Naked Influence

Start with the usual suspects–an ugly beaded sweater vest, an old prom dress, a red velveteen jacket, trim and fabric.

Spend 4 hours beading Queen’s dress and 6 hours constructing King’s tunic, then show to happy kids!  These are for our middle school production of Once Upon a Mattress–hence the mouse and hawk theme for the cursed King.

Now, only 68 more kids to costume!!

Or, how to avoid tears in the morning of the kid.

So, last night my 5th grader tells me that she needs to construct a box to hold her valentines. No problem. It also must have a theme. What? Okay. We pull out a shoebox and paper and stickers. I suggest ‘Around the World’, because we have some free stickers with state names. She has some musical stickers, so the box is dubbed ‘Around the U.S.A. with Music’. We decorate, make a lid, she says (distinctly, I might add) that she loves the box. We go to bed.

This morning over breakfast, it is revealed that she is not too happy about the box. We have 45 minutes to come up with a solution to avoid unhappiness and stomach aches. So we google. Most boxes are construction papery and valentine colors. This will not do. We see a cupcake card. I say, “Hey, I have ice cream buckets.”  And we have our unique solution. Hers is turquoise. I did not get a photo before we dashed to school.  I came home, and instead of sewing costumes or cleaning, I spent some time doing one for myself. I like it.

Start with….

Gather, hot glue and squish like mad….base

top…

cherry…Finito!

Our opera house holds a fundraiser (2nd year) for renovations.  It is called Project Runway Repurposed.  The designers are able to choose from donated clothing and fabric and then make new garments to be worn in a fashion show that are then auctioned off.

I started with:

this pink sweater, floral shower curtain and a tweed jacket.  I also had a lime green fabric remnant, with a large tulip print and a green wraparound sweater.

When I saw them, I thought ‘Mad Men’, so I decided to make a lady’s wiggle dress, and a girl’s dress.  I decided to use the sweater to make little shrugs or jackets.

I really liked the neckline of the middle dress here…but wanted a bit of flair, so I added:

the kickpleat.

For the girl’s dress, I used this pattern, which apparently used to belong to Roseann:

Here are my daughters modeling the outfits…

My youngest (10yo) submitted two fairy costume designs in the Beginner category. I will post pics of that soon.