I'm Back & I'm Blogging!

Hello lovelies! I'm finally back (not that I really went anywhere haha). Back to blogging is what I mean to say. And I'm so excited!!! Summer was wonderful, but I got super busy and decided to take a break from blogging and pick it back up in the fall when I got settled into school, which is now! Just to catch everyone up a bit on what I've been doing for the past few months while I haven't been blogging, I graduated from high school (yay!) and I was co-valedictorian of my class (I tied with one of my friends). During the summer, I spent a lot of time working, painting, going to the beach, and hanging out with my friends before we all left for college. And now I'm finally here! In college! I am majoring in fashion design (who would have guessed it) at Iowa State University. 

Now, just because I wasn't blogging this summer does not mean I wasn't sewing and DIYing. In fact, I spent most of my summer making things for my dorm room and my friend Maggie's dorm room. In the next couple of weeks, I'm going to show you some of the awesome DIYs I did that can make your dorm room feel a little more like home and add some pizzaz and sparkle of your own. 

One last thing before I leave you, lovelies: this summer I cut off 11 inches of my hair and donated it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths to be made into wigs for those affected by cancer.  I got my hair cut into a fauxhawk, a really edgy style with both sides shaved and longer hair in the middle. Half the time, I wear it down and to one side, but other times you'll see me sporting a bun hairstyle that looks similar to the popular "man bun" or as I like to call it "woman bun".

Let me know how you think it looks!

 

Before:

After:

P.S. Stay tuned next week for some really awesome dorm room DIYs!!!

DIY Flower Crown Tutorial

                                        

Since the weather has been so nice and spring is finally in the air, I decided to do the perfect spring DIY: a flower crown. I made this one specifically for my senior pictures but it was super easy and I already want to make another one.

Supplies:

Wrapped floral wire

Electrical tape

Pliers

Fake flowers (I used 3 different types of flowers)

Hot glue

1. First, take 3 pieces of the wrapped floral wire (measuring about one and a half times around your head). Braid these 3 pieces of floral wire together.

It should look like this when its finished. Use the electrical tape to tape the ends together. Use the pliers to weave the ends of the wire together.

2. Now take the fake flowers and cut them off the stems. Leave a little bit of the stem on the flower.

3. Place hot glue on the little bit of stem you left on the flower and place the stem into the weave of braided wire. Start on one side of the crown and work your way around. I started doing a pattern with 2 of the flowers I had. I went back and forth between the light pink and dark pink flowers and after I was done with those, I filled in the gaps with the little pink flowers I had.

Hope you enjoyed this DIY and happy spring!

Prom Dress Hem & Bustle

Prom season is here! My friend bought a dress online and when it got in, she discovered that it was way too long for her 5'3" frame.  I decided to help her shorten the dress and create a bustle so she would not trip over the train at the dance.

This is the dress before, as you can see it is really long:

The first thing I did was try the dress on my friend with her heels on and measure how much needed to be cut off. This particular dress had a train and was not even around the bottom of the dress. Since my friend could not be with me during the time I was altering this, I decided it would be easier to just cut the same amount of fabric off all the way around the dress. 

After I took the dress home and put it on my mannequin, I marked 5 inches around the whole skirt with fabric chalk.  On the lining, I marked 6 inches to cut off so it would be shorter then the top layer of the skirt. Cut off the extra fabric and hem the skirt.

I decided it would be best to bustle the train so she wouldn't trip over it during the actual dance so I needed to connect the lining and top layer so they would both bustle together. I found the same color embroidery floss and loosely connected the lining and skirt.

To make the bustle, I sewed an eye to the dress right under the midriff and beside the zipper so it would be mostly centered. The hook, I sewed to the middle seam of the train on the underneath.

Here's the completed bustle:

I hope you enjoyed this post and are having a wonderful day!

Aladdin Costumes: Purple Peacocks, DIY Birdcage Veil

"Purple peacocks, he has 53....."

In our Prince Ali parade, we had four purple peacock girls. They wore ruffling white shirts with purple tutus I had made for last year's musical and purple tights. To complete their outfits, I made purple birdcages with feathers. They also carried wands made of peacock feathers and purple ribbon.

                                                                

Supplies for purple peacock birdcages:

Purple tulle 

Green, purple, and yellow feathers

Hard headband

Hot glue

Scissors 

Measuring tape or cutting board

1. Cut a rectangle of purple tulle about 12x24 inches.

2. Cut out a corner of each side from the tulle.

3. Thread a needle through the top part of the veil including the corners you cut out. Pull the thread tight so it gathers all the fabric together.

4. Now take the headband and glue the gathered part of the tulle to the headband using hot glue.

Note: You can also use a hair comb instead of a headband. I only used a headband so it stayed in the girls hair better while they were dancing.

5. Lastly, I glued on feathers and bead strands.

Note: Try the birdcage on and see if the veil is too long. You can cut it to match the shape of your face more also.

Aladdin Costumes: Iago the Parrot

       

                              

This Iago costume was probably one of my favorite of the whole show. This was one of the costumes I got to have a little fun with and use my imagination. Our production's Iago was casted as a girl so I decided to create a little parrot dress for her. I was inspired by this children's I found on Pinterest.

                                   

     

I recreated the bustle and found the perfect little red dress. A few feathers later, it was complete!

                           

                           

                           

For Iago's makeup, we started with a normal stage makeup foundation base and translucent powder. For the eyes, first put down an eye primer then start with red eyeshadow in the inner corner and make a rainbow as you go across the eyelid. When we got the outer part of the eyelid, we feathered the eyeshadow to look like the feathers on a parrot. We lined the eyes with black eyeliner and made the wing go all the way out to the end of the eyeshadow. Lastly, we added red and gold jewels around the eyes and completed the look with red lipstick.

                           

                                  

To make the bustle tail, I got four different colors of tulle, measuring four different lengths.

Blue tulle- 1/4 yard

Yellow tulle- 1/2 yard

Green tulle- 3/4 yard

Red tulle- 1 yard

I stacked the layers of tulle on top of each other with the shortest on top.

I then sewed them together using a zig-zag stitch and then put my sewing machine of the longest stitch setting to sew a stitch for gathering.

I found this red dress at Plato's closet and thought it would be the perfect dress for Iago and would look great with a bustle.

Gathering the bustle, I then pinned it and hand-stitched it to the dress while it was still on the mannequin so the dress would hold its form.

Fluff the tulle a bit to get the perfect look. If you want the dress to look more like a parrot, you can add feathers along the shoulders and top of the bustle. I used hot glue to attach the feathers.

I created this headband using a red headband I bought at the dollar store and feathers and a jewel I found at the craft store.

Aladdin Makeup & Hair

Aladdin Jr.was the first production where I was actually able to do elaborate makeup instead of a natural look. After researching some Arabian makeup styles, I discovered that some of the signature looks are colorful eyeshadow and thick black eyeliner with wings.

I used this pictures I found on Pinterest as inspiration:

                     

Here's us working in the makeup room:

      

Here's on of our masterpieces:

                                 

For hair, we did a lot of braids and twists and of course, Hair Jewels!

These are our narrators from Aladdin Jr. For Prince Ali, I dressed them all in different white outfits with a little sparkle and statement necklaces I found that worked perfectly as hairpieces.

A few booby pins and a lot of hairspray later, these are our results!

                                  

For this hairstyle, we curled Hayley's hair and teased the back of her hair for a half ponytail. We then wrapped the end of the necklace around the half ponytail and pinned it in.

                           

Elizabeth has really long hair so I decided to do a long braid down her back with small fishtail braids coming into it.

                           

For Rachel's hair, we did a French braid into a side ponytail which we curled before pinning on a necklace as a headpiece.

                                  

                           

Emily's hair was braided and pinned back wrapping around the back of her head. The necklace we used for her hangs on her forehead and down the back of her hair.

                                  

Ellie's hair was super cute and we braided it into two French braided ponytails before pinning a dangling chain necklace into her hair.