Patience....

What a month!
Hang on....let me catch my breath! Whew!


Today, Moon Mama and the Hannimal are featured on Offbeat Mama!
That candy wrapper dress we created is making a name for itself, it seems.

  

LOVE this site!
And its sister sites--- Offbeat Home and Offbeat Bride
My kinda stuffs.


So...perhaps you've noticed that I haven't been blogging so much lately....
We've been SO crazy busy!
Sam graduated high school, moved out and went to work, and will be starting classes at UGA in the fall.
Hannah is moving on to high school in the fall.
We got a pair of bunnies, then had to give them away (alas! my allergies!)
Hannah went to Orlando with her dad and step-family last week.


Oh and ....
have I mentioned that I'm about to open my own space in Athens??
Ah yes! Finally!
The Moon Mama gets her own fantabulous space to create and offer healing in!

The amazing space across the hall from the Canadian's studios became available, and he has been running himself ragged renovating it for me.
It's an awesome space all on its own, oozing with character, but it did need a bit of work...extending walls all the way up to the ceiling, expanding the electrical and such. It has an outrageously high ceiling, with three arched windows (at least 8' tall!) overlooking the city. The building, smack-downtown Athens, is very old, and burned in the early 80's, so the space has charred beams and window trim, and original cracked plaster.
Those things I'll be leaving alone, but I'm planning to paint the drywall, finish the flooring and ..... I'm so excited...the Canadian is building me a loft with a HUGE storage area behind it!

Of course, I'll be posting photos of the progress, but it has been slow-going thus far (it is HOT down here! It must be 400* in there in the middle of the day! Ok, not really 400*, but you get the idea...it's HOT).


I'm so excited to have not only a space in which to create to my little heart's content, but in which to offer both Reiki and coaching sessions, but more about that later.


I hope to have my new site up very very soon, which is located at Over the Moon Creative Possibilities


Patience....patience.....

Voila`!

The candy wrapper dress is done.
The dance is over.
She didn't wear the outfit I'd worked so diligently on, but that's ok; she looked beautiful anyway.

 

Did it hurt my feelings?
Enh.. little bit, but all along I'd realized this project was as much for me as for her.
So now I have this amazing dress, which I'll soon place on Etsy. It's all good.

In my rush to get this project completed, I'm afraid I did not remember to stop and photograph each step.
After the last photos posted here, I sewed the bodice to the skirt, and was very unhappy....the wrappers on the bodice just didn't "match" the ones on the skirt; they didn't belong together.
I also realized there was no way a ruffled flounce was going to be attached to this dress. I created the sleeves/flounces and saw that it looked more like armor than a ruffle!  Bleh!
At this point, I took the dress outside and hung it on the mimosa tree, spraying the entire creation with teal dye, letting it run and drip randomly. Awesome!
This not only filled in the "blank" spaces of fabric, but helped the wrappers to "blend" together better.

The flounces would've finished off the dress edges, and since that didn't pan out, I was faced with a new dilemma--- what to do with all those raw edges.
Enter the duct tape I'd purchased.
I trimmed the entire dress edge with hot pink duct tape. Ooooh----VERY unhappy!
It was far too bright and shiny compared to the dress itself!
I immediately added a teal tape edge over the pink.  Better, but still SO shiny!
Mod Podge to the rescue!
A coat of matte Mod Podge saved the day, dulling that tape just enough to more closely match the dress.

This was a wrap-style dress, and to cut down on bulk, I chose not to add a tie-belt, but instead used snaps at the waist.
This left the dress a little plain, so I used one of the sleeve flounces to create a large rosette by rolling, pleating and hand-stitching. When it looked like a flower, I stitched it to a large safety pin and attached it at the waist.

I wasn't happy with the way the skirt hung (and with a real live curvy human being inside, it had a gap at the bottom of the wrap overlay), so I created a petticoat from muslin and hot pink tulle.
The plain muslin begged to be hosed down with that teal dye from earlier, so out it went to the mimosa.
The way the dye dripped and puddled into the tulle was delicious!

It was only then that I realized I hadn't remembered to take photos of the steps!
So I packed up the dress, the petticoat and a wig from my collection (don't you love the way it matches the dress?) and sent it all off to the studio with the Canadian to be photographed. His prissy little mannequin is just not the same as a real feminine body, but she'll do.

I love my dress, but now I have all these candy wrappers, and a million ideas....
I don't think this is over.....not yet.
All along I'd been contemplating a matching clutch and pumps.
And I'm in love with that petticoat....
No, I do not think this is over..... 
*maniacal laughter*

A Little More Crazy....

Just sharing the progress of the candy wrapper dress today----

The bodice back

Bodice fronts, also known as the "breast plates"

 

A portion of the skirt

Bodice front, all sewn together

Bodice back, attached to front

Today I'm heading up to complete the flouncing---it's ready to Mod Podge the papers on--- then we'll be ready to start sewing all the parts together!
We've also acquired some hot pink and some teal Duck Tape, possibly for binding the edges (I don't think that hemming is a real possibility).

More later....stay tuned....