Bjork Swan Dress Costume

I just entered this dress into a radio contest for musical costumes.  I made it a year or two ago (ah! can't remember!)  using TONS of tulle.  I made it in two parts: a satin under dress and an attaching swan neck.  I made the bodice texture by folding the tulle into little triangles and sewing it on in rows.  I was trying to approximate the look of feathers.  This is the part that took the longest.  For the skirt I made attached tiered, fluffy, voluminous skirts to the waist and also sewed a separate tulle tutu-like skirt that I could slip on under the other skirts to add to the volume.  I put in a side zipper. 

The one-shouldered strap ended about 4 inches below my shoulder and attached over a button I sewed on the end of the swan neck.  The swan neck was made like a stuffed animal, with orange felt and black pleather for the head.  The exposed area of the neck was sewed with layers of heavy duty sew-in interfacing that I cut to look like feathers.  The part of the neck that looped behind my neck was covered in white stretch lace fabric. I think I liked the swan part so much that I unconsciously made the swan head bigger than the original dress, lol, that really wasn't quite intentional, but I still like it. 

cool camera effect, huh? 

ZombiCon 2012~ Success!

taken out by a rogue green shell, such senseless violence...

itsa him! zombie mario!

  
No, we didn't win the costume contest (we actually missed it ;_; ), but based on the amount of random drunken shout-outs we got we were a crowd favorite!_!  My bf cracked me up each time he responded in a high Mario voice, "Itsa me!  Maario!"  Too bad Peach doesn't have any cute catch-phrases.  The street festival was from 6 to midnight, but lots of people linger around at clubs, etc.  We didn't get there till 9:30 because we were still sewing/ making ourselves up till 9...

why so blurry???  :(

The Making of Zombie Peach and Mario:

I already had my concept drawing and had picked out a pattern at Jo-Ann's $0.99 pattern sale: Simplicity 2813, an adult Snow White/ Cinderella costume pattern.  I bought my fabric at the same sale, however the costume satin wasn't as wide as most fabrics are so I ended having to drive to the store again for more fabric-- and that's considering that half my skirt is eaten up! 

I decided to make a muslin of the bodice- my first time ever actually making a non-wearable muslin, and thank God I did.  After making the muslin I saw that I would need extra inches at the waist (and I've been so good about hitting up the gym too!  it's the pattern, it has to be!) and was able to add those to the pattern pieces at the side seams.  I also raised the neckline and added a scalloped contrast neckline edging.  First I made a pattern piece similar to the way you would make one for a facing, except with scallops and making it so it would peek out beyond the finished neckline.  I followed directions for making the Cinderella neckline (albeit, much higher because of my altered pattern pieces) and then added my scalloped edge underneath it.  For the skirt I added a contrast bottom band to the half that was going to stay intact. 

When it was all sewn up and done I did the most difficult thing ever... attack a beautiful dress I had just spent 2 weeks sewing up.  Scissors in hand I cut slashes in the right sleeve, removed part of the bottom of the right side of the skirt.  To give it a more natural ragged look I twisted the fabric and snipped haphazardly, then tugged and ripped and rubbed raw edges against the carpet to help it fray. 

For the petticoat, I made this in a hurry the day of and just sewed all layers together by making a casing and thread the elastic up top, then I cut through all layers in strips and scrunched them up, randomly tying some of them together to make it look like a proper fluffy mess.  Something to give body to the skirt and peep through the ripped mess. 

Detail of poor Ripped up Dress

Frantic Shopping the Day Of 

So.... about 1 pm after I've finished most of my sewing my boyfriend decided it was time to START work on his costume...  >.<  So we started visiting every thrift store in the area looking for overalls.  Let me tell you- apparently overalls are in HIGH DEMAND.  At the 5th store we even heard the guy behind us asking about overalls right after we had!  Finally, bf found a pair of large ladies ones in the dress section, LOL.  It had a huge Tigger embroidery on it, but I told him in the words of Tim Gunn, "make it work."  We went by Wal-mart and picked up some red fabric and felt for the hat and a red Tshirt.  I wasn't able to find the princess crown or jeweled brooch I needed in Wal-Mart, thankfully, the Dollar Store didn't disappoint!  They even had an extra pair of while gloves so I could rip one up (and still keep both the nice long white gloves I already had both intact)  For the blue brooch I was able to find a wand at the dollar store that came with removable jewels, the blue one was perfect and I glued it to a yellow felt circle backing and pinned it to the front of the dress.

Mario Cap with Peach Petticoat on dress form

The Final Stretch

I had wanted to make a mushroom purse to go along with my dress, but sadly my bf was behind in his progress and feverishly using a seam ripper to remove the offending Tigger applique.   I was obliged to make his red hat from scratch since he forgot to buy a hat to cover with red fabric.  It ended up looking more legit that way anyway, since Mario's hat is fluffier and has a shorter brim than your average baseball cap.  This was the first hat I had made with a brim and I was pretty proud of my work- especially considering that I finished it under duress in like 20 minutes. 

After all this I mixed up acrylic paint with water to a wonderful dried blood hue and splattered and smeared my dress liberally.  I ripped up my tights and applied creepy makeup, blonde wig and crown.  And then we were ready for the night!  

rraaarrr

Zombie Princess Peach and Mario

Princess Peach ~ Wii Version

For this year's ZombiCon in Fort Myers I want to do an iconic couples costume- who better than Mario and Princess Peach?  My boyfriend is willing to play the part of Mario, which should be a mostly no-sew costume.  I figure we can get overalls from a thrift store, buy a red tshirt and cover a hat to make it look like a Mario hat.  My Princess Peach costume will be made from Simplicity 2813, modified to have a higher neckline with scalloped contrast edge, jeweled brooch, and contrast hem band.  My concept is that one half is still pretty and princess-like (pre zombie apocalypse) and the other half is all eaten up and bloody (post zombie apocalypse). see below.

My concept Drawing

Betty Boop Zombie Costume for Zombie-Con

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!!