HAPPY SHINee DAY!!!!! Today is the 14th anniversary of the group's stage debut and I have something really special to share with you!!!

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with SHINee or SM Entertainment in any way. No patterns/fabrics were gifted and all opinions are my own. My need to create SHINee cosplay for my girlies stems solely from my love of the group and each of the members ❤️)

Since its release back in September, we have been heavily hooked on all things about Key's latest mini-album 'Bad Love'. Every day there was a new outfit either from the music video for Bad Love, his online concert, or from his numerous music show promotion performances, it seemed like we'd never really stopped adding new looks to the "must make" list!

After watching the Groks from the Keyland concert, we all went completely😍over the pink, plaid outfits Key and the dancers wore for his latest song "Saturday Night"… and then he did the same look in lime green for his Music Core stage! Both of my older girls are totally into the crop tops and plaid skirts or high-waisted pants look, and they loved the mix-matched dancers' outfits.

The whole Bad Love album is so crazy good… I honestly can listen to each of the songs on it over and over and over all day and never get tired of it!!! If I had to choose a favorite, I honestly couldn't and I would resent being forced to make such an impossible decision😤😂. Key wrote two songs on the album, Saturday Night and Eighteen. Eighteen is a song written from Key's current 30-year-old self to the young 18-year-old Key and it's quite poignant. Saturday Night is a super upbeat song with some really sad lyrics, lol. Its chorus is "I don't think I can dance on a Saturday Night without you." The lyrics are such a juxtaposition to the beat of the song which is really what makes it so catchy, I think!

Soon after its release, the holidays were coming up and it was soon time to pick our theme for the year and they were torn between Harry Potter and Saturday Night. We are avid fans of all things Hogwarts and wizardly and whatnot, but we by far do not support J.K. Rowling on controversial views on certain topics.

That being said, I mentioned that the two could easily be blended together in an epic mash-up and both of the girls were super excited!! Azriella would do the lime, plaid blazer with all things her house (which is Ravenclaw, like her mamma!), and, for Sephira, I wanted to do the pink plaid with her house, Hufflepuff, like her Daddy! I didn't want to do two outfits that were exactly the same, so I made her a cropped bomber jacket instead!

Akira was a bit of an anomaly: she's not a fan of her house, Slytherin, and I didn't have a third look from the Saturday Night stages sssssoooo I went a different direction. I made her a doe Patronus, pulling inspiration from an earlier Key video/song, called Forever Yours. I named her outfit, "Forever Your Patronus."

Fabric

No matter how early I started searching online for lime and pink plaid fabrics, I was still stuck with nothing, so I made the decision to just make the design from scratch and have it custom-made. I created a detailed plaid design for each look separately since the plaids for both looks were a little bit different from each other. It took much longer than I wanted to get it perfectly repeated, without any artifact lines. I ordered 3 yards of each from Spoonflower, knowing I had gotten a previous request from Jon to have his holiday PJ pants be a harlequin version of both fabrics.

The black skirt is a poly blend and worked really well to not crease too much, unlike the fabric for the white skirt, a cotton blend leftover from Azriella's Advice outfit.

And then I had to think about how to make the littlest one look glowing, like a Patronus. I happened upon a gorgeous, iridescent blue and silver, metallic fabric from Joann's. It has such a nice hand to it… it would be perfect for a party dress! The other two complimenting fabrics were from my stash.

Patterns

Azriella's Blazer (size 2/4)

After the black and white blazer I made for Azriella I thought for sure I wouldn't be making another one for a while, LOL. It's nothing against the pattern that I use. The Jaiska Blazer by Closet Core Patterns is sooo good. I'm getting pretty convinced all of their patterns are equally meticulous and easy to follow. It's hard to find other pattern designers that really make instructions crystal clear. I feel like a lot of designers are more concerned with a wide breadth of patterns rather than a fewer but more fool-proof, articulate selection.

That being said, I am still a novice at making blazers so I feel like I need one or two more under my belt before I feel super confident in the overall process. It's still very daunting altering something when I'm still nervous about making it but after the last one, it was much easier because I didn't have to split any pieces in half to color-block them. I have an ongoing joke with myself that one day I'll make the blazer as it originally was intended!

My biggest concern with making both the blazer and the bomber jacket (and the pj pants) was making sure that all of the plaid lines lined up as perfectly as possible. That meant painstakingly matching up all the pattern pieces, figuring out how the armscye would align with the side of the jackets, and sometimes, if I could, I made sure the shoulder seams matched up too (for Sephira's bomber jacket). I used clear, washable school stick glue to baste before I sewed each seam but even then, I had to countlessly rip out seams and do them over so that they looked just right! I don't think I've ever gone to such lengths to make sure everything looks so linear ever before! But I'll tell ya: seeing all of the gestures she makes in the pictures is such a sight to behold to me because the lines match up all over the place all the time!!

Sephira's Bomber Jacket (size 11/12Y)

When I released the Ichigo Bomber Jacket, Jess from Lil Luxe made this adorable cropped version and it was so freaking adorable! It inspired me to one day make something similar with one of my bomber jacket patterns. So using my own Senpai Bomber Jacket (available in our pattern shop here), I made a cropped version, sans pockets (which I am endlessly reminded of 😅). I added a little sleeve pocket for keeping little notes in as well.

The dreaded pleated skirts😒

Sometimes we are bested by the simplest things. I, for one, am not used to making lots of pleated skirts which my mom finds endlessly amusing since she claims it's the only thing she knows how to make! I don't know what it is… I really don't, but for whatever reason, I kept having to adjust these freaking rectangles more times than I care to admit!! It was infuriating!!! I don't know if the fake zips and trims I added had something to do with it? Suffice it to say, amongst all of the things I made, these skirts were my biggest struggle, who woulda knew???

Still, I think they are pretty cute, and I can't see the flaws as much as I'm complaining but I know they're there and it's maddening!

Akira's Worksuit and Shirt (size 10Y to an 8Y length)

I've always wanted to make a worksuit like this for one of my girls! We are very gender-neutral and I often like making masculine looks for them (and they like it too!). We're all pretty allergic at this point to super frilly and girly looks, leaning more towards edgy streetwear instead.

I paired up a few of my own basic pattern blocks to make it, figuring in the zip (which is essentially the same drafting as a pajama onesie). I added in a few belt loops for the belt I made her plus some shirring stitches at the waist so it wasn't too boxy.

For the button-down shirt, I modified the Friday Dress by Petit a Petit Patterns into a shirt and color-blocked it like Key's version! I also made a clear vinyl belt like Key’s and boy was that an unexpected challenge!

Bits and bobbles

The real heart of all of these outfits is in the details. We scoured the web for wands (Luna Lovegood for my Ravenclaw girl and Nymphadora Tonks for my little Hufflepuff) and patches and supplies and what we couldn't find, we made! When I tell you it took f o r e v e r to make aaaaalll of those vinyl details (the drawing out of every letter in the Love Little Freaks/Wizards, both crop top decals, plus hand gluing each of those tiny black iridescent sequins and a dusting of similarly hued glitter… Oh! And don't forget about the pink foam pins I cut out and made vinyl decals for!

And on top of this all I made a pigmy puff sweater and GROKS leggings for Sephira's jammies, A two-toned, cropped Jonghyun Touka sweater and moon pants for Azriella, and a dino nightgown for Akira and those pajama pants and a SHINee-inspired T-shirt for Christmas day. Oh WAIT! I made some masks for myself and a few of my shawol friends from all over the world as gifts too!…😵‍💫It was just pure madness around here! I even managed to make a surprise cropped Bad Love x Blackstar (Key + Bowie) sweater for Sephira which she has worn to death ever since she got it!😅 I also made masks for their outfits, as per the usual with any outfit I've made since the start of the pandemic. We still wear them and I think they are just fantastic accessories to their outfits too!!!

 The Photoshoots

Things were certainly against us when it came time to take pictures! Time went by as lots of little life stuffs popped up and prevented us from getting to photoshoot. On top of that, we've had a gloriously wet and rainy winter and spring here in Portland, but that also means it was much more difficult planning a day or two to take proper pictures out! We had big plans to go someplace floral and scenic to take Easter pics (those are coming soon), then Oaks Amusement Park for the Saturday Night Wizard pics, and then home to finish up with some "sad" party pics (remember, it's a break-up song😉)

 … well…

First, we went to brunch and while we were there, we realized that Sephira didn't get the memo about bringing a certain pair of shoes with us so we had to buy a pair at a vintage shop nearby.

Then we drove all over Portland looking for gardens that were in bloom (there weren't any), and then we decided on the Rose Test Garden… We spent about forty mins trying to even find a parking spot within any sort of walking distance before just succumbing to the fact that it was getting late and if we wanted to do Oaks and enjoy our time there while taking pictures, we ought to leave.

We get to Oaks, get the girls dressed, and walk inside the gates and they promptly announced: "30 MINUTES UNTIL WE CLOSE".

 😶😶😶

I was laughing hysterically in the car about how nuts it was that every single thing that could have gone wrong that day, did. It was just uncanny!!! I planned to take the pics during the week, but instead, we'd find some cool graffiti walls and focus more on the party scene at home.

The Clay Street shoot was pretty incredible- I had no idea that there was this massive, wrap-around graffiti parking lot, complete with artwork on the exterior walls, and interior walls, plus an entire covered parking lot filled with even more!!!! It was insane! We found stuff by two of my favorite PDX graffiti artists: Rather Severe and Calm + Flash; we found this piling that had a David Bowie piece, and just so much other cool stuff. I'm still reeling over it!!

Then the girls helped me plan for the house party photoshoot. We make aqua cupcakes and blew up and filled the room with balloons and confetti and other things. I made popcorn and served them Sparkling Apple Cider and Cola in fancy party glasses… They were so shocked at the transformation of the sewing room!!

I made sure to make the fluorescent pink Bad Love LP the focus of the party table and put out some of the other versions of the album as well. I also added some slime and DICE and the girls wanted to take some messy cake eating shot like Onew… like an assortment of "shawol" easter egg moments!😂

The girls adorably struggled with trying to channel sad expressions for poses, but they did such a fantastic job and they really loved having fun with this whole set more than any other in the past they said! 💕💕💕

So, yeah! It was a completely dizzying past six months for us but I hope these outfits brought you some joy and maybe some laughs! I have so much more to share with you so keep your eyes peeled for the Easter 2022 outfits which were one of my biggest drafting challenges to date!