Thrift Store Thursday Throwback

For today's Thrift Store Thursday, I'd like to show you a little something I made from a thrift store find.

A beautiful, very historically correct water pistol

Spraypainted a matte black

Rubbed with a few different colors of Rub n Buff

Add some bits n bobs and Voila! a steampunk pistol

A few other thing I made and strung together on a thrift store belt, using curtain rings to attach

Everything on my body is thrifted

And that is your Thrift Shop Thursday Throwback Tutorial, or TSTTT. Catchy no?

Autumn Queen Crown Part One

For the Historical Fortnightly Challenge for Fairy Tale, I  wanted to make up my own Fairy Tale with an older woman as the protagonist. One of the things I was inspired by was the Dolce and Gabbana crown from their 2013 collection.

I like the Byzantine feel of this

Here's a closeup

This is a different one, but I wanted a closeup for reference

I wanted to make something similar. I found several tutorials on Pinterest for lace crowns and it had potential. I found some cotton lace at Beverly's and bought a half yard for about $3.00

Very happy find

First I wrapped a wig stand in plastic wrap so it wouldn't stick to it.

No idea why this is sideways. It wasn't when I uploaded it. Odd.

I whipstitched the crown together after fitting it to my head and then sprayed it with this stuff

It wasn't particularly stiff or quik. I needed about five coats and I dried it overnight.

Most of the photos I've seen online looked like Lace sprayed Gold. I want mine to look like gold shaped into lace. After I let the lace dry overnight, I mixed up some Rub n Buff with some Diamond Glaze and painted it on.

Rub n Buff contains real metal powder

I had no idea if this would work, but I've used it to seal paper beads and it works really well on those

After letting the painted on gold dry overnight, I have this.

It still looks like painted lace, but the rub n buff makes it a little less delicate which I like

Tonight, I'm going to go to town with beads and baubles and shiny things. Stand by!

American Duchess Giveaway

American Duchess is giving away a pair of their new Nankeen boots.From the site:

 Nankeens are a later Regency fabric boot with leather soles, adjustable lacing closure, and a soft, round toe. They are perfect for daywear, intended for outdoor use, and are even dyeable (purple, red, blue, oh my!) You can learn more about the boots here.

Death Comes to Pemberly

I have a love/hate relationship with sequels written for classic books. If they are done well, I love them. I read P.D. James' book "Death comes to Pemberly" with a little trepidation, but she is an excellent mystery writer and obviously has a great deal of respect and love for Jane Austen, so I enjoyed it immensely. BBC did a beautiful production. The story itself is gripping and interesting and the characters are true to to Pride and Prejudice, and I loved the casting.

First Elizabeth Bennett. We know that she is "the second prettiest of the five Bennett sisters" I don't think she is meant to be a great beauty. Darcy starts to find her more beautiful the more he gets to know her and specifically mentions her "fine eyes" Anna Maxwell Martin is not a smack you in the face beauty, but she really is very lovely in the way she carries herself and the intelligence you can see in her eyes. I first noticed her in Bleak House and I remember wondering why everyone kept falling in love with her and then understanding it more and more as the show went on.

So pretty and simple

I love her costumes too. They are not gaudy even though she is now very wealthy. She wears simple clothes that are made from beautiful fabrics. Exactly what Elizabeth would do I suspect.

Darcy is portrayed by Mathew Rhys. Best know to American audiences as Kevin on Brothers and Sisters. He's not gorgeous, but neither is Colin Firth. It's the way they hold themselves that makes the difference. I love the dignified way he holds himself, but also the way his face can soften when he looks at Elizabeth or his son.

And his pants aren't TOO tight either

 Lydia Wickham is silly and impulsive and young. She is played by Jenna Coleman (Clara!) and runs around mostly in dishabille, since she's in distress for most of the show.But she also wears a fabulous military inspired redingote to match her dashing Captain Wickham.

The impossible Lydia

 I watched the whole thing on You Tube, but I'm not sure how long that will be possible.

More of the cast

GBACG Raffle Score

On Saturday, Ken and I went to the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild open house. As well as being the yearly guild meeting, there was a really fun Fashion Show and a raffle. Here are some great picture photos from Georgia McKenzie Photo's from GBACG. I scored big time, thanks in no small part to Ken using his raffle win to scoring me this beauty...

11 yards of orange and blue plaid silk..What?!?

I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but it may end up looking something like this

There was another bolt, but that was scored by the lovely Melissa. This could have resulted in fisticuffs, but since she's obviously a pretty awesome person with great taste, we may become great friends instead.

Here are some of the other tasty treats I won.

Now I can make something to wear over my Dickens gown

I love the Romantic Era!

I can use this to make some kind of awesome period hairpiece

I think this was originally a sheet, and it's definitely a polyester blend, but I think some kind of groovy 60's thing needs to happen here

Walking Skirt

The holidays are almost over and I have all kinds of ideas in my head of what to make. Part of me wants to start sewing some stuff for my 'real' wardrobe, but I've lost a great deal of weight and plan on losing a little more so I want to wait so I can make things that are more fitted  I want to make some new stays and I want to work on my 18th century court dress and so on, and so on.

One of the things that has occurred to me as I began this process is, although I do want to make some pretty pretty princess things, I also like the idea of "who would I be if I lived then?" What would I wear as a real person. I also find a lot of great shirts that I would like to make into shirtwaists, so I'm going super basic. I'm making myself a walking skirt. I have about six yards of cotton twill which will be perfect. At some point, I will start using some of the pattern books I own, like Janet Arnold, but as I'm learning, I need premade patterns to begin from.

guess which one I'm making?

I picked this pattern, because it has the skirt pattern in two lengths and the shirtwaist pattern. The skirt seems pretty straight forward so far. Its 7 gores with a kick pleat in the back. Its only been straight seams so far, I'll let you know how it goes when I get to the anything funky.

I don't have a single event to wear this to, but I think it will get plenty of use in the future since it's a very practical skirt.