"There's a lot of magic involved with time travel," says Valerie Griffin, who first became entranced with costumery at the age of six, when her grandmother made an opulent southern-belle gown for her cat. As she grew up, Griffin did theater costumes for school plays; later, she worked the Halloween season in a shop in Arvada. Today she dances to her own piper when it comes to costume-making, and her creations usually start with reconstituted thrift-store finds that, with a little of the aforementioned magic and some guidance from antique patterns, she transforms into the Civil War-era, Cleopatra or Sergeant Pepper's garb she sees in her head. Give Griffin some time and space and she'll come up with whatever it is you need — or rent something from her private collection. It's dress-up at its best.