Craftzies: September 2011

Your Halloween is going to smell great!

A few years ago my boyfriend really wanted to go as the Car Air Freshener for Halloween but they only had the munchkin version available so that left only one choice, to make him one instead. All in all it was a pretty simple costume to make but that might be because I passed the project onto his mother once I was finished making the tree part of the costume and she spray painted the text on from stencils. She did a really great job with the spray paint and I will have to confirm but I believe the white lettering you see in the images took one can of white spray paint.

I modeled the design more off of the baby car freshener costume than the traditional car freshener image, the differences being a simpler design for the shape and I also went with a white string for hanging at the top, as opposed to the green string. Since my boyfriend was going to be in the costume at work and at parties, I left the costume open more towards the hips-legs area whereas the childrens version is sewn on the sides, and more towards the feet. Here is a link to the baby car freshener costume so you can see the differences for yourself: http://www.buycostumes.com/Little-Trees-Car-Freshner-Infant-Costume/21185/ProductDetail.aspx

Materials:

3.5 yards forest green colored felt
1/2 yard stabilizer
fabric glue

Forest green colored thread

1 yard white piping /clothesline-type rope *The shop I purchased the materials from had really thick piping available by the yard in their upholstery section.

Newspaper/ craft paper *this paper is going to be used to make the tree pattern so I recommend something on hand like newspaper. If you are using small pieces, you will need to tape the paper together so that it equals the same amount of green felt you purchased

Scissors

Materials for the white text design on the front *If substituting the spray paint technique for another alternative (perhaps white paper, sticky label paper, white felt or vinyl could be considered substitutes) you can leave out the following materials

Letter stencils *you can find these at craft shops, art supply shops, or you can make your own.

White spray paint

Masking tape

Poster board

Exacto knife

Steps:

1) Unfold the green felt and fold it in half the long way so that it is 5 ft, 16” in length (half the full length-3.5 yds) and the width is much shorter-depending on what you purchased, it will most likely be about 45”+

2) Take your pattern paper (taped newspaper, etc.), fold it in half the long way as you did with your green felt earlier, trace and cut 2 paper pieces (front and back) for the tree similar to this image:

3) Lay this pattern piece on top of the folded felt and cut the felt *make sure you test your paper pattern in relation to where your arms are and how tall you are and such, and make any changes to the tree design that you need prior to cutting your green felt pieces

4) Cut a small hole at the top through both side of the felt to serve as the hole for the white string to go through

5) Turn the felt piece so they are facing each other, and the inside fabric is facing out. Sew along the edge from where your shoulders-arms are going to be all the way up and around to the other side *test what feels comfortable once the costume is on before sewing the sides too much

6) Turn the costume inside out and tie the white rope material through the hole

7) Create your stencil by copying the text onto a piece of poster board and then using the exacto knife to cut out the text. Set the stencil where you want your white lettering and blocked design and tape the pieces down onto the felt

8) Spray paint the white design onto the green felt *Please do this responsibly, both because spray paint fumes are hazardous and because you don’t want to ruin your costume, make sure you take great care to cover all areas of the green felt except for the areas you want in white. I recommend using an old plastic dry cleaning bag.

9) Once the spray paint has fully dried, all you need to do is cut out an area for your head *test before you cut and remember, cut smaller and enlarge as needed.

10) Once you have the face cut out, measure the hole you cut for the face and take the stabilizer and draw the same hole shape onto the stabilizer. Draw a shape around your face circle like the one in the image below (that's right..I said face circle ;), and then cut the piece of stabilizer out and ever go lightly glue the piece of stabilizer to the underneath part of the inside face-head area. That dip at the top part of the stabilizer will help hold up the top of the costume so the white string will be easily visible and not flop over.

You are officially finished!

In the end we ran out of spray paint or we would have added the white text/ design on the bottom.

So, there you have the DIY Car Freshener in the adult version! He had a lot of fun wearing it and even wore it again a few years later so when that happens, it’s always a good sign in the way of costumes. I think if I were to make it again, I would probably go with white felt for the white design as opposed to the spray paint but the paint version was used when making this one, so if you have spray paint already and are feeling game, go for it! It worked for this one ;)

All you need now is a pocket full of real pine scented car fresheners so you can play and smell the part. Happy Crafting!

Happy Pre-Halloween my fellow Crafters!

As Halloween is right around the corner, I am happy to announce that my first DIY Halloween Costume post is officially here. To make it easier on all of us I am going to break this down into a series of posts, listing a new costume idea each week leading up to Halloween. And then, if and when we run out of costume ideas, perhaps we will move onto fun accessories and party ideas! If you have any cool ideas you would like to include, feel free to let me know, I love new ideas!

Last year I was pretty open to costumes I would make for people and I made some really great ones, many of which I would not have thought of had they not been requested by customers. Those costumes ranged from infant/ toddler to adult in theme and size, and include costumes such as the Mrs. Fox Dress, the Magenta costume from Rocky Horror, Baby Frog costume, Male and Female Garden Gnome costumes, (toddler) Pebbles Outfit, Bride of Frankenstein Mummy Wrap Dress, and Steampunk Zombie Bloomers to name a few. Other costumes made prior to last years Halloween Craft Madness include an Adult Car Freshener, Ladies Star Trek Dresses (incl. next Gen), an Alien costume and many more.

That is quite a list I know! I would like to include matching outfits to compliment the Mrs. Fox dress and the Pebbles costume, so until I get those whipped up, we will postpone the Mrs. Fox and Pebbles for a little bit while I work on those. One of my favorite outfits from last year was the Bride of Frankenstein Mummy Wrap Dress so let’s start there.

Bride of Frankenstein Mummy Wrap Dress

The customer that requested this Bride of Frankenstein Mummy Wrap Dress really had a decent idea of what she wanted for this item when she contacted me and that was very helpful as I had never made anything like this before. After discussing the wants and not-wants of the dress she envisioned, I sent her a few fabric patterns I had in my pattern stash that I thought might work to see what dress style she thought would work for the dress, with the addition to it being mummified in the end of course, and she picked the style of the red dress in this pattern below:

She also wanted a V in the front, as well as the shoulder straps. I went with a very soft off white thermal material for the dress shell, or base of the dress. This fabric was a great choice. I happened to have it in stock already but it proved to be soft and comfortable, not too heavy, and it would feel solid and offer substance as a dress shell, all of which I wanted. Below I have included the materials I used. You can judge for yourself what you need for your costume based on this list. I found many materials such as lace, yarn, small amounts of silk, and items of that nature worked well in small amounts tucked and sewn into the cheesecloth so feel free to be more creative with it than anything. Since I have a sewing doll I found it useful to tuck and pin in materials as I thought they would work and then I would step away every so often and gauge the design as I went.

Materials:

2 yards of a base fabric in white or off white–soft knits recommended *this fabric will be used for the dress shell.

3-4 yards of white cheese cloth material (length depends on the size you need and on the width of the cheesecloth-some stores offer it in a very narrow width in which case you might need more)

Additional notions such as chunky wool pieces, lace or silky fabrics to add throughout the dress (these can be sewing extras and scraps and I would recommend finding things you can use as opposed to purchasing whole skeins of wool yarn and such)

14” white zipper

White thread

Scissors and measuring tape

Here are the steps to help you along with your own dress project:

1) 1) Cut three pieces of the knit fabric you are using for the dress shell. Cut one piece for the front, and 2 pieces for the back. The shapes should look something like this:

*Determining the size you should cut for the front and back pieces is really determined based on your measurements. Whether you are using a pattern or creating your own, you are going to want to compare your measurements with those of the pieces you are going to be cutting. I always recommend adding about 1-2” extra at each seam and sew it down as needed. Just remember, you can always make it smaller, you can’t always make it bigger.

2) 2) Sew the sides and pin the back pieces together from the bottom up to where the back zipper will end-a general guess is fine but I like to pin the back and wait until I have resized and such before I actually sew this back piece.

3) 3) Add the cheesecloth sleeves and V neckline in front.

4) 4) Cut out a few chunks in the dress shell around the waist and the back and add cheesecloth and trims to the exposed areas, and then to other areas throughout the outfit.

5) 5) Once I had the notions sewn down, I folded over the top of the dress and sewed, folding over and sewing one more time.

6) 6) I rouched the middle bust by adding a seam in the middle front four inches down from the top, backstitching only one end so as to gather that area. Once you have gathered the fabric, sew it again to reinforce the rouched seam so it will not pull through.

7) I pinned the zipper in, measured 14” from the top back of the dress down and sewed the lower back dress pieces together.

8) 7) I added the zipper. *A zipper foot always helps with the zipper process. If you do not have a zipper foot, I always recommend hand sewing in the zipper first, however loosely, and then once you get the zipper exactly as you want it, reinforcing the hand stitched areas with the sewing machine.

9) 8) For the final step, fold over the bottom hem to the desired length, sew, fold, and sew one more time.

So, there you have it! Your very own Bride of Frankenstein Mummy Wrap Dress. Before I shipped the dress off I made one last addition, one you do not see in the photos above, in which I added a small little tab on the lower sides of the dress. This cinched the lower half of the dress up a bit. Not too much, but a little bit so it was a little shorter than what you see in the photos. It sort of carried over the cinched look throughout the design. In sending out the customer, I included a note in which I said if she found the dress too short, all she had to do was cut the tabs I added on the sides and the dress would fall longer. If you feel so inclined, I found it was a nice addition.

P.S. In the photos I took, the dress looks a little bit stretched, especially in the lower half but it was a smaller sized dress on a bigger sized sewing doll so that’s why it appears like that (size 6 dress on a size 10-12 sewing doll).

So, who’s ready to make one now?! I had so much fun I would do it again! If you have any questions, definitely let me know. If you don’t sew and want one of these made for you, please contact me via www.Craftzies.etsy.com in regards to an order.

Happy Crafting and if you have any questions feel free to ask! The skeleton hands added to the dress were actually hair clips. The skeleton hands were found at a local $1 store and I just hot glued the hands to hair clips and wha-la!

New details as of Ostober 14th, 2012: Woot! I have my first Bride of Frankenstein Mummy Wrap Dress of the season up in the shop! It's a size lg/xl and here is the link if intersted- https://www.etsy.com/listing/111319617/bride-of-frankenstein-mummy-wrap-dress

Alright, that one sold but here are more photos. I was very happy with it...

I only had one creepy skeleton clip left over from last year when I shipped it but I did manage to find more so I think I might drop a set in the mail to her. It's more of a precaution as I had a skeleton hand pop off when I made the last dress so just in case you start to fall apart during this years Halloween events, you can still count on a few creepy hands to keep it real.

Here are some photos of the second one made this year. This one was a size 4 and due to the size, was modeled on my mannequin. It was a custom order but I plan on making a few more this next week that are not yet custom orders so feel free to let me know if you would like one made. They also come with a creepy skeleton veil, a total of three skeleton hand hair clips, a big bag of extra wrappings and sewing kit in case you want to add to your creepy self...