Devyn's NDAD Creation

More Halloween costumes from you guys!! This one is adorable, so you better "redneck-onize"! Check out Devyn's awesome costume that she repurposed...

I love Halloween and I love dressing up as an over-the-top character, but I don't like spending a lot of money. This year I wanted to be the child glitz pageant queen, Alana, aka Honey Boo Boo.... I mean, who doesn't want to get all frilly, eat pixie sticks and drink go-go juice all night? I made my own costume using an old Marie Antoinette costume I got a year ago on clearance for $5 from a party supply shop.

I cannot wait to see this!

I took a seam ripper to the bows, cut off the bell sleeves, and went to work gluing shiny fake jewels and flowers all over it with some fabric glue, and my trusty glue gun. I made a sash out of some wide ribbon, and found the perfect pair of white shoes from a thrift store for $3.

It was a super fun Halloween costume to wear, and looked pretty much like the real thing...

People thought I spent a ton of money on my look, but I spent less than $20 for the dress, accessories, and supplies to transform it!

You look SO fabulous, Devyn! Just the fact that you were able to take another costume and really transform it is incredible. All the extra bits of flair totally make it so ready for a Toddlers and Tiaras marathon! Looking forward to seeing this year's costume!

For more on Devyn, click HERE!

Lou's NDAD Creation

Halloween is right around the corner, so let's get some costume posts up and running! I received a bunch of costume submissions last year right after Halloween, so now it's time to post and give/get inspiration. Today's piece comes from Lou. I think you're going to like!

Hi Marisa! I enjoy reading your blog, and I wanted to share my Halloween creation with you! I bought this red dress at our local thrift store. I live in New Mexico, and I thought this color would be perfect to create a red chile Halloween costume for my baby.

Are you ready to see the amazingness??

I used one of his suits to measure the costume and took in the neck and arm holes. I created a chile pepper shaped "sack" for the body and the zipper in back stayed intact to easily get the baby in and out of the costume. I added a few green leaves at the neck with some scrap fabric, and I put on his knitted green hat from his baby shower.

I think he makes an adorable chile pepper (which is the state vegetable of New Mexico), and the whole costume was less than $5. Happy Halloween :)

I'm loving this, Lou! Your baby is delicious - I think I want to be swaddled up like this in a costume for myself this year!  What a way to repurpose that red dress and really tie the costume into where you live too! Your son should totally be the mascot of NM. Happy Halloween to you too - can't wait to see what you come up with this year!

PS, keep the Halloween submissions coming!

Remake: Rainbow Brite Dress

So, this "Rainbow Brite" nightgown-y/dress just had to come home with me.

I had absolutely no idea what to do with it, so I took a dance break...

...and then put on my thinking cap.

I saw this piece as a challenge, which is usually why I grab anything in the first place!  Time to get cutting!

I started off cutting off a chunk of the bottom portion of the dress, just because it was going to be easier to work with the piece once a foot of fabric was removed.

I was playing around with this remnant piece and turned it into something right away which will get posted shortly!  Now that I was left with the top portion of the piece, I grabbed my rotary cutter and mat and began to plot out how this was going to take shape.

I wanted to make this a shrug of sorts that was a little longer in the back, so I folded the piece in half tacking down the center front spot as one point and center back spot as my other point.  (Basically I had the shirt folded with the shoulder in the center.)  This is going to allow for cutting both layers at once to create a matching shape.

I started cutting below the buttons, creating a round shape that went all the way to the back of the piece.

After my cuts, I unfolded the piece to see how it turned out, and then snipped a line from the center of trimmed area all the way up to the bottom of the buttoned area to open it up completely.

I didn't do any sort of hemming as this piece is a lovely varietal of polyester, so pulls, scmulls :)  With some Gap jeans, vintage boots, and a white H&M tank, my outfit was complete!!

I also created a version for when it cooled down later in the evening as well...

So, the sleeves stayed striped!!  I was definitely on the fence about removing a portion of them, but when I started to see what the piece was looking like while I was working, I thought they needed to stay.  With a bit of other colors coming into the situation, they just didn't feel too overwhelming anymore.

I love the neck and by buttoning only the top button, it really made this area pop.  The neck feels way more pronounced now!

I kept thinking how this was my much smaller version of Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat!!

Oh, and one of the best parts was matching the plateware (and the pasta) at dinner.  Now I know to always wear this piece when I'm dinnering at M & T's place!

What started off as super horrendous...

...turned into something that I'm obsessed with.  I also couldn't wait to get out my sweater coat that had been holed up in my closet for the past six months!  It's so interesting to see this piece with the striped sleeves covered up because I'm sure nobody would ever think about all the crazy business underneath!

I'm totally into that crazy business :)

Happy Weekend, friends!!