Bridesmaid dress success!

I realize now I didn't get very many pictures of my dress the day of Michelle's wedding; that seems to happen to me quite often...  

But the wedding was beautiful and everyone loved the way my dress turned out.  So far I've been in two weddings and both of the brides let us bridesmaids pick our own dresses with a color swatch to follow.  I really love this idea!!

Close up of hand beaded feather detail.

Helping with Michelle's earrings.  This was the only photo that showed the beaded peacock feather I spent so many hours on!

The bridal party.

See how well our navy dresses go together.  And I love BJ's suit - perfect...

A 30th Birthday

For my younger brother Tom's 30th Birthday party I wanted to do something unique and fun.  He had been dreading turning 30 and didn't want us to celebrate at all, but no one listened...  What better idea I thought than making a big 3-0 that he could beat the crap out of.  So, my first Pinterest experiment commenced - Pinata DIY!

Taken from the blog Oh Happy Day, I decided to give this pinata tutorial a go.  This is a great tutorial and I pretty much followed it word for word, but here is my process...

Supplies:

Cardboard

X-Acto Knife or scissors

Tape

Tissue Paper

Elmer's Glue

Old paint brush

Candy and goodies for filling

As I still work for Starbucks, acquiring a large amount of cardboard was no big deal.   

(ps, Veranda Blend is ick)

I decided on a size and started cutting and bending the cardboard.

Here I've finished the 3.

This really was quite easy - I had the 3 and 0 done in an hour.

I didn't get any photos of the "fringe" process but I just used a bunch of left over tissue paper I had laying around - more colors would have been pretty too.

First, I layered a bunch of tissue paper onto the cardboard and adhered it with watered down elmer's glue.  I made the tissue paper a couple of layers thick to make sure the final pinata would be fairly sturdy.

I then cut strips and "fringed" the edges.  I attached the fringe strips with the same watered down elmer's glue concoction and an old paint brush.  The tissue paper made a bit of a mess as you can see on the floor.

I bought a Costco amount of candy for inside the pinata (it being September Costco was, of course, already selling Halloween candy)  It's hard to see in the pictures but I cut about a 3 inch flap in the top of each number to allow me to add candy!

The final result was really cute.  We hung it from a tree in Tom's front yard and it stood up to some good whacking.  It was definitely a fun thing to do for a party! 

Final Touches

 I decided to add a little fabric to the deep V neck making it a little more "movement" friendly (pinned in this picture), as this dress is for a wedding, and, yes, I will be dancing...

The hemline was giving me a headache trying to make it look the way I wanted so I did a little research on how to make a "flounced hem" and decided ultimately that this added much needed length without compromising the lines and silhouette of the dress - I think it actually added character and style!

(back view) 

I'm so pleased with my zipper!!!  $30 zipper foot was worth every penny!

 Posing here with my nude heels on.

 Different lighting (playing with my crappy camera) helps to show the folds and bodice details.

I'm not quite finished with the peacock feather detail, but it's going to look amazing...

Hand Beaded Details

Beaded dress strap

 This is not a very good picture, but I added bead clusters to the nude strap of my bridesmaid dress. 

 close up

 The dress is hemmed and almost finished

 I think I want to do something about the way it kicks out slightly on the left with all the gathers...

But I don't really know how to fix this besides holding it like in the picture above.

Beaded peacock feather detail 

 First I drew out a pattern and stitched it to the netting I'm using as a backing.

 Then I  added iron on interfacing to the "eye" of the peacock feather where most of the beading will be for a little support.

So far this is what I've got.  It is much more sparkly in person.  I may do just the center of the feather on the netting and interfacing and then attach it to the dress and add the feather "whisps" straight onto the dress fabric.

This is all new to me and it's hard to find beading tutorials online for adding beaded details to a dress, so I'm kinda making it up as I go along...

Finally a new painting!

Collage, mixed-media Doggie Portrait.  

Repo, Austin's dog.

I started by collecting items that reminded me of Repo for the background.  His name is collaged into the background along with a puzzle piece, a chinese watch dog, a dragonfly, and a few hand made (years ago) paper leaves.  I painted the background first and then started painting Repo's face, layer by layer.  The leaves and dragonfly are actually the last layer applied on top of the painting with collage glue.

close up