The Masquerade Ball

It was my work's Christmas Party a few weeks ago, and the theme was Masquerade Ball. So I had to make a mask. I'm really pleased with this. Fliss gave me this picture as inspiration.

So I bought a cheap mask and took off the decoration it came with. 

 

Then I set about making a template for a butterfly to stick on top. I tested it by taping the paper to the mask and trying it on to see if it looked right.

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It took me a lot of tries to work out the best shape for it. In the end, I put the mask on top of the paper and drew around the edge of it as a guide, then I drew the top of the wing.

When I eventually had shapes I was happy with, I taped the card onto a piece of foam, which was folded in half, and I cut them out. Taping it all together was a brilliant idea - it made it much easier to cut accurately. Stabbing the thing with a pair of scissors to make the eye hole was a less brilliant idea - nearly five weeks later I can still make out the cut on my finger.

Two days later (after I'd stopped bleeding) I glued this lovely fabric onto the shapes with a standard all-purpose glue, making sure that all the glue was at the back of the mask.

Then I went through my craft drawer and found some bits to decorate it, including the original decoration that came with the mask. I played around with some designs then drew on it with felt pens and glued on my shapes.

After that, it was time to fix something quite annoying about the mask. It came with a ribbon attached to tie around your head. This is stupid because you end up tying your hair in knots. So I tied the ribbon onto a head band (not my idea, but fantastic).

It was time to cut the eye holes out of the fabric. I cut a slit down the middle (carefully this time - with a craft knife). Then I had to glue the wings onto the mask. Taking no chances here, I used superglue. And I pushed the excess fabric through the eye holes, supergluing down at the back.

Finally, my butterfly needed a bug. I cut this shape out of felt (or something very like felt but cheaper) and I glued it in place. For the antennae, I cut a pipe cleaner in half and superglued the pieces in behind the bug's head.

And then I went to the party, with loads of people in masks.

Zombie Pineapple Costume

Yesterday was Halloween. I went out in Lincoln.

I had to wear a costume, because that is what one does on Halloween. Typically people dress for this momentous occasion by wearing whatever costume they can think of... covered in blood. Last night we saw the Teletubbies, covered in blood; Snow White, covered in blood; some angels, covered in blood; and many a nurse, covered in blood (though I suppose it doesn't have to be Halloween for a medical professional to be covered in blood).

And I dressed up as a pineapple... covered in blood!!

The brilliant thing about dressing as a pineapple, is that you don't have to do it authentically. People think of pineapples as bright yellow with brown criss-crosses (which is really really easy to do), but they're actually a greenish-brown with a sort of scale pattern on them and spikes (and this is not very easy to make, or draw). Anywho, you only need to give the impression of pineapple for your costume to be convincing. And that's why this was fun to do, because I got to make it just how I felt like doing it at the time. 

I bought two yellow polo shirts; one medium and one extra large (because those are the sizes they had in the shop). I did try to buy a yellow dress but I couldn't find one, so I decided to wear a top and a skirt instead.

To make a skirt, I cut the XL shirt horizontally just under the sleeves, like so:

Then I turned it inside out and hand stitched across the open ends and cut off the original seams (so I turned the thing around 90 degrees and made the top and bottom into the sides and I made the sides into the top and bottom).

I ironed a hem and a waistband then stitched them in place. Then I ran the whole thing through the sewing machine and unpicked my hand stitches.

I pinned the skirt to a cardboard box to keep it stretched, and I found my fabric pastels. I drew lines like this: first lightly with the brown, then the same but with more pressure, then I drew on top with yellow.

I kept moving the skirt around on the box until I'd drawn all over it.

The I made the top. I cut it up like this:

And I drew on it like I did the skirt. Then I ironed both pieces under brown paper to heat seal the pastels.

I finished the skirt by feeding a piece of elastic through the waistband. We do this by putting a safety pin on the elastic and pushing the pin through.

I decided to make my hair be the green bit that sits on top. I bought some green hairspray (which I had to get off the internet because apparently they don't sell the green in real shops, even at Halloween), and I tied my hair up in a high ponytail then I sprayed it.

All that was left was to cover myself in fake blood.