I know it's a little premature, or maybe it's not as there are already Christmas decorations out in some of the retail stores, but I am going straight from my Birthday Party into Halloween mode. Don't worry I am not planning any big Spooky Party that you will have to here about for weeks on end but I do love the opportunity to make costumes from upcycled materials and I guess to be honest I still get a kick out of the dressing up part too.
A while back I purchased this dress to sell on in my Ebay store.
But something just hollered at me to make it into a mini mouse dress. Now I don't know about you but I tend to listen when my Creativity Muse is making that much of a ruckus. So I commenced working on a plan to transform my dress. Sometimes I question my own ability and my confidence wavers a little. I don't want to waste my time only to find out that I can't figure some part of the project out or do something that ruins the project entirely. But the Creativity Muse generally has a pretty good handle on my abilities and I have found that I am much happier when I don't ignore her wishes.
This dress doesn't even fit me so my work will be for someone else but it must be done do not argue with the muse.
I started by making a template from a file folder, using a water glass for the circle template and marking the circles on the dress with some white chalk.
So far so good.
I guess the muse knows what she is doing even if I don't.
:-)
Since this dress is quite gathered I used an embroidery hoop to hold the dress flat for painting. Place a piece of cardboard in between the two layers of the dress to prevent the paint from soaking through. I also reused the pint glass that I made the template with to "stamp" the outside of the circle before painting each circle.
It was a slow process but it worked
Little by little the design emerged.
I am pretty happy with the results so I continued on to make the ears. A few weeks ago I made a cuff bracelet from toilet paper tubes and I wondered if I could use the same technique to make my own head band. So I found a headband to use as a form.
Wrapped it in foil. (My cat loves tin foil so she wanted to help :-)
And covered it with two layers of TP tube using Elmer's glue.
Let it dry.
Once the glue is dry trace around the actual headband, remove the cardboard from the headband and trim cardboard to headband shape.
The pint glass used for the dress was also used for the ears. Trace around the glass on a piece of old cardboard. I used a cracker box.
Mark a small curve on each ear using the shape of the headband.
Cut out ears. Snip the center of the of the small curve and fold in opposite directions.
Glue ears in place on headband and cover headband with paper mache.
Allow to dry.
Spray paint.
Glue a small amount of stuffing to each ear.
Spray again.
Make bow.
Attach.
Now I was on a roll. I found these shoes.
And with a little yellow paint, a couple of coats of polyurethane and two red resin bows. They looked like this.
I found some white gloves.
And then I found this purse. I was looking for a small black purse that I could add a bow to. But this one was so perfect all by itself.
Don't you agree?
Sometimes I think my pesky little muse has a 6th sense and can see what is up ahead and she leads me serendipitously to just what I need if I am willing to follow her.
Happy Upcycling,
Anybody need a halloween costume? It is for sale here.
