Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween!

This Halloween, Vince and I were invited to a house party with the theme "2011 Bates Senior Prom".  Bates being from the movie Carrie (which was the Hostess costume).  So, with that being said, I went as a prom teenager.  I went to Prom in the early 90s, so the styles were not quite as strange as the 80s, but strange enough.  My reconstructed dress might have more like a late 80s/early 90s feel to it, with elements spanning 3 decades (70s through the 90s) rather than straight 90s.  To my original prom, I wore a knee-length fitted purple sequined dress with a white rhinestone halter strap.  I LOVED it.  I may have asked my mom to keep that one, but there was no way in this decade that I was fitting back into it (ah, size 2, 90 lbs) so I must improvise with a dress from Goodwill.

Vince was my date, but he went as Don Johnson from Miami Vice (aka Detective James Crockett).  I played it off as the "boyfriend that went to college."  You all had that friend that had the older boyfriend that no one ever saw because he either lived in another city/state or was older than they were and went to another school;  whether they were totally lying or not, you may never have found out the real story.  That was my story last night.

I bought my dress at Goodwill, which was a bridesmaid's dress made of satin and organza in GOLD.  Yes, that is my throwback to the 70's decade.  Oh, and it had BIG boobs.

I think saying that it had big boobs was an understatement.  It had really big boobs.  This dress had an organza attached skirt with the satin top extending below the waist in an asymmetrical hem. Underneath was a petticoat to make it pouf a bit.

To reconstruct this dress to be Prom-worthy, I first had to cut the length.  A selling point for me was the asymmetrical hem of the satin top.  My prom had asymmetrical hems all over the place, so I am playing them up to the max.  I pinned up the organza and petticoat and just had the liner hanging down.  I trimmed 12 inches down from the satin hem.

Once that was trimmed away, I sewed a hem.  I then unpinned the organza and gathered it in little bunches along the new hemline of the liner.  Once the bunches were made, I took needle and thread and tacked the bunches in place.  I trimmed the remaining organza to follow the liner hemline.

I pinned up the liner and organza layer to reveal only the petticoat.  The petticoat part was really only at the bottom of the dress, so I just pinned it up and sewed to match the same asymmetrical hem.  This allowed the petticoat to have the pouf effect and stick out the bottom (in a Madonna/tacky 80s way).

I took in the sides at the top.  Just so you know, I'm keeping the big boobs.  I took it in so it's not falling off, but those boobs will be back.

You can't have a fun dress without the one-shoulder-poufy sleeve.  I cut one strap completely off.  I then unstitched the remaining one in the back only.  I needed to reposition this strap to hold my new boobs up effectively.

I took some leftover liner fabric and made a tube.  I affixed one tube end onto the front part of the dress encompassing the strap.  I then stuffed the tube sleeve with leftover organza.  I scrunched up the tube and sewed the strap back onto the back of the dress, but more towards the center zipper.  I then sewed the loose tube end onto the back of the dress.

It's hard to tell, but that is the makings of the poufy sleeve in the above pic.

I still had more leftover liner.  This is where my new boobs come into the story.  I made another tube, but larger.  I took leftover quilting batting and stuffed the tube.  With some arranging, I made a nice set of C's for myself. (With my own boobs, they must add up to D's, right??)  I put the dress on and adjusted the fill and evened it out.  I just tied the boobs on like a bandeau top.  Since they are not real, they don't weigh anything.  I took the strap I cut off earlier and tied it in the middle of the boobs to give a bit more definition, rather than a uniboob.

Here is the finished dress:

The dress actually is not too bad.  It's starting to grow on me.  Vince then spray painted with gold, my shoes and the white petticoat.

These shoes rock!  Who knew a can of spray paint can do such a transformation?

I then put on some finishing touches like black hose and teased my hair and I'm ready for the Prom!  I did my hair just like I used to do it back in the day: banana clip with the hair wall for the bangs with a long tendril.

I had to take the picture by the hedge, just like my parents would have done it.  Not only did I dress up, but Vince did as well, as I said above.  Here is us taking a "professional portrait" at the prom (notice my new rack):

I have to say, no offense to my high school friends out there, but I had so much fun at this prom, more than at my real prom (no teenage boy drama).  If anyone is looking for a party to throw, throw a theme party.  They are a huge amount of fun. (You'll have to check my Facebook to get a hint of how it went) :-)

I also am dressing up for work, but instead of a prom teenager, I will be going as something else.  You'll have to check back later in the week to see my Monday costume!

Happy Trick or Treating!

Lucky Star Key Chain

This project was done in a couple of hours, for that is all the time I had allotted.  Since I have been doing all of the Sweater Purses, they have created a lot of scraps that I have been collecting in a bag.  So this project is a scrap project.

Here are the items I will use to make my key chain:

Scrap-a-plooza!

I had printed out a star shape on paper and cut it out, then had denim, pink and gray sweater scraps.  I used washable marker to trace the star on each scrap.


I'm not above tracing, no freehand for me! 

I can't draw to save my life, so I had to trace if I wanted my shape to even resemble a star.  Plus, a star is an easy shape to cut, no rounded edges or fine detail.  Once traced, I then cut them all out.  There are two of each because I will be making this double-sided.

Fourth of July scraps


I cut them all out the same size and then determined what order I would stack these in.  I really liked how the denim looked on top when I did Sweater Purse 3.0, so I decided, Pink, Cream, Denim.  I took my paper star and drew lines about a quarter inch in with a ruler (yeah, I can't even draw a straight line without help) and trimmed it.  Then I retraced the cream stars and trimmed and repeated again another quarter inch in and trimmed the denim stars.



Second round of tracing

 
I totally have Lucky Star from Madonna in my head right now.  I heard she refuses to play her old stuff at concerts, is this true?  I've never been to one of her concerts, but I had heard a rumor that she would charge the venue extra for her to play songs like Material Girl and Lucky Star.  I love those songs!
Anyway, back to the trimming.  I trimmed out all the stars so there are a total of six (6) stars.  I then stacked them to ensure that was what I wanted.

Star stacked action

I thought it made sense to sew from top to bottom, so I sewed the denim to the cream then the cream to the pink.  I did the sets separate.  While I was sewing and thinking that there must be a better way to do this (they were not staying straight for me and so the stars came out a bit skewed), I snacked on one of my favorite snacks: Toffifay.

Yummmmm

Toffifay is described as a caramel cup with a whole hazelnut dropped into, then a chocolate hazelnut filling covers the hazelnut and then it is topped with a drop of chocolate.  I love these!  Vince's mother eats these and I had never heard of them until she got me addicted to them.  I can find them at Walgreen's and Joann's (strangely enough).  Joann's sells them in a package of four, while Walgreen's sells them in a package of 15 (often at a buy one, get one free).  Try them!!!

Again, I digress!  The stars are finally sewn together.  Like I mentioned above, they are not aligned as I had imagined and are a bit off.


How do you read unaligned stars??

I did not like that so much pink was showing; it also made these really large.  I trimmed the pink to the cream star.

Much better!

Now that the stars are stacked and trimmed I then put them back-to-back and took needle and thread and hand stitched them together with a whip stitch.

The Stars Unite!


Once the stitching was done, it was time to make this a key chain.  In my kit of rivets, it contained some colored ones, rather than just silver or gold.  Luckily, there was a red one.  Vince did the honors of punching the hole and affixing the red rivet into the star.

Riveting Star

Once the rivet was attached, then I took a key chain and attached it to it.

A star is born!

This was a quick project, but I think that if I were to do it again, I would do it differently.  I think by cutting out all of the pieces ahead of time, that left me with little to hold onto while I was sewing them together.  I would try cutting out the smaller one first, then sewing that onto the next one, for me it was the cream.  Then cutting the cream out based on the lines of the denim.  Do the same for the cream on the pink. 

When I gave this as a gift, she said, "How did you know I love stars?"  Funny, they were an easy shape. :-)

If anyone tries something like this, let me know what worked for you.  Thanks!

Chunky Cuff Bangles

I made these bracelets hoping it would be simple and quick, and it was!  I'm so glad when a project works out the way I anticipate it would.  Vince helped me with this project; I think he wanted to play with the hot glue gun.

First, this project idea came from a book called P.S. I Made This.  I bought this book at Books-A-Million and it is a great DIY book for the fashionista on a budget.  The link above is to the website for this book and it has a photo gallery and several DIY ideas right on the main page.  If you're a DIY gal, then you must check it out!


Ideas-a-plenty in this book!

I'm not claiming to be a fashionista, because I won't make half the ideas in this book, but the other half are quite clever.  Like I said, these bangles are from this book. 

The items needed for this project are a cardboard mailing tube, a knife to cut the tube, fabric strips (anything will do), scissors, and a hot glue gun.  I also had some cool studded strips that I harvested from a purse that I bought at Goodwill for $2 or $3.  It had some great hardware and a handle in great condition, so I bought it, with the intention of cutting it up.


Look at all the cool stuff on this purse!


First, the large rings are awesome, along with the handle, the small rings, the studded strips and the zipper pull all were taken off this purse.

All the possibilities!

Anyway, after I cut up this poor purse, I worked on unstitching the studded strips from the zippers.  I kept the fabric too; Vince will use these scraps later.  The other items I put aside and will use them on future projects.  I then cut about a 1 to 1.5" inch "slice" of cardboard tube for the bracelet base.

Cut on the edge of something so you don't gouge your work surface

I used a mailing tube that a calendar from work came in, so I did not even have to buy the tube (I love free stuff) and a bread knife.  I thought the serrated edge would work best, like a saw, but since I did not have a saw, this knife was my next best thing.

Then you take that slice and cut it so there is an opening, like for a cuff bracelet.  Pick the kind of fabric you want to use and cut it into at least a 1" wide strip that is at least a yard long.  I had some black lace from a past Halloween costume, so I cut from that.  But you can use anything, but if it is silky, it could fray.  That could be nice or not nice, depending on the look you are going for.  Thin fabrics would work the best.

Once you make one, you will want more!

Next, I practiced first, without gluing to get a feeling of how tight I was going to have to wrap.  This also gave me the feel of how much overlap I needed to do.  I did not want to see the cardboard under the lace, so I wrapped the lace overlapping itself at 1/4" intervals.  So, this is why you need a long strip of fabric.  If the fabric you choose is not lace or transparent, then you can be less tight/together with it.


Practice wrapping before you glue

Once I got the wrapping down,  I unwrapped it and took the cardboard opening and put a dab of glue on the inside of the cuff.  While hot, I affixed the end of the lace on the glue.  Then, as I practiced earlier, I wrapped the lace around the cuff.  As I got to the other end, I dabbed more glue and pressed the lace into it.  That is all you have to do!


Purse fabric cuff



Once the first one was completed, the others were simple.  Like I mentioned earlier, I glued the studded strip to one, Vince did another one with the other strip.  I did one with a ribbon and Vince did one with the leftover fabric from the purse.  We even made one with a feather on it.

Strike while the glue gun is hot!

 

We were looking around the house at what else we could wrap around a cardboard cuff!  We made several that evening and gave some to his daughter for her birthday and I plan on sending some up to my sister to give to her 80's-loving neighbor.

We had to stop ourselves, it was so fun!

These are very reminiscent of the Madonna Like a Virgin era. 

I'll always love Madonna!

You know, seeing this picture, you see that this sort of layering/lace/fingerless gloves/long necklaces are making a come back.  Not sure if the black rubber bracelets are coming back, but lots of other 80's inspired fashion is absolutely coming back.  I just hope that the pegging of jeans stays in the past.  I'm avoiding the skinny leg jeans and Converse sneakers.  I'm in my 30's, so I really have no business wearing those anyway!

I went to a party last night and got several compliments on my diamond studded lace cuff!  I was very excited to state that I made it with a cardboard tube!  It was worth doing.

I still have about two feet of cardboard tubing left, so this won't be the last time you see the Chunky Cuff Bangle!  (Hmm, what else can I glue to that cuff....)