Monday, October 31, 2011

halloween costume - 2011

i can't really title this one a flashback, since today is halloween and i wore this two days ago! so here it is, the long awaited "secret" costume! i originally had NO CLUE what to be this year for our now 2nd annual bowling night, and when ariana threw out the suggestions of "jessie or mrs. buzz lightyear" the idea wheels started turning. pieces were slowly purchased one by one and the designing began.
lots of blue tape and paint helped get the right shape of the front piece. i painted all the main parts first, and then added on the button and "lights" detailing. the skirt was made from the pirate costume pattern, and i found some awesome rick rac to go along the seam line to create the "belt" part. i wish i was cool enough to say that i made the bow, but i didn't. not yet at least! i'm sure i could crank some of those puppies out easy peasy!
my shoes were fun :) i found a tiny can of spray paint at the craft store and painted the bottom of the shoes. the green is the same that was used on the top to create the "toe" part of the boot look. since we went bowling, i didn't get to wear the shoes TOO long - which may have been a good thing. they were a 10 wide... i wear size 11 normal.
and in true "toy story" fashion, the bottom was painted to mark ownership :)
the gloves were going to be true gloves... but i can't ask too much of gloves on clearance. my fingers were too long, so i cut off the finger tips and seam ripped out the thumb. probably a good idea, since i couldn't imaging trying to bowl with satiny fingers.here was my "model" that hung around the living room as i painted and watched friends. yes, costume making and nick at night do go hand in hand.now for the action photos! i realized most were NOT full length shots, so here is the best i could do.the ladies! what we have is a clown, 80's prom, a devil, mrs. buzz lightyear, and a pink lady from grease.everyone that came! definetly another good turn out with lot's of costume variety. and don't mind me. i'm "shooting my lazer" like chris (the "chimney sweep") told me to.
happy halloween everyone!

Monday, October 24, 2011

halloween flashback - 2010

this costume could easily be noted as my favorite costume to date. it was super easy to make, super fun to wear, and people knew what it was too! the year before i was in k-mart with my mom and sister and found a green striped tennis dress and tried to convince her to be "stevette" for halloween that year. she didn't go for it at the time, so the next year, i swooped in and made it my own!
i asked kasey to draw me a "handy dandy notebook" since everywhere online wanted 20+ dollars for one. i used a plain ringed album i bought from joanns.com and "borrowed" my sister's crayon that she still had for some reason.
blue of course HAD to be part of the costume, and i found this adorable one at goodwill for $1. we went bowling the saturday before halloween, and she went ahead and hung out with everyone there. best purse dog ever!
the shirt was the most time consuming part. lots of blue tape and lots of fabric paint. the polo shirt came from goodwill, and the fabric paint from joanns. lots of measuring to make sure the lines were even and straight. i did all of the front first, and then all of the back. it was a very happy day when it was all complete, that's for sure!
just for kicks, here are some of the "in action" photos from our halloween bowling night! the event will be repeated this year, but just WAIT to see what costumes we have in store for you :) but you'll have to wait another week for that!
and this would be chris. he also made his own costume. the wig was cut and done by his sister, and his cape is made from a tablecloth and rhinestones. he's pretty legit! (and if you don't "get"who he is supposed to be, click here!)

Monday, October 17, 2011

halloween flashback - 2008

apparently i dated all these photos a year off when i saved them to my computer, but they're really 2008 once i did the math. anyways, round 2 of halloween flash back comes from my retail mall working days. we (ariana & i) were schedualed to work on halloween, and needed some pretty much awesome costumes. with the help of t-shirts, fabric, and a little this a that, batwoman and superwoman shirts were created.
to do the fronts, I used fabric pieces and wonder under to get the "logo" look. google images got me an image for each logo, and i traced them on the outer fabric. once ironed down, i zigzagged the raw edges to keep them from fraying. instead of machine stitching them to the shirt, i used a whip stitch, incase for some reason i wanted to take the logo off and use the shirt for something else... but as you can see, three years later they are still intact.
the headband was an oval shape i threw together and made work, with a piece of elastic going from end to end. the cape was another super easy addition. it was made from a yard of fabric folded lengthwise after hemming the edges. a small casing was put in to string a piece of elastic through, and then safety pinned to the collar edge on the shirt. yes, there were "in action" photos taken that day, but my camera didn't have a memory card in it... three years later, they're still stuck on the internal memory because i cannot find the usb cable. these lovely "action" shots were taken for my birthday :)

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

dohs marching band spectacular donation quilt

each year at the del oro band spectacular, they hold a quilt raffle in order to help raise money for the program. this year i was asked to do the quilt (my parents are pretty involved in the band supporters... go figure) and after finally deciding on a pattern was able to get it put together and everything in a matter of days. my grandma made the coordinating pillow to go along with the music theme. actually, it ended up being total coincidence that the fabric was the same, but hey, it makes it THAT much better. she also did the quilting for me... something i recently attempted on something of my own, but i'm SO glad she did it for me...
even though it was a pretty basic quilt pattern, i really like how it turned out. squares and rectangles totally make things a whole heck of a lot easier to deal with, that is for sure.
and check that binding out! SO much better than the pirate mouse binding. a whole heck of a lot of blind hem stitching though. nothing that a few friends dvds couldn't make easier to deal with.
so that's that! at least for this season's spectacular. i'm sure something will come up for next semester when we have the winter spectacular. at least i have a heads up and can get looking for some fun music fabric now. so now, go to del oro on saturday, buy some raffle tickets so you can take this matched set home with you :)

Monday, October 10, 2011

halloween flashback - 2007


so for the rest of month of october, weekend wips is going to take a little vacation, and instead we're going to have a little blast from the past halloween visit. the next four mondays will be dedicated to costumes that i have made myself over the past few years, whether it be sewn from scratch, or some bits and pieces put together to make something worthwhile. and to kick it off, we're going back to 2007's pirate costume!
i have to start off by apologizing that i cannot find a single photo of me in this actual costume. i know for a fact there are some, because i had my studio photo class ON halloween and as a group we had planned a halloween shoot. between this, that, and the other computer... well... i don't know where they are. anyways, these were quite the experience for me to make, since i had never sewn a corset style top before, or even with that type of fabric.
and check out my mad invisible hidden in the side zipper skills! yeah, i wish i remembered how i did that. love the skirt style. it's a circle skirt bottom with a yolk on top so it is a little bit more "flare-y" out instead of just being a simple skirt. this skirt pattern is making a come back for this year's costume, so be prepared to see that final one!
and here are the patterns used! the skirt was indeed a costume pattern (simplicity 4914) while the top was a basic "fancy" top pattern. (newlook 6671). and yes, i did fall in love with the fabric ON the pattern envelope itself and managed to find it!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

bridal show congrats cards


like i said in monday's wips post, i signed up for my first bridal shows this upcoming spring. included in the registration i needed to include a raffle gift for each one. i didn't want to leave it as just a "here is the gift, the end" sort of thing, but instead i wanted to personalize it a little bit so that the winning bride & groom would know how much i actually want to get to know them instead of just be another "factory" sort of sales person as a photographer. initially, i wanted to make two unique cards, but since my cricut didn't have many preset options on the font cartridges i currently have in my possesion, i went with the same design on the cards, mixing up the color scheme a bit to make each one a little unique. i'm pretty excited for this next year, and while a little nervous for the whole bridal show experience, i can't wait to see how things turn out! i still have a booth to design too... eeeps!

Monday, October 3, 2011

weekend wips

not a whole lot went down in the sewing world. no fabric store trips, no mass amounts of glorified projects to rant and rave about, and no late date nights with rotary cutters and whose line is it anyway recordings. i did, however, hit up the bella vista craft fair this year after the eggplant festival. the past two years, lisa & i have had a booth at the fair, but between everyday chaos (and the fact that lisa went to st. george, utah this past week) there was no booth to be had. it was nice to not see bella vista for 12+ hours. we came, we cruised, mom found some ornaments, and we left. and that was that. between the crazyness of this week, i somehow managed to get one thing or another done... with a big wip mess cramping my clean room style.
t-shirt quilt j: i bit the bullet and "stitch in the ditch" machine quilted this myself. it's not perfection, but it is a whole heck of a lot better than my previous attempts. two more "ditched" need to be stitched in, and then it just needs a binding.
bridal show cards: i signed up for my first bridal show(s) for next year, and wanted to make some "congrats" cards for the winners of my raffle prizes. apparently only one of my cricut cartridges has anyform of premade "congratulations" related sayings, so i went with it and made a matched set. perhaps i'll show them off later this week!
scrapbook-o-rama: this is currently the huge mess on my floor. since i pulled my cricut out to make the cards, i pulled a scrapbook out and started cutting out the letters to go with some of the pages. i got burnt out pretty easy... there is only so much floor sitting that i can handle, but hopefully this next week i can pull a few more pages together to get the show on the road!