Sew Color Me Fun

Betty Boop Zombie Costume for Zombie-Con

2011-10-16T21:42:00.000-04:00

So this year's theme was "silver screen" and while browsing youtube I stumbled upon this Bety Boop make-u tutorial: www.youtube.com/watch?v=liKWO1-Gmic by Kandee Johnson. I thought to myself, wow that is so weird and scary looking in itself, imagine how it will look zombified....

I couldn't find any look-a-like ready made simplicity patterns during the weekend $1 pattern sale so I bought Simplicity 2072 one for the semi-sweetheart bodice of view A and changed it a bit. I used a red-hot crepe-backed satin from my stash. I was all set to go out and buy some red, but, yay! Here it was!

I basically sewed the bodice according to the instructions for view A, and just didn't attach straps. I did have trouble with it sliding down after a couple minutes, mostly because there was too much ease in my finished product. I sewed down to the wire so since I had no time instead of ripping out the stitches on my zipper to sew it a little tighter I just went ahead and attached my clear plastic straps to my (formerly) strapless bra so I could safety clip the dress around the straps. The clips closed around the straps and were invisible from the front since they were attached to the lining. Worked beautifully, not a problem all night.

For the skirt I used the pattern pieces from the skirt lining since those were ungathered, and were already a basic A-line-like shape that perfectly matched the bottom of the bodice with no alterations needed. I added a good 6 inches to the bottom of the skirt pieces to lengthen my skirt. Then I cut it up asymmetrical and ragged, leaving it unhemmed for more of a zombie look.

I made a garter by cutting a three inch strip of white fabric, ends left unhemmed, and sewing a stretched piece of 3/8" elastic (slightly shorter than the circumference of my thigh) to the strip. Instant gathers! Sew edges together and hot-glue-gun a felt heart on it.

Didn't Betty Boop have a dog?

Yes, she did! And he became undead too! I went to Goodwill and found a cute white plush dog for $0.99. I slit him down the back and gutted him, and sewed a nice little pouch made from two rectangles into the back, big enough to fit a phone and make-up for touch-up. I didn't end up having time to hand sew the zipper so I just kept it closed with a big safety pin. I used felt to make him the black spot, classic 30's cartoon eye, dead zombie eye, and exposed ribs. I either hand-sewed or hot-glue-gunned it to the dog. I made a strap from the dress material and hand-sewed it to the dog's shoulder's so he would hang in such a way as to show off his cute zombie face. I cut out three black hearts and hot-glued them to the strap.

Those Eyes! Did you shave your eye-brows??

No! You can actually cover up your eyebrows pretty well with glue-sticks, powder, and concealer. Look up tutorials on youtube, it's soooo easy and cheap. No latex or anything special at all! I spent a grand total of $3.00 at the dollar store for the glue, powder and liquid concealer (I didn't want to get glue on my real makeup, lol.)

The Hair

I couldn't find a good Betty Boop wig so I ended up dressing up my hair like hers. By this time I was running waaaaay late so I did it in just 15 minutes. My hair is about an inch past my shoulders. I took the bottom half of my hair (leaving out the face-framing bits) and pinned it in a bun and curled the rest, pinning lock by lock so curls would pop out and it would look like a short curly bob. I then took a $0.99 can of black hair spray color and went over it good. If it was a bit messy because of time constraints... oh well, I was a zombie, the undead life is rough on hair.

Mmmm.. brains...

I went with minimalistic impact on the zombie thing. I didn't really mess-up my clothes or slop bood all over the place. Just down my chin into my decolletage for a freshly fed look and visceral impact. If I were to do it again I might have done it just at the corners to not take away from the impact of the weird button mouth. I don't know. By the way, I recommend home-made blood (from corn syrup) versus the storekind I used. Mine was cracked by the end of the night, but my boyfriend's (albiet sticky) blood kept a shiny blood-like look well past the witching hour. Look up a recipe online, he even made a great looking bite mark using "flesh" made out of corn starch. More natural looking than the latex glue-ons I thought.

How'd you die?

Slit throats are soooo overdone, don't you think? I went with the strangle bruises. I just mixed up some of the green, blue and red face paint, smeared my hands and almost popped my arms out of their sockets trying to place my hands in the same orientation as if it had been done by another person. I blended them with blue, purple and yellow eyeshadow. (sorry make-up brush-- should have bought extras of these at dollar store!!).

Anyway~~~ Hope you liked my Zombie Look!!

Travel Document Organizer Wallet

2010-12-10T20:10:00.003-05:00

I found a link to make a travel organizer to keep boarding pass, money, ID, passport, itinerary printouts, etc. organized at the airport.

Here is the link:
http://www.thimble.ca/?p=1443

Great step by step directions, just one very important thing that I would change---add interfacing! Some nice, heavy duty interfacing to give it structure, otherwise it flops around a bit and doesn't protect and support the papers like it should, rather the folded papers I had inside were giving it support.

I made sooooo many of these as Christmas presents and actually used mine at the airport last week!

Painted Dress for "Wearable Art" contest

2010-07-01T17:20:00.002-04:00

Let's see if I can backdate a post...

I made this dress July of 2010 to enter in a contest on patternreview.com. I used "Simplicity 2922, Misses & Miss Petite Dress or Tunic Project Runway Collection" as the pattern.

I found the construction on this pattern very simple barely needed to refer to the instructions.

I used a lavendar linen that I had lying around in my stash. Since it's a natural fabric it is a good base for fabric paint, however in hindsight I wish I had invested some time and money in a natural fabric with better drape.

I used acrylics and fabric dyes to paint the design. I drew a general design and then just started painting the dress and making little changes as they struck me. I sewed the body of the dress together on the sides and then taped it taut on a big piece of cardboard for painting.

I first added color washes and thought it would be cool to try out the salting technique I'd heard about, but I must have done it wrong because it didn't do anything but stick to the fabric and make it grainy and salty. After laundering the fabric to make it workable again I painted the rest of the design.

After setting it with an iron and quick toss in the dryer I went ahead and sewed the yoke on, put in the zipper and then hemmed it.

Here I am posing in the drizzle, sorry for the grumpy face.

Swing-y Jacket

2008-02-02T17:54:00.000-05:00

My Swing'n Jacket!!!

Here is my version of McCall Pattern # 5531. I didn't really change anything at all, i just made view A, but i think it came out really cute! now if i would just get more cold days!! oh, the pain of being addicted to jackets and living in a sub-tropical clime! (>_<) Don't Mess with Kevin Sorbo!! (i love my hercules shirt that i got for a buck at the fleamarket! didn't people realize they were passing up GOLD???)
thrown on the floor...

Eco-Warrior!

2008-01-30T21:51:00.000-05:00

I made my own *non-toxic* natural cleaning products!!!

YAY!!! Click on the pictures to see the recipes on the bottles!

Jump for Joy

2008-01-28T21:21:00.001-05:00

Here is my version of the simplicity 4097 pattern that i have had traced on nice paper and ready to go for over a year now. Very winter-chic and cool spring sweet. Nevermind that i live in a sub-tropical clime. Note the cute circular bubble pockets that i modded. (^_^)

Two New Dresses

2007-09-23T15:43:00.000-04:00

This blue one is from Built by Wendy pattern #3835. I really love the fit and cut and I like that it's demure enough to wear to work, yet still really cute. I made it in dk. blue cotton with read contrast stitching. Here i am in my papparrazzi pose:

And this dress I made out of an Elvis t-shirt I got on clearance at Target. I forgot to take a pic of the back, but it has "Elvis" scrawled across it in big letters. I just cut off the bottom and sewed on a skirt made of some clearance knit material i got from jo-ann's. I made a little collar out of the leftover t-shirt material and then added on a black button to finish it off. Here I am as a cartoon version of myself:

Kid's Drawings

2007-08-16T13:12:00.001-04:00

this site looks at what kids drawings would look like if they were drawn realistically. Pretty disturbing!!!

CLICK HERE

Past sewing projects

2007-08-12T15:53:00.000-04:00

left: knit shirt I made out of TRANSFORMERS fabric!!

lower Right: jumper i made... in my haste i forgot to preshrink the fabric.... (>_<) wore it once...

cool beige jersey shirt... soft as silk

Trapeze dress I made .... too bad I look like a pregnant mrs.roeper in it

bottom left: dress I made in a yummy heavy satin for a wedding

Right: the matching bolero jacket I made in embroidered linen

Huge Over the Door Shoe Thing

2007-08-12T13:26:00.000-04:00

So between my bf and I, we have our fair share of shoes... The shoe-rack on the floor had degenerated into a massive pile of shoes that never even saw the rack. So I took action! By taking advantage of the super long doors that come with these super high ceilings we have I created a massive shoe hanger. Way cooler than the cheap sterile plastic ones you get at the store and extra roomy pockets so I can put a pair together in one pocket. (Big sneakers don't fit in one though)

Materials:

2 wreath hangers
1 ft by 1 ft blocks of fabric, 1 for each pocket you want to make. I had four pockets on each row, so I needed like 20 squares.
Thick sturdy fabric backing. Mine was really big because I made mine five rows tall. If you have a normal sized door you'd most likely want a four-rowed one. I don't know... play around with it.
Sewing machine, nice strong thread.

How I Made It:

First wash your fabric to make sure none of it will bleed when rubbing against a white door or white shoes!
Next I sewed four of the blocks together at the side seams and finished the edges to prevent unraveling. I sewed a nice 1" hem along the top of the whole row. I did this to all rows. Then I pressed under about 3/4" on the sides of the rows.
I placed the rows of pockets on the backing where I wanted them. I added pleats to the bottom so that the finished bottome length of each square of fabric was about 7". This gathering gives the pockets the fullness I wanted.
Then I arranged the row of pockets against the backing so that it was right sides together, with the top hemmed edge on the bottom and the bottome edge where I wanted it. Kinda upside down-like. Then I sewed, and then reinforce sewed the bottom edge. When I was done I folded the fabric back up so the stitching for the bottom was on the inside of the pockets.
I pinned the rows to the backing along the seam lines between pockets and added whatever pleats i needed to make it the height that i wanted. My pockets were pretty deep, if you'd prefer to see more of your shoe then start out with smaller squares of fabric. I then straight stitched along either side of the seam lines about 1/4" away from the seam. I finished the edges in the same way.
I made two loops and attached them to the top and reinforce stiched the heck out of them. they haven't ripped out yet!!

loop onto the wreath hangers (make sure you get the strongest you can) and fill with shoes!!!

Sleeps with Butterflies

2007-08-12T13:05:00.000-04:00

Tori Amos T-shirt Project

A couple years late, but I thought the cover art for her last CD was really pretty in that ren-fest dark fairy type of mysterious way so one past Sunday while everyone else was sleeping I woke up with a vision! A t-shirt vision!! I printed out the picture I wanted to reproduce/ be inspired by, gathered all my materials and revved my engines!

Materials:

blank t-shirt (preferably white)
fabric paint, fabric markers
shirt-sized cardboard to insert in shirt to provide stable backing and prevent bleed-through
pencil and any pic you want to paint
music

Steps to Make:

I cheated and taped the picture underneath the shirt and lightly trace-sketched the major lines with a pencil to save time and get the proportions right. Even if I had wanted, tracing details would be almost impossible. I free handed her face and everything else in the background.
I experimented with the fabric markers, and I really didn't like the result and tried to cover them up the whole rest of the project.
Next I did my big blocks of color and all the color washes I wanted.
After it was dry I came back and added some detailed color.
Then after THAT was dry I came back and added the black detailing.
Then I set the paint per directions on tubes.

Conclusion:

I think anyone could paint up a really nice shirt using a template like I did. If you don't feel confident free-handing it then just pick a pic that has simple lines that would be easy to trace and experiment with color washes, etc. BTW, the fabric paint I used was bought in Japan, but there's all kinds available in the states as well.

Jewelry Wall Rack

2007-08-12T12:43:00.000-04:00

So, in the ongoing effort to streamline my environment to my needs (ie, clean up my clutter) I decided that hanging my jewelry up where I could see it would make me much more likely to remember it's existence with the added bonus of the pretty graphic *Oomph* it gives my wall.

The materials I used:

a craft stick i got for $0.70 at Lowes. It's about 3/4" thick, 2 " tall and maybe 2 feet long
a package of small hooks I also got at Lowes, about $2
sandpaper
Acrylic paint
decorative yarn

My Steps:

The first thing I had to do was sand the wood since it was splinter-ific, but alas... no sandpaper to be had!!! I really didn't feel like going to the store in the middle of the night to get some so I improvised and used one of those big foam nail files!! Everyone laughed that saw me doing it, but it worked awesome! It only took like one minute to sand the whole thing! Be careful while filing your nails girls- those things don't mess around!

Next I primed the wood and decided on my background and got to painting. The funnest thing out of it all. My work area:

When it was dry I got down and dirty with the hooks. Basically just pushing them into the wood and screwing them in by hand. Ugh, were my fingers were sore the next day! (but it was worth it!) Still, if you have a man-slave handy I would suggest putting on your sweetest voice and cajoling him into doing it. It'll play right into his sub-conscious machoness and spare you your fingers.

I finished off with three loop hooks up top and then cut out and glued a felt backing to the wood so the tips of the hooks that had poked through to the other side wouldn't scratch the wall or...well, me.

I looped the yarn through the hooks a bunch of times to make sure it could support the weight, then hung it from the wall and put my pretty jewelry on it!!

My Inaugural Post

2007-08-12T12:14:00.002-04:00

Inaugural post! How exciting!!! This is the space where I will be sharing all my creative projects with THE WORLD (or whichever friends of mine decide to mark this blog.... same difference really).

Expect to find.....

clothes I've sewn from either a pattern or my own designs
Pretty pictures I made
any other random stuff i made
fun ideas of stuff to make !_!
etc.

"Lets Enjoy Blogging"