My DIY version of Elsa's princess dress from the Disney movie "Frozen"

A month ago, my dear friend Angela asked if I could help with her daughter's birthday dress. She was having a princess theme party and the birthday girl Leila wanted to be Elsa, the snow Queen from Frozen. First I said.. Elsa who? lol yep you guess it right. I don't have any kids.. 

My friend explained  how the dress is sold out everywhere and handed me a H&M dress with a similar style and colour. She asked me if I could add fabric in the back to make a cape.. I already knew that I wanted to add way more than just a cape!

At first, I must admit I did not believe my friend when she said it was sold out and I went to the store to see the Frozen merchandise. I  was curious to see if I would find some Elsa shoes and I wanted to see the cape and maybe find the dress! How hard can this be to find a simple Disney dress?  I am used to sourcing all kind of impossible unusual clothing for jobs.. ha ha ha ha ha ha well she was right and I wasted my time. I left the Disney Store and I made my way to the fabric store. I had to get crafty!

Here is what I used to transform the H&M summer dress into a princess Elsa dress:

- Sewing machine

- Light weight fabric

- Sequins knit fabric  

- Fabric spray paint

- Ribbons with silver details

- Tulle with glitter in it

- Snowflakes charms

- Silver acrylic paint  

- Glitter glue in tube

- More glitters 

  

For the bodice of the dress, I used a stretchy sequinned knit Fabric and made it with a dropped V waistline, or also call a basque waist.. an important detail for a princess dress! Then I embellished the neckline with a pretty ribbon and I sew a little snowflake charm. The H&M dress was still underneath it all, it actually worked as a lining since the sequinned fabric was a little bit sheer. 

To make the skirt part fuller, I added a few layers of sparkly tulle. I also sew little snowflakes charms everywhere on the skirt that I got at my local jewellery supply store. Finally, I sprayed the entire skirt with sparkly fabric paint. Et voila!

Now for the cape.. I used the best polyester lining I could find. It's not ideal but it was the perfect color, light weight and I knew I could paint on it! I added a ribbon trim to the cape and then I drew my Frozen design on the fabric with silver acrylic paint. Finally, I added glittery fabric glue to add more glitter to my design. There was glitter everywhere. Actually, there is still glitters everywhere..

Here is the final result.. Princess Leila was happy! :)

Here I am doing face painting on a pirate and princess Jasmine from Aladdin :)

My friend Angela makes the best cake.. every years her cakes are so much fun! Check out this awesome Beauty and the Beast cake! 

Happy birthday Leila! Love you xxx

Heidi Klum is the queen of Halloween!

One costume I am always looking forward to see is Heidi Klum! She always have the most amazing, crazy and unusual WTF costumes! She sure knows how to dress to impress! Since 2001, Heidi Klum has been throwing amazing Halloween bash. In fact, her party is the celebrities go-to Halloween every year! And this year.. her costume is just amazing and I absolutely LOVE her skinless body costume! Each year, her outfits are made by the very talented fashion designer; Martin Izquierdo. Notice how she always wear her fangs?

  2011: Heidi as a skinless body

And .. again for 2011 is Heidi and Seal as a monkey!! LOL

2010 Heidi and Seal dressed up as robots

2009 Heidi and Seal dressed as black crows

2008: Heidi Klum as an Indian goddess

2007: Heidi Klum as a cat

2006: Heidi Klum as a sinful apple. She was 8 month pregnant!

 In 2005 Heidi was a bat girl

Klum dressed up as a red witch in 2004

In 2003: Heidi came from another planet and landed on Earth as a golden alien. She arrived the party via UFO!

Klum dressed up as sexy Betty Boop in 2002

In 2001: Heidi came dressed as Lady Godiva arrived at the party on a horse!!

Cupcake costume à la mode!

I absolutely LOVE Halloween! Free candy everywhere, fun spooky decorations and best of all.. we get to play dress up! I especially love how some people really put a creative effort on their costume. This year, my costume was.. an "out of the box" challenge!

A week ago I received a phone call from the Toronto Star asking me if I was interested to participate in the Halloween "out of the box" challenge for the Living Section. They were asking a 12 years old boy, a crafty dad and myself to make a Halloween costume using a box. A few days later, there was a picture of me in the Toronto Star.. dressed as a cupcake!! 

The challenge consisted in making a Halloween costume out of a 6-cubic-foot box, paint and a roll of tinfoil. So many ideas came to my mind but I really wanted to make a cupcake!

The challenge also allowed me to add 3 other elements of my choice. So I added a lampshade to create the base of the cupcake, the fabric for the icing and I used Styrofoam balls for stuffing,  to make the silver balls and for the cherry on top! 

 

Et voilà! My "Cupcake à la mode" costume..

 

 

View the full Toronto Star article HERE