Can Can Dancer – Page 4 – All Things DIY

DIY Halloween Costume #1 – Glinda

Hello World,

From the my last blog post, it has been established that I love Halloween. I love decorating, making delicious treats, and most of all I love dressing up for Halloween. I think I inherited the love of costumes from my mom, as my mom always had awesome DIY costumes every year growing up.

Recently, I was looking through old photos, and realized many of my mom’s costumes would still be great costumes to worn today. She went digging through her costume bins, and found she still had many of the items needed for each costume. My mom, being a good sport has remade and modeled some of best ones, and I’ll be sharing them all up until Halloween.

To kick off this Halloween costumes series, today I’m first sharing her Glinda costume. (1 Because The Wizard of Oz is still one of my favorite movies. And 2 because the sleeves are just that great.)

The dress she is wearing is actually a bridesmaid dress she wore back in the 80’s. She then tied some glittery pink tulle and ribbon around her waist to add a little more pizzazz, and stuffed her sleeves with tissues to make them even more amazing.

The petticoat she has under the dress is also from the 80’s wedding, and has so many layers of tulle. To pull off a Glinda costume, I’d highly recommend wearing a cage or petticoat to fill out your dress more.

She bought her crown at a Halloween costume story for less than $10 a few years ago. For her wand (you can find similar ones at the dollar store), she tied silver and gold curled ribbon to it to dress it up. She used a 1-inch curling for her hair, and wore glittery and pearl accessories to top off her look.

Happy Costuming!

October 8, 2014October 12, 2014

DIY Glitter Pumpkins

Hello World,

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays (and Christmas and Valentine’s Day). I pretty much just love decorating. (I love costumes too, and those will be the topic of upcoming blog posts.) Recently, I went to JoAnn Fabrics and came across a candy corn color-blocked pumpkin for $24.99. Instead of buying it, I made my own version with a foam pumpkin from the dollar store.

The left photo above is the pumpkin from JoAnn’s, and the right it my DIY version. I didn’t realize until the gold glitter was on the pumpkin that I had gotten my candy-corn colors in reverse. #youhadonejob but let’s just pretend it was a creative spin on it. 🙂

I already had all the supplies on hand, so this project only cost me a dollar! The glitter I bought a while back in a 12 pack from Ross for $4.99, which I have gotten so much use out of. Tutorials for two different versions of the glitter pumpkin are below:

1. Gather your supplies: a foam pumpkin, acrylic paints, coordinating glitters, Mod Podge, a paint brush, and something to shake your glitter over (a paper plate, a placemat, or piece of paper).

2. Cover your pumpkin with white paint as a primer. Allow to dry and do a second coat so your original pumpkin color isn’t visible. Using paint will make it so we need less glitter later. Allow to dry.

3. Now you can go about this two ways: either mix Mod Podge and glitter together and paint that on the top third of your pumpkin, or apply a coat of Mod Podge to the top third of your pumpkin, and shake glitter onto the wet Mod Podge (while holding your pumpkin over your placemat). Give your pumpkin a light shake to rid of excess glitter, and allow that section to dry. Pour excess glitter back into your glitter container.

4. Apply your second color of paint to the middle third of your pumpkin. Allow to dry.

5. Repeat step 3 with your second color.

6. Apply your third color to the bottom third of your pumpkin. Allow to dry.

7. Repeat step 3 with your third color. My pumpkin had a green stem, so I painted the stem black. Allow to dry.

8. If you are afraid of glitter fall-off, apply a thin coat of Mod Podge to your entire pumpkin to seal it.

1. Gather your supplies: a foam pumpkin, acrylic paint, coordinating glitter, Mod Podge, a paint brush, thumbtacks (mine were from the dollar store) and something to shake your glitter over (a paper plate, a placemat, or piece of paper).

2. Cover your pumpkin with paint color of your choice. Allow to dry and do a second coat so your original pumpkin color isn’t visible. Using paint will make it so we need less glitter later. Also, my pumpkin had a green stem, so I painted the stem black. Allow to dry.

3. Now you can go about this two ways: either mix Mod Podge and glitter together and paint that your pumpkin, or apply a coat of Mod Podge to your pumpkin, and shake glitter onto the wet Mod Podge (while holding your pumpkin over your placemat). Give your pumpkin a light shake to rid of excess glitter, and allow that section to dry. Pour excess glitter back into your glitter container.

4. If you are afraid of glitter fall-off, apply a thin coat of Mod Podge to your entire pumpkin to seal it. Allow to dry.

5. Push your thumbtacks into your pumpkin. I did simple vertical lines, following the curve of my pumpkin. If you are afraid of your thumbtacks falling out, you can apply glue to them prior to pushing them into the foam pumpkin.

Aren’t they just so cute! I might actually head back to the dollar store and pick up another one and make a black glitter pumpkin with thumbtacks.

Happy Crafting!

October 4, 2014October 4, 2014

DIY Glitter “Mr. & Mrs.” Letters

Hello World,

Last month, I went to two weddings in the same weekend, 400 miles apart. One of the weddings was a rainbow theme, with black and white accents. As my gift, I made the glitter “Mr. & Mrs.” letters (in the photo above) that were used as decor on the sweetheart table.

1. To make your own glitter letters you will need: large wooden letters, glitter, paint the same color as your glitter, a paintbrush, a paper plate, and Mod Podge or a spray fixative.

2. Begin by completely painting your wooden letters. Painting your letters the same color as your glitter helps so you need less layers of glitter later.

3. Allow paint to dry, and place your first wooden letter on your paper plate.

4. Apply a thin coat of Mod Podge to your letter. (I didn’t have all my supplies, so I applied another layer of wet paint.)

5. While still wet, completely cover the front of your letter with glitter.

6. Apply another layer of Mod Podge to your letter, and add another layer of glitter. (I didn’t have Mod Podge, so I actually used hair spray (with the windows open). I sprayed the letter, and quickly sprinkled more glitter on my letter.)

7. Once you have reached your desired amount of glitter, add one final coat of Mod Podge to help reduce glitter fall off. (I used one final coat of hair spray.)

8. Funnel your excess glitter (on the paper plate) back into your original glitter container. Allow to dry and repeat with your other letters.

Mod Podge would usually be the way to go, but in a pinch, hair spray works like a charm. I would recommend making them outside though as some glitter does wisp into the air, so there is some clean-up involved.

Close up of their cake. Love the flowers on top. Especially that rose- it was so photogenic.

While the cake was for the bride and the groom, they had this great tower of cupcakes for the weddings guests. They had five different flavors, each with a different piped filling.

Happy Crafting!

September 7, 2014