The Royal Wedding...

Well, of course I couldn't let this occasion go by without some kind of fancy dress! But not for me this time - for the beautiful baby daughter of one of my best friends! Baby loves a bit of fancy dress...
Once i decided it simply had to be a wedding dress (Daddy wasn't best pleased, I'll be honest) the design itself was very simple. I found a gorgeous white net tutu fabric at Abakhans (where else?!) with an iridescent glitter running through it, and simply put two long rectangles together, pleated it, and stitched it to a long strip of elastic to make it comfy for baby. A cream satin was stitched on top, and finished with a cream ribbon. A hugggggeee cream flower from Primark was the finishing touch! It's actually got a safety pin on the back of it, so I stitched it to a piece of elasticated pleated satin from abakhans haberdashery section - I've used this for tons of things, garters for brides, headbands - really useful stuff. And baby loved it...

Vital Statistics: Fabric - £5, Ribbon - 60p (both Abakhan)  Flower - £2 (Primark) BabyGro - baby's own!

My Party Like A Popstar Birthday

For my birthday I like to go all out in the fancy dress stakes. I set a new theme every year, and this year’s was Popstars. Some of us had actually done this before (I’ll be posting about that later), but lots hadn’t so it seemed a good choice. The theme has to be quite open, as there are about 20 of us and everyone wants to be someone different.

Anyone who knows me knows there is only one popstar I could be – good ole Britney Spears. The problem was, which one? Gone are the days I could carry off the red latex suit of ‘oops…’ (Ok, those days never really happened). And School Girl Britney is a bit over done. So I went for the ‘Slave for you’ version. And the first thing that I needed was a snake.

Not really feeling up to carrying a full size real life python about with me, I ordered a toy snake off the internet – but apparently I cannot understand measurements very well, and when it came it was more of a glow worm. It was then I realised I could really easily make such a thing – so using an old 50p dress from Primark, the inside of an old cushion, and some £2 googly eyes from a haberdashery store, Justin Trousersnake was born.

The rest was simple, if time consuming. I found the shorts on sale in New Look, and added 400 stick-on gems from the pound shop, plus lots of old silky scarves and some fabric off-cuts. The boots were mine already, and I added 4 necklaces for a pound each from trusty Primark. The top was a stroke of luck – funds were running short to find a lime green number (that covered my stomach – I was 27 this time, after all) and having tried eBay, the Internet, and the normal cheaper high street stores, I popped into TK Maxx without much hope of finding something on budget. Amazingly, the first thing I saw was a lime green tankini set with gold sequin detailing – for just £5. It was a halter, so a quick snip and sew job later and I had a lime green vest top. Finish with a  mouth mike off eBay (annoyingly forgot to put this on for the pic!) and that's Britney, beatch.

Vital Statistics: Fabric - £5  Shorts - £8, plus 400 stick on diamonds for £4 from the pound shop 

Boots - already owned, added four necklaces for £2 from Primark 

Top - half a tankini from TK Maxx, £5 for the set 

Snake - made from an old 50p dress from primark, with googly eyes for £2 from Oldham market

A 'P' Party

 

 NB These photo's aren't the best - now I know I'm going to be using them for blog posts, I will try harder!

I'm going to start with the most recent fancy dress I've done - my friend's 30th Birthday Party. The theme was anything beginning with 'P', as that's one of her initials. And the creativity displayed was something else! I was terribly proud of all my friends - Pippi Longstockings, the Pharaohs, the boyfriend's Peperami, the Police men and women, the Prisoners, and especially the birthday girl herself - the Peacock!

I went through many different ideas (Penelope Pitstop, Paris Hilton...) but the boyfriend thought that was cheating, as they are just girls with blonde hair and pink outfits (a lot like my own self). And I am NOT one for half-hearted fancy dress! So out came the pink fabric, some white fabric diamonds, and the trusty white stilettos (for fancy dress purposes only) and the Pink Power Ranger was created. Now, I cannot take credit for the actual production - although I'm pretty handy with a pair of scissors and a Singer,  this was an outfit consisting of tailored trousers and a fitted tunic. So Mummy bear was called into help. She adapted an old pattern to create both pieces, then I used offcuts to create two tubes for my wrists. Adding a white belt, the aforementioned white shoes, and a mask from the Internet, and I was ready to fight crime (or whatever the Power Rangers got up to.)

 Vital Statistics: Fabric - £13  Mask - £3.50 Shoes - already owned Belt - already owned