacle for Moreck. He took an inflated beach ball, did paper mache around it (but left a hole, obviously) and after a few layers of that he popped the beach ball and took it out. All that was left to do was cover it in white felt and add the red dots. For anyone else who might do this, I highly suggest using something to soften the edges of the inside of the head, we didn't originally do that this time and it left this ugly laceration around Moreck's poor head. As for the rest of the costume, he was fortunately able to reuse the boots from our Secret of Mana cosplay, and the pants he had from a few Halloweens ago when he dressed up as Aladdin. In fact, the only sewing that really needed to be done on his costume was the blue vest and the yellow lining. That's probably fortunate because at several times I got pretty fed up with my costume and he had to come rescue me. XD