DIY Halloween Costumes - Coke and Sprite

Want an unusual Halloween costume? Or just an unusual costume for any occasion? Me and my friend hate conventional costumes and wanted to go as something different. After a lot of conversation we decided that Coke and Sprite bottles were the way forward! I wanted to document our hard work, so here's a photo explanation of how its done.

 

We got a meter of tubular material from the Birminham Market and cut it to size. The Sprite bottle needed to be sprayed in order to look authentic.

Shoes from Primark. They were sooo horrible when I bought them but looked suprisingly good after I'd sprayed them. One pound trainers and six pound paint, so a pretty cheap pair of shoes.

Next we drew out our general template for our main writing and went round it so it  was dark enough to trace onto the sheet that we were going to cut it out from.

Paint the writing with fabric paint so that it shows up more clearly when you put it onto your fabric.

We wanted to look exactly like the sticker on the bottle so we made most of the signs so we looked more like bottles than just girls in coke and sprite dresses! We put our own cheesy touches like the 100% sugar (above)

When my friend put on her dress the green paint stretched and looked less obviously so, because it was just the easiest way around it, I spray painted her whilst she was wearing it. I took precautions (above) and she was left with green legs for two days. This technique is not advised!

Once all the bits were cut out we had to hot glue gun them onto the dresses. Unfortunately, the material was too stretchy so we had to glue them on whilst wearing them. This is a very painful procedure due to the heat of the glue, so wasn't the cleverest of ideas but we endured it and get everything on.

Hot glue gun the little bits that've been missed on yourself so that it is entirely stuck. This is very hot so be aware! 

It's wise to use a piece of paper under the dress when gluing with boiling glue onto your skin, especially our your bum and stomach!

I made a quick, pretty crappy collage of all the little bits of my friends Sprite costume, we were thorough and made most of the little silly things on the bottle. We put in our own cheesy little jokes for our own amusement by putting '100% sugar' and 'served seriously chillin'', we even wrote 'best before end see neck of bottle' and wrote the date on our actual necks; we thought about everything!

 

And so, after three days and like a million glue gun burns we were finished and ready for Halloween, even though we weren't scary! But that's what's best about these costumes, you can wear them to any costume party! Next year we have said we'll be Budweiser and Carling!

The nails, coke/sprite top earrings and even 'drink me' underwear, are DIY, no cheating whatsoever!

Irregular Choice

My blog is about making your own stuff to make yourself unique, and Irregular Choice has some of the most unique stuff ever, these shoes being my favourite! You could, of course, make your own, but only if you have that many $100 bills; it's probably easier to just buy them from www.irregularchoice.com 

Get a signature item - DIY

Polly Pocket has always been a nickname and as a kid I played with them non-stop. Which is why this necklace is my signature necklace that is special to me and not on sale which makes it all the more unique. Find something that means something to you and make it wearable! If you want to put something on a necklace like this one, drill a very narrow hole in the center of the top of your pendant and fill with superglue. Cut an eye pin  to the right length, put it in the hole and leave it to set. Then, when its secure, thread a chain through it and wear you're unique accessory when you wish. Try it with necklaces, rings, earrings or bracelets; my sister Daisy even got her signature symbol, a daisy, tattooed on her back. 

Make it your own! 

Jaguar Skills

I listen to this when I'm sewing, hotglue-gunning, sketching or just thinking up new outfits. It's the kind of track you can listen to whenever. 

DIY Collarbone denim shirt

Adjust your old denim shirt and refresh your look. 

Use a ruler and a pencil to draw the shape you're going to cut out, going in with a freehand cut is risky because you want the cut to be straight. Make a cut right in the middle of the shape and very carefully scissor out the panel making sure you get all of the material from the side of the button strip so it goes straight up onto the collar. And that's pretty much it. Tidy up the sides so that it looks neat and professional and button it up! You can create a preppy look with coloured shorts or jeans or dress it up with a body-con skirt and heels. Have fun!

Ps. the collar acts as a necklace so no need for neck accessories, but make sure you button it right up otherwise you wont get the right effect.  

Animal Print Shoes

I am in the process of making a pair of shoes, and seeing as my two very favorite things are shoes and animal print, this blog is my favorite thing ever at the moment!

I'm buying some but I want to see some outfit ideas, so if you have any animal print trainer (or sneaker) outfits, I'd love to see how you pull them off!
Click here to check out animal-print-shoe.blogspot.com

Mad Future

Promoting www.madfuture.com

I made the 'Supreme'-looking label on Powerpoint - copy and pasting specific letters from an example alphabet with the 'Supreme' font - which is by the way Futura Bold Italic if you want to use it. I also had the t-shirt made at Oasis market in Birmingham, but it's easy enough to make a 'Vogue' tee, - or anything you like - with a plain tee and some transfer paper. 

Snapette - shoe and bag lovers

My dad is the best at finding new apps. This one is a photo sharing app for specifically shoes and bags, but it's similar to Instagram. If you're like me and own a silly amount of shoes, or make your own, Snapette is the perfect place to get your stuff out there! It's free, so get it now.

Nose Ring

Okay obviously I didn't pierce my own nose but alot of people don't think you can get it done with a ring initially; you can. It doesn't even hurt that much, they use a needle though, so it's a bit longer than gun but other than the burn any other piercing you get, it doesn't have any more pain than a lobe piercings. These are my favorite shots of it, and it gave me a good opportunity to play with filters. Bored, yeah. 

It's my new favorite accessory!  

Advice - clean with a cotton bud everyday, don't change the ring to a smaller one too quickly, it's bigger to allow swelling. 

Boring t-shirts? Here's one of the ways to refresh an overworn tee. Turn your tee inside out so as not to damage the front and draw a straight line from top to bottom and side to side in the middle of your tee. This way, when you draw your heart, it'll be relatively central. So that's the next job. And then all that's left is to cut it; fold some of the material in the middle of the heart to get your cut going.
And your done! The heart may be misshapen but it'll just move when you do.

PS. you CAN see your bra, so be careful with that!

                                  

Take photos

I have this thing where I have to make an effort everyday. I think about who I'm going to see that day and whether they've seen that outfit. And then I get confused about what outfits I've worn! If you're like me and hate looking the same too often just take a photo in your outfit each day. If you do it in the same mirror it is so much easier when you're looking through your previous outfits because it is only your clothes that have changed in the picture!
By doing this you'll remeber what you wore last time you saw someone in particular and it's a good way of remebering what outfits you want to wear again!
Ps. if you have an iPhone you can even put your photos into a seperate 'outfit album' - I'm not sure whether you can do this on other phones, give it a go!

DIY hotpants

So I’ve been all over hot pants this summer and since I have way too many pairs of high-waisted shorts had to buy some.

I bought these powder pink denim hot pants from Topshop and paid £34 I wear them a lot but the price stopped me from buying another pair from the same place which I loved just as much. So I thought what better than to make them?
Find yourself a pair of jeans that fit and that you don’t want as jeans any more (I went for black due to my stupid amount of blue denim shorts.) As with everything, fold the legs and cut the majority of the leg off. Once most of the leg that’s getting in the way is gone, keep the jeans folded and cut in a diagonal line upwards - this way they wont be too long and able to be folded, which differentiates them from shorts, hot pants are meant to be very short! Try them on and adjust the cut accordingly. It’s likely that, if the jeans are a thin denim, that they wont fray nicely like shorts you buy in a shop, even if you try with a scissor blade. So my advise would be to fold the uneven bits (because I know better than anyone it is IMPOSSIBLE to cut in a perfectly straight line) pin, and sew.      

And your done. A pair of hot hotpants recycled from jeans you done want anymore! Certainly cheaper than buying them, more fun and, the reoccurring advantage, no one else has them!

Topshop vs DIY

I haven’t sewn all the way around my shorts yet, so I’ve been wearing them with one leg untidy, DON’T BE LAZY!
Ps. If the jeans are too tight for you they will be difficult to wear as hotpants as they will be too revealing and tasteless, hotpants are sexy, but make sure they fit well and you pull the off with class. I’m sure you can J

Swimming costume comment

A french woman came over to me on to the beach today and told me that my DIY swimming costume (http://catwalktocomputer.blogspot.com/2011/08/cut-out-swimming-costume.html) was beautiful.
It's always nice to hear that random pedestrians like what you're wearing but I promise, it feels so much better when you've spent time making that item of clothing yourself. It's so worth it!

DIY Beach Bag

Now, I was on holiday at this point travelling from one place to another by train only, so a sewing machine was not an option (in fact, I had to buy a sufficient amount of thread from a German market.) I had no pins and no idea what this piece of nonsense material would turn out to be, but as it had cost me nothing but a very small amount of luggage space I thought I’d just do what I do best and give it a risky go! (if you’re much like me and make rash assumptions and always hope for the best with your needle and thread, this blog will be very much up your street!) So, start at the bottom with your needle (or if you’re lucky, sewing machine) and stitch from the corner to the place where you want the opening of your bag. MAKE SURE THE MATERIAL IS INSIDE OUT! That way your stitching will be on the insde and you can turn it back when your done and it'll look almost professional! (Keep the bag tied at the top and when you get to the area you think you’d like the opening untie and see if you have enough room to fit your beach/holiday essentials.) Once you are happy with that side of your bag do exactly the same on the other side, making sure you have stopped sewing at the same point on the other side. (make sure little holes are sewn up, if any, at the bottom of your bag to prevent your headphones etc. from falling out.)

The two ends of your material tied acts as a handle so there is no fiddly-ness with that, simply untie your knot when you want to get stuff out. And that’s it! Okay so if you hand stitched it took you a while and it isn’t as well crafted as a bought beach bag, but it’s your own creation and cost you nothing, and that is always something to be proud of!

(mine is a little long and does, when stuffed full of towels and sun lotion, look a bit like a Christmas stocking, but I didn’t mind too much. If yours looks long and stocking-like, just untie your ‘handle’ and cut it shorter before sewing so that the bag hangs less low.) Have fun!

I didn’t have room for a beach bag in my case this summer holiday so I thought I’ll buy one there, beaches are surrounded with shops selling beach related items. However, unemployment does not help when all the beach bags are 20 odd euros! So I thought, I have some left over material from a long, garish skirt that I made into shorts, I’ll put it to good use. I'd cut a very long strip of material from the bottom of the skirt in order to make it short enough to make into shorts. This strip of material was about 200 mm wide and 2 metres in length. If you’re going to make a beach bag in the same way that I did make sure that it isn’t less than 200mm it width or it make be too narrow to make into a bag.
Here is the simple way of going about it. Lay the long strip of material out before you and fold it in half. Tie the two ends of the material in a double knot so that it creates a makeshift ‘handle’ that you are able to put over your shoulder.

DIY Leather/Denim Shorts

Note - if they’re not the exact same length after cutting don’t cut again because of the risk of them being too short, just fold one hem up more, pretty self explanatory really.
And you’re done! You saved yourself 20 pound and you’ve got shorts that no-one else does! Do it.
Ps. Always keep your left over material you never know when it’ll be useful.

Ever been to a vintage store? The shorts there are always so nice, and usually handmade from old jeans. But why pay £35 for shorts that another person has made when you can buy your own old jeans! Charity shops or carboot sales are the best target for old-man jeans and usually they’re not expensive! I got a pair of leather trousers from a vintage/junk shop in Germany for 9 euros and they’re surprisingly good quality. MAKE SURE your leather trousers or jeans are too big for your hips and fit on your waist for high-waisted shorts, plus if they fit nicely on your legs then they’ll be way too tight when you roll them up - a common mistake I made a lot! So once you’ve got a perfect pair of jeans or leather trousers, the hard part’s over. All you need now is a pair of scissors. In order to make sure the legs are the same length fold the jeans/trousers in half and cut each leg together. Put them on and fold the hem up whilst you’re wearing them in order to make sure they’re even.