My Halloween Costume- Katy Perry

We decided for this Halloween we were going to go out and go to a party. I was going to wear my refashioned dress and go as Marie Antoinette. So I was good to go, and THEN>>>> yeah my boyfriend decided he wanted to the the left shark for Halloween and asked if I could go as Katy Perry. It took some convincing but I said ok. Then I looked for a costume, in the beginning/middle of October.... nothing was in stock and of course b/c I sew- I think it all looks horrible. So I then set out one weekend to put together a costume

After various google searched I found a few images of a costume I wanted to loosely base my costume on- i have seen various costume derivatives to buy that were also based on this costume too. So I was going to be all cupcakes and candy. Super girly and really exciting.

Either my options were to find a dress I could bling out or I would have to sew something. After spending a Sunday afternoon everywhere I found no starter dress. I did find a corset dress on Amazon that evening and had it shipped to home on a fast track. So I got my dress. Then I needed to find things to bling it. That required hitting the craft stores. I also searched at the stores that began to put out Christmas ornaments. If I could find sugar plums ornaments. OMG that was an exhausting weekend shopping. I don't want to go shopping anymore.

I scored big at Hancock Fabrics with buttons- cupcakes, cookies, and candy. I bought everything I could find. I then went to Joann and did the same. I also found this iron on glitter paper that I used to make glitter candy wrappers as well as circles which I would decorate as like candy/lollipops. I scored with iron patches of cupcakes which I blinged further with crystal fabric paint. I wanted to amp up this costume. At Michael's, I found felt cupcake stickers in various colors that came in a 20 pack. I bought then all. I found fun popsicle ornaments with glitter and sprinkles on it- yup bought them too!

I thought I had a good start with the amount of things to bling my dress. My biggest obstacle was that ice cream cone on the front. I had brown fabric and I cut a triangle. I did a criss-cross pattern with brown fabric paint to give it the waffle effect. It dried on a sheet a paper-which it fused to but I actually liked it b/c it reinforced it. I glued the seams together and now I need to make a scoop of ice cream.

Oh what to do... I had purple fabric to use. While staring at my table, I decided to clean some of my paper up and I crumbled it up. Before I tossed it into the trash I had a flash of brillance- LOL. I could use the crumbled paper for the ice cream scoop. I used batting to even it out and then I covered it with a piece of fabric. Hot glue and more hot glue shut. Poof! It worked. So I glued that to the dress, here is the first look on my white dress.

 I was playing around with what it would look like with some of my add-ons and I was getting a mental game plan in my head. The ice cream cone doesn't look half bad. But now it is time to add more bling! To do this and ensure that the dress doesn't shrink while glue was drying I had to wear the dress while gluing it on. I lined the bodice with towels (you can see one peaking out in this picture. And I started with some of the big things and move to smaller, making sure I space everything out. This actually went fast.

I decided the dress needed to be edged with something. But the pictures of Katy didn't show much. I had some pink ric-rak which reminded me of cake icing/frosting. I sewed that on next. Then for the skirt I ironed on the glitter paper sheets to the circle skirts. It really came along fast!! 

I then decorated the glitter pieces with my crystal fabric paint to look like candy. I had to do this in phases since the skirt folds and it would smear. Can't have that! Next, I added those felt cupcake stickers, which I hot glued on. Yeah filling up that skirt! 

But I thought I needed some more dimension and texture to the costume and a way to tie things together. So I added multi color rhinestones to the entire dress and I filled everything up. On yeah. But the one thing that just stuck out to me was the ice cream cone, I thought it was missing something. I decided I wanted to add another layer to the ice cream cone. I used pink sort of tulle, again just wadding up batting and glue, glue glue!

I then glued that on top. To put a cherry on top of the cone, I used a cat toy. Yes that red foil ball is a cat toy. But it is perfect b/c it is shiny and light. Poof we are done!!!! 

Close ups of the dress

Crazy huh?? But crazy good!! Here it is on!

This dress was so much fun to wear. I wore my pink ruffle shoes you see in the pictures here but I also wore pink knee high socks. I used candy necklaces for jewelry. 2 pink petticoats. And then a blue wig to top it off! I felt super girly and happy at the party. I even painted my nails with this sprinkle looking nailpolish.

Here's at the party. I fought the wig a lot and with my long hair it also pulled it back as well. And I was even wearing a wig cap. The blue hair is a little much LOL.

We were a hit at the party. Epic no? And how quickly I pulled this dress together was amazing as well. It is heavy. It is a corset, which helps support the weight but I couldn't eat much. And it just fit. I whipped this costume in less than a week- which was impressive. My boyfriend was impressed too. We felt like celebrities at the party- we took a lot of pictures and everyone screamed Katy and Left Shark! :)



So looking at the inspiration and what I created- I thought I did well!

I thought it was a Katy worthy dress! :) I had all intentions to sell this dress but I have some of a change of heart. We missed the costume contest but I think we would have won. The ice cream cone was not bad being attached to my dress. It was not bad at all. And it stayed on!

Told you my costume was epic!!

Cheers,
Lauren

Refashion Runway #2: Halloween costume- Marie Antoinette

Greetings everyone! My apologies for this late post. It has been a busy few days and I have been away from my computer. I am finally getting to my computer to get things done here!! Today after seeing pictures of myself, I realized I am not the happiest in the way I look and I think I have let myself go some. So today I was at the salon getting brand new spanking blonde highlights which took forever since I let my hair grow too much. Combined with fabulous wine tasting event, shopping, today has been a great day.

Unfortunately I just found out online that I did not make the next round at Refashion Runway. I would like to take the time to personally thank all of my blog followers, friends, and family for supporting me through this journey. I will admit I am ready to not be on such a big timeline and now go in my own direction. It truly has been fun. I did say also that in my time off I was super productive and actually sewed an additional 14 garments unrelated to the challenges. It was nice to catch up and also finally heal this horrible cold of mine! I am doing really good and barely have a cough. It feels good to feel like a normal human being.

I did complete the next challenge, which was Halloween. I had actually planned this costume about 1.5 years ago when I found this dress for $0.99 one Sunday and snagged it up. I knew I wanted to make a costume out of this dress but what exactly I didn't know. I had thought it could go many ways.

I then found this lace top from Talbot's that I liked that I wanted to add to the costume. It was really nicely sewn however there was a lot of princess seams. I realized this after I purchased it. I also realized that it buttons down the back.

So what I made was actually 2 costumes: one that was Rennaissance Faire inspired and the other one was Marie Antoinette. Here is what I did.

First I cut away lace to cover my bodice between the 2 princess seams. I used green thread to baste the 2 fabrics together to make my life easier to sew.

I actually had leftover gold trim from an old bellydance costume I had that I had pulled it off of (which btw on a side note I only started to sew b/c I was a bellydancer. I started to sew costumes first then transitioned to fashion clothing, b/c you know wearing bellydance clothing to work is just not cohesive being a scientist). I also cut off the bottom of the dress which I don't have a picture of.

I began to attach it to the dress bodice. I made sure I curved it with the dress. Then cut off excess. Sew down with gold trim- this was the only time I sewed the trim with my machine everything else after this was done by hand.

Next I detached the skirt from the bodice and cut it in half. I only went to the side seams. Then gathered each detached piece and then reattached to the bodice.

I curved the skirt using a bowl. I hand sewn the hem since I wanted to have it not look tortured. I then also added trim by hand to the skirt.

One of the good things I noticed was at the bottom of the dress was the lining had a netting connected to it and decided to use this as my underskirt.

I needed to make a portion of the skirt to peek out from the blue satin and I wanted it to be lace and match the bodice. I did not have enough to salvage from the rest of the blouse so I decided to use the sleeves. I needed to combine them together for it to be long enough.

I connected to mid skit to the bodice.

Now to also connect the underskirt. I gather stitched it and then connected to elastic. And then skilly attached it at the waistline.

Now I also needed sleeves so I cut the leftover fabric from the bottom of the dress and made sleeves. I will say in my initial feel I wanted them to bell more so I added in a gusset down the seam. I created an elastic casing at the top of the sleeves. Then at the elbow area of the sleeves. I added another elastic to gather. Now I have a poof above the bell of the sleeves.I also added trim to the bottom of the sleeves. Of course by hand- this is one of the reasons why this took so long.

I opted to not fit the bodice to Present tense Lauren. Only because I would like to have this costume for the future. I would like to wear it whatever size I am and also I wouldn't mind if others could borrow it too. So instead to fit it I added elastic to the back top portion of the dress.

The elastic wasn't enough and I did not want to mess with my costume while at a party. So I opted to make straps. I had some leftover grosgrain ribbon that I used to used in my bellydancer costumer days so I cut some grosgrain. I sewed one side and left a lot on the opposite side. Foldover. Seal with some simple iron on fusible web. Then add trim. And attach to the bodice. I crisscrossed in the back so I did not have to worry about having my skirt slip off my shoulder while wearing it. Which is something else I learned from making bellydance costumes.

Now if I wear it as is the costume has a Renn Faire sort of feel.

However, I wanted options with my costume so I opted to sew some bows with the little bit of satin I had leftover. Simply cut a rectangle. Sew to lining. Turn right-side-out. Close seam. Sew gathering stick down center. With a quick few tacks, the bows were attached to a bodice. Added a fluffy petticoat underneath. Attached to add some white out shadow. Gray hairspray and a lot of teasing my hair. Pearls. And now I have something else I can go as to a Halloween Party. Marie Antoinette.

 

Sorry for all the photos. I spent a LOT of time spraying my hair and teasing it. Then spraying it witth the white hair spray. Which by the way smells so strong. Made my apartment stink! The peacock feathers I had on hand (because yes I have a stash of peacock feathers- don't ask). Here is the close up.

Love it! Unfortunately b/c of some scheduling conflicts we are actually not going to any parties this year so this costume will be in my closet. And hence why all the pictures. I got to enjoy my costume for a bit. And best part is I can wear it 2 ways so I can have future options. Got to love multi-functional costumes.

Cheers!! :)
Lauren