Thursday 20 November 2014

They grow up so fast...

My youngest cousin had her Yr 12 school Formal Tonight

I swear it wasn't that long ago she was just a bratty little 6 yr old.

But now she has grown into a beautiful young woman. I even had her as a bridesmaid in my wedding earlier this year.


So only a few weeks out from her formal, she asks if I can take up her dress for her. No problems there.


Her Formal Dress

Hand sewing part of the Hem up. This kid is lucky I love her.

Then, with just over 1 week to go, our Grandma calls me asking if I could make her a bag to go with it, as she didn't have anything organised.........

So I immediately started rifling through my craft stash for sequins, feathers, bag handles, embellishments...

And came up with this Idea!

My idea for a matching bag

I didn't actually have any black satin in my stash (or if I did I couldn't find it) so I ducked out to the op shops in town. None had any black satin in the fabric sections, so I grabbed a black satin nightie  for $3 to use as fabric. I sent her the above photo on Facebook to see if she liked it and she said just to make it exactly like that. The green satin is part of what I cut from the bottom of her dress and the beaded piece has been in my stash a while, and I think may have originally come from an op shop. The bag handle/clasp is a 9 inch clasp from spotlight. She said all it needs to fit is a pair of flats and her phone (and I would have to assume some make up for touching up) so I think it will be the perfect size.

Even though I wanted to start making it right then, I had other obligations (Testing the EYMM cowl dress, Tafe homework, CWA cooking) I had to wait til the weekend to get into it. I found a few online tutorials for making this kind of bag, which I hadn't actually attempted before now. This Tutorial from Sew4Home was very helpful, plus it had a printable pdf pattern suitable for 8-10" clasps, that I only had to alter slightly to get the shape and size I wanted

Here's a few construction photos:








I didnt take too many construction photos, as I mostly just followed the tutorial, plus I'm not that great at explaining the steps. The last thing I did was carefully hand stitch the beaded applique to the front of the bag.


I'm really happy how this bag turned out, so I will definitely have to make some in this style for myself. I tested to make sure it would fit a pair of my size 8 flatties, which did just squeeze in, so she should have no problem, as her shoes are smaller than mine.

After making the bag (I finished it up Sunday morning) I thought I might make her something to clip in her hair (even though her hair is so fine, it's hard to get anything to stay in it) To keep with the theme of the Feathers on her dress, I picked up a bag of mixed feathers (which had plain black) from the Reject Shop. Then I just glued some to a circle of cardboard in a fan shape that curved to fit against her head, with a center of satin that I had stitched diamontes that were a similar size to those on her dress. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it, but she loved it.

She also asked if I would do her Hair and Make up for her, as she feels, that out of all the people she knows, I'm the best with make up. Well I admit, I was pretty chuffed when she said that. Luckily, I still had all my cosmetics from my wedding (including the ones I got for her) Plus I have a smokey eye kit that I haven't used yet.

We decided on a deep side part with curls, light smokey eye and a nude lip. I also took some nail polish colours along with me, and she decided to paint her nails purple, to contrast with the green of her dress, so we also used a hint of purple eye shadow. I did take some progress photos of her hair and make up, but she might shoot me if I upload them to the internet.

Unfortunately I had to leave to get to my TAFE class in time, so I didn't get to see her in her dress before I left, but here is a lovely photo of her with her boyfriend that she just uploaded to Facebook.



Also one of her with one of her Brothers, where you can almost see the feather fascinator I made. It curves to follow the curve of her head, so is very subtle and went with her dress perfectly!



She's definitely all grown up now.....


Dixie

No comments:

Post a Comment