Creating a costume, headdress or prop when you don't a lot of money is an art. Especially if your sewing skills are pretty basic, like mine. I'm a proud glue gun expert and while I would like to have the means, time and talent to create couture/fine art costumes for now I've had to rely on my sheer will power and some glue sticks...and some hand stitching. In these posts I'm going to explain how I crafted some of my favorite costumes on a dime.
THe Butterfly! Painting a costume
Photo by Debora Spencer
What I used: Tissue silk, paints for silk, sequins, sleeves of blouse, intuition
How much it cost: The supplies (silk, paints, sequins) about $50
The Lowdown: One of my all time FAVORITE costumes that I made ages ago is this butterfly. I had no plan to follow but had just finished a large painting of a butterfly and was determined to make a costume. I got some tissue silk and cut out the wings and then painted on them with paints specifically for silk. It's like making a watercolor on fabric. Then I added sequins to the silk but in retrospect I wish I had added tiny rhinestones. I attached the wings to the sleeves of an old blouse. I took an old bra and bottoms and went to town on them with sequins...again this was one of my first costumes and I would use rhinestones now (which costs more!). Then I ....oh wait ..that's it! The rest is mechanics magic but the basis of this costume is pretty simple, wonderful and pretty affordable.
How much it cost: The supplies (silk, paints, sequins) about $50
The Lowdown: One of my all time FAVORITE costumes that I made ages ago is this butterfly. I had no plan to follow but had just finished a large painting of a butterfly and was determined to make a costume. I got some tissue silk and cut out the wings and then painted on them with paints specifically for silk. It's like making a watercolor on fabric. Then I added sequins to the silk but in retrospect I wish I had added tiny rhinestones. I attached the wings to the sleeves of an old blouse. I took an old bra and bottoms and went to town on them with sequins...again this was one of my first costumes and I would use rhinestones now (which costs more!). Then I ....oh wait ..that's it! The rest is mechanics magic but the basis of this costume is pretty simple, wonderful and pretty affordable.
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