A single mother for many years, Barb Rogers haunted thrift shops, rummage sales and auctions in the hope of finding old clothes that could be converted into costumes and sold. Not a seamstress, unable to use a pattern and without a sewing machine, she developed her own unique way of designing costumes.

She returned to school and earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Illinois University, where she studied psychology and communications. But her first love remained costuming.

Broadway Bazaar Costumes was born in one upstairs room on the main street of Mattoon, Illinois, with 130 costumes and Ms. Roger’s burning desire to succeed. Within five years, it had grown to fifteen rooms of fun, fabulous, flamboyant costumes.

As a member of the National Costumes Association, Barb attended national conventions, competed with costumers from all over the United States and won many awards. After ten years in business, Ms. Rogers was brought down by a serious illness. The shop was leased, and then sold. Always the survivor and eternal optimist, but unable to continue running a shop, Ms. Rogers found her second love: writing. Barb, her husband, Junior, and two dogs, Sammi and Georgie, relocated to a small mountain community in Arizona, where she could heal and write. In addition to working on her costume books, Barb has developed a fortune-telling kit, Native American Glyphs, and has aspirations of becoming a novelist. Despite these new activities, costuming will forever be in her blood.