How I Became Truly Outrageous For One Night Part 1

It all began a month ago, when I received an e-vite to my cousins surprise 40th birthday party. The theme of the party was the 1980's and at the request of the host, I was to dress in costume. I knew immediately who I wanted to be for that night. I wanted to be "Jem" from the cartoon Jem. The cartoon was a show that I watched in the afternoons, after school. The plot was odd, the musical inserts awkward, but I loved it. My 9 year old self was cheering me on as I began plotting out my costume. A little over a week before the party, I decided to dig out a dress that I'd intended to wear, only to decide that it was all wrong. I then needed to start from scratch. So, I pulled out a pile of ball gowns that I'd acquired over the years and dove right into the design process. After some internet research, and sitting through a few episodes of the cartoon on Netflix, I'd finally had the design perfected. The building of the dress began the next day. Over the course of the week, I worked on the dress and little bit at a time. When I had pockets of spare time, I worked on the accessories. Here is how it all worked out....

Using a t-shirt as a template, I first marked the top part of a pink gown that I wanted to cut out, creating the starting point for the bodice.

Then, I used the dress that I'd originally intended to wear I and used that to mark out the bottom of the dress. I cut off the top and the bottom and was left with a new starting point.

I sewed along the top and bottom edges to clean up the seams. I pinned the tulle underneath so that it matched up with the new hem line.

I wanted the dress to have more lavender and purple color on it. So, I mixed blue and red food coloring with rubbing alcohol and painted the mixture to the front part of the dress. I let it dry over night and repeated the process the next day. I splashed and dripped water onto the treatment to create a watercolor look to the dress.

Once it was dry, I took a sheer black fabric from another gown and added that to the bottom of the gown.

Then, I took a bow from the pink gown and attached that to the dress, for added flair."Jem'' loved to wear dresses with bows.

I used pieces from a vintage pattern to cut out more material to add to the top of the dress.

For a final bit of flair, I dress stars of various sizes and shades with crayon onto paper. Using a warm iron, I transferred the stars onto the dress. The stars didn't transfer completely, but I like the look of the stars being slightly faint. The end result was a fabulous dress for a "Jem" look and it was pretty darn snazzy. 

I will give more details about the accessories in the next blog. It is Earth Day today, so I wan to go do some yard work with Fred. I hope you have a splendid day. Until next time~ Toodhaloo!