8 days before a "Mike the Knight" birthday party we get an invitation with the tag line Fancy Dress to Impress! My daughter didn’t not want to go as a knight or a Viking so we loosely settled on a Medieval Princess.
The next day in town I striked it lucky in the local Cancer Research Charity shop, where there was a beautiful Jayne Copeland dress - it needed a little repair - but was a bargin at £4. That was most of the costume sorted, all I would need to do would be to make a cape, and a head dress - job done!
To cut a long story short - by the Saturday morning the cape was mostly made. In the remaining 3 hours I had to finish the cape with brooch, make the headdress and make the card... all this after being up most of the night with a 4 year old with a fever!
The headdress took about 1 hour (with interruptions!)
This is how I made it...
- Take a wire coat hanger and remove the hook part.
- Bend it round into a hoop - a good loose fit as it will be padded out.
- Secure and cover all the wire in tape - I used gaffa tape.
- Wrap scrap cotton fabric around the hoop to pad out the head dress - I used 4 sleeves off my husbands old work shirts. The cuffs were removed and the sleeves cut into approximate 5cm strips.
- Cut strips out the cover fabric - I cut x2 10cm strips of the unused cloak fabric (the fabric was ~140cm wide).
- Turn and press a 2cm hem along one edge of each piece.
- Wrap the pressed fabric around the loop making sure that it is the pressed neaten edge showing.
- On the inside of the hoop hand stitch the edges to stop the fabric from moving and stitch the ends securely.
- Wrap the finished hoop in a contrasting ribbon - I used ~2m of 2.5cm wide gold organza ribbon knotting it at the back.
- On the inside of the hoop hand stitch the ribbon to stop it moving (I didn’t have time for this step and the ribbon had moved by the end of the party!)
- Add some netting decoration - I cut a 50cm piece of gold glitter netting - gathered it up by hand and secured it with the ribbon at the back of the head dress.
The brooch took about 20 minutes - but needed another 40 to dry.
This is how I made it...
- Cut 2 circles out of card - I used cereal boxes and the 2nd smallest Eyelet Circles Die (Spellbinders Nestabilities range)
- Coat each circle with gold embossing powder and heat - I used Papermania gold embossing powder (but this comes out quite dull and has tarnished on cards made in the past).
- Coat each circle with clear embossing powder for an extra glossy finish - I used Stampendous clear embossing powder.
- Glue both circles together - off setting the eyelet holes.
- Punch a hole in the centre and add a "glamorous" jewel button, glue to hold in place.
- Stick smaller gems or pearls into each of the eyelet holes around the edge.
- Coat the gems with a thin layer of a decorative dimensional adhesive - I used glossy accents.
- Leave to dry
Thank you for looking
Regards
Stompy xx
