Series:Card Captor Sakura
Worn to: Acen 2005, Museum Event August 2005, Sakuracon 2007
Status:Mostly Retired

CCS is actually what got me into cosplay in the first place. I was a huge fan of the show when I was 10 and thought Sakura and her outfits were just too adorable. When I was 14 and had learned about conventions, I approached my friends about going and right off the bat we knew we wanted to do CCS characters. After lots of debate about which Clow Cards we wanted to cosplay, we eventually abandoned the idea but I knew I absolutely HAD to make one of Sakura’s outfits one day.

In the end, I chose her princess outfit from the manga cover of volume 6. It was such a cute concept but I thought her orange and white stripped shirt and green bows were a bit tacky and not very representative of Sakura’s usually pink, fluffy persona. Instead, I diluted the colors and gave them more of a coral tint and finally had my costume.

I made the staff first-which is actually a wooden dowel, aluminum foil, and paperclay. I used foil to create the general shape of the bird’s head to act as a strong core and save (horrendously expensive) paperclay. I then covered the core in paperclay but discovered that the head was too small and the paperclay had made it extremely top-heavy and it was in danger of slipping off the rod. Instead, I started over, this time using foil and model magic which is much lighter and far less expensive. This time everything worked out wonderfully and I was able to sculpt tiny wings and covered tiny, wooden coins in model magic for the red “eyes”. I just added more model magic to the bottom and painted the whole thing with acrylic and a finishing gloss. I was really happy with the result!

The shirt and skirt were very easy and I already had the shoes and thigh-highs. The gloves were plain white gloves I picked up at the thrift store and added lace to. I purchased the wig from Cosworx (I think it’s called Melissa?) and added pigtails and bows. The star necklace was made from sculpey and attached to a thick, green ribbon using chicken wire. The crown is actually an old candle holder my mom had lying around that I painted gold and modified by bending a few of the wires in different directions. The bodice was one of the only difficult parts of the costume-my mom and I worked on it foreverrrrr and I had a really difficult time inserting the snaps and holes for the ribbon. In the end we both got extremely frustrated (by this time I was already 6 hours late for Acen) and I left without feeling 100% satisfied.

Thankfully, my friends brought their Melin and Syaoran costumes and they totally pumped me up for wearing Sakura. The response we got was totally overwhelming - it was our first time cosplaying from a widely recognized series and, as I’m sure any Sakura cosplayer can tell you, everyone responded really positively. I’m embarrassed to admit that it was a huge confidence booster and my experience at Acen gave me tonssss of inspiration to continue making costumes from then on.