Monday, November 5, 2012

JAM.05 - When creativity spews out like lava.

I posted a little sneak peek of my costume for John's superhero party the other night, but I thought I'd share some bigger pictures and details since it came out SO dang good.

Now, I can't take credit for the original idea for this costume. That came thanks to Pinterest:



All I did was spice it up a little bit... (FYI, all these photos are straight out of my phone's camera. Sorry if they're not super professional!) :-P

Here's the whole costume. I found a navy blue dictionary at a local thrift store for $3, and I already had navy leggings and some silver accessories, so it was super easy to go with a gray/silver/navy color scheme.


For the "wings" I followed the original costumer's idea of using a wire hanger to make them stay rigid (versus flapping around). But instead of gluing flat pages on the inside edges of the binding, I fan-folded some pages, stuck them together and flared them out to add more pizzazz. And, I already had wired silver ribbon (leftover from my wedding!) to use for the shoulder straps, which I tied in a bow on the back of the wings.


I made a little wand using the cardboard tube that was wrapped around the wire hanger I used for the wings. I had some blue ribbon, so I wrapped it around the wand's handle, then made a "pouf" using the same method you see all over Pinterest; I just used dictionary pages instead of tissue paper. I also threw in a little more of the silver ribbon to give it some sparkle.


I had this silver flower hair clip already, and I clipped it on after tying my remaining blue ribbon in a bow on my head.


And I made my little superhero "emblem" just with an image of a book I found in Clipart! I designed it in about 20 minutes (please note the phonetically-spelled "dik'shən fer'i" underneath -- in case you weren't yet convinced that I am a nerd). Then I printed it off and glued it to a thin piece of cardboard I had lying around, traced the outline and lettering in blue Sharpie, glittered it up a bit and pinned it to my shirt!


For the tutu, I cut an old grey T-shirt (which happened to have navy blue lettering, but it barely shows under all the tulle and paper), and I started out by tying my tulle pieces onto it and spacing them evenly around my waist. I had no idea how much tulle I'd need, so I bought two yards. I probably could've used more to make the skirt fuller, but it still came out great. Once I had all the tulle positioned, I folded my dictionary pages over the T-shirt "belt" between the tulle sections. At first I was stapling it all together (because I'm lazy and didn't want to deal with a hot glue gun), but then I ran out of staples and just used masking tape. It all stuck fine and has yet to budge at all!

Oh, and I used basically the same method as the original costumer for rolling the paper, except I angled it so there would be more of a "fairy" look to it, if that makes sense. After I placed the first layer of rolled paper around the skirt, I taped two more rolled pieces to each one of the originals, which added depth and "fluff". After it was all done, I just tied the long ends of the T-shirt in a bow and pulled the tulle out so it was laying over the top of all the paper!

Here's a zoomed-in look at my tutu, since I didn't take a better close-up of it. 


And then there's the shoes.

OH MY GOODNESS, did I get lucky with these! I was at Ross grabbing the striped shirt and a few other supplies, and as I was walking toward the checkout I spotted these glittery silver heels on the end of the shoe aisle, and without even trying them on I threw them in my cart. I actually didn't expect them to fit because I have wide feet and pointy shoes tend to be impossible. But these fit really well! And I will definitely be using them again.


 Here's another picture of the whole outfit.


 And here's me with my mother-in-law, who came to the party with my father-in-law as "the Caped Creators -- makers of Super Sons!" How cute is that? I love this photo because I knelt down (as I often do when taking pictures with people much shorter than me), and Pauli simultaneously got up on her tippy-toes. Too funny!


This was my first time really making my own costume from scratch, and I had such a fun time with it! If every creative endeavor went as smoothly as this one did, I would probably do them a lot more often. I'm just saying.



Day five of NaBloPoMo: check!

3 comments:

  1. Your costume came out so well! Definitely more awesome than the original. I love your resourcefulness and the way you were able to use up and re-purpose existing items (like the cardboard tube and wedding ribbon). I'm also laughing at the notion that you ran out of staples-- was it that staple-intensive? ;-)

    I hope you hung it up safely somewhere for use next Halloween :-)

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  2. I love everything about your costume. Such a great idea. Love that you shared the picture of Pauli and their costume idea, too. Did they have a prize for best costume?

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  3. Love love love it! I am so happy to see so many people taking the idea and really making it their own. Great job fellow dictionfairy!

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