A vintage print skirt

Okay so one bored day I turned to Buzzfeed and came across this list of best Disney outfits and I noticed that there was sooooooo much Frozen in the top 20. I honestly can't say I'm surprised I really like the look of the folk dresses with so much embroidery and stripes and gold trim and petticoats. Its just too much amazingness!

So today I have yet another skirt that reminds me of Princess Anna from Frozen. Mostly its the vertical stripe and floral print although it is in quite summary colours, something you  would not see in Arendelle.

I absolutely love the volume of this skirt, it has a small slip built in with the lace around the bottom to give it extra oomph and make it look that bit extra Disney princess.

For my hair I managed to tuck all my fringe into the hair roll although it did make it a bit poofy. But I thought it suited this look quite well.

Do you have any outfits that make you feel like a Disney Princess?

Outfit details:

Hat: Vintage via ebay

1960s Necklace: Vintage fair

Blouse: Boden via charity shop

Skirt: Vintage via ebay

Bag: Vintage via Sue Ryder

Casual Cosplay: Frozen, the cold never bothered me anyway...

And now its time for the second instalment of my frozen double bill.

After that amazing effort by Liz to make a costume for her daughter (see more on that here), I was inspired to have a go at a frozen inspired look. I didn't go into full cosplay mode, but rather picked outfit parts that I felt were part inspired by the films signature style. I call it Casual Cosplay.

Of course let me start off by saying I am far more of an Anna than an Elsa and as such I tried to dress accordingly.

I actually started with the hair. I felt like after spending the pervious day with a double Dorothy plait (more on that later) I thought I'd have a go at Anna's up do from the coronation party act.

I'd like to add first that it was way more difficult than is realised and my hair would not play ball. I think I've gotten used to styling a certain way and now anything else seems impossible. The biggest issue was that it was simply too short for the back section to work properly, but oh well, I made do. Let's just say my husband was hysterical at the faces I pulled while trying to do this particular hair style - here are some of them:

I separated it into sections making sure to leave enough for the plait. I then plaited the top bit and pinned it under a high pony that I made into a bun using a hair doughnut. Anna's hair is more complicated than that at the back but mine was way to short to cope with anything more than a bun.

In terms of rating I'd say it was satisfactory, but requires improvement.

As for the rest of the costumes, I loved the folky themes of the heavy skirts with stripe and print details and I adore the light blue/green/pink/black colour palate. Here are a few examples:

Signature costumes:

Image from KidzWorld

Coronation costumes:

Image from Disney Wikia

The outfit I went with was very blue overall. I have a folk style vintage skirt in blue and black with a lovely embroidered stripe that really fits in with the Scandinavian and Nordic feel of the films.  In fact, had it been green, I think it would have been quite like Anna's skirt.

Of course I needed a cape too! And my vintage cape in blue was a perfect choice as the colour matched so well.

I think the overall look was okay-ish, although perhaps not the combination I would usually put together all at once...

Skirt: Vintage shop in York

Cape: Sue Ryder York

Boots: Clarks

Blouse: Monsoon (thrifted)

Pearls: Thrifted

Suede gloves: Accessorize (thrifted)

What do you think of my frozen style look?

Have you tried to dress a bit like Elsa or Anna?

   

                                                       

Guest post: Making a child's Elsa from Frozen costume

Hello readers! Today I have the first part of a Frozen double bill.

Costuming is a hobby of all ages, but it is something that is more associated with younger children than adults. Since I don't have and little 'uns this is not something I've ever been able to cover on my blog which is a real shame as it is such a big part of costuming. 

However, when Liz, a friend of mine, decided to make a costume for her daughter based on Disney Princess Elsa, I simply had to ask her to write a quick post for me!

Here we go:

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My daughter Izzy is obsessed with Elsa, but i refused to pay £40 for a costume, especially after I read the terrible reviews about how it fell apart when people got it home.  So I told her to save up, started giving her pocket money to help her understand how much things cost and started secretly making it. 

I haven't made anything like this before - I made a corset for GCSE art. Well I say I made it, my nan took over (I don't think she thought I was doing it properly, in my head I was making art from textiles, in her head it had to be wearable including a lining etc...). I also made my daughter a bridesmaid dress for my wedding with the help of my mother in law. We used a pattern for that. So that is basically my knowledge of making clothes, I don't really like patterns or drawing things before i do them (hey never end up the way I draw them and I find it hard to draw accurately what is in my head). 

I have made other items though, one year I think all my friends got scrunchies for Christmas because I'd learnt how to make them and was on a roll! When I was younger I made lots of cross stitch cards (i did a larger picture but on and off it took about 10 years) and quilting and patchwork cushions. Recently my Daughter has had me making barbie clothes which I found quite fiddly. 

I mostly hand sew as I don't own a sewing machine and lack of experience with them means I'm not sure what I'm doing.

Obviously making a fancy dress outfit is a bit different to anything I have previously done - someone else has designed it for a start. I started out by looking at images of what i wanted to make and then making a basic dress shape by tracing around one of Izzy's tops on a large piece of paper. I went to a local fabric shop and found materials I thought might do the job. I cut around my pattern and pinned it to the fabric, when I was happy I drew the pattern on the dress (washable pen!) then cut out the bits of material leaving extra fabric for the seams. Then it was a case of sewing the bits together which took a while - would have been much quicker with a machine. I have never done sleeves before in my life so was pretty impressed with how they turned out. 

Elsa pattern cutting

After I had the basic dress put together i washed it to get rid of the pen. Then added a layer of sequinned material over the body and some strips of sequins down the front to keep the sequinned material in place. I used velcro to fasten it at the back and added layers of sparkly fine organza behind and a few beads to the front. The sparkly bit in the middle at the front is actually from one of my dolls outfits from when i was little. The neckline was made to look a bit neater by folding ribbon over it and sewing it down.Lastly i added some silver ribbon to the top as it was looking a little low cut and the edge of the other fabric looked a bit of a mess. When she tried it on it kept falling off her shoulders so I added the bit of blue and silver ribbon at the back. 

I know Elsa doesn't wear a cape but unlike her my daughter does feel the cold and as she tends to want to wear them out and about i made her a little cape to go with it. I think it looks quite wintery anyway and she rather likes it.

Unknown  to me my mother had bought her a tiara so she added that to the look too ( I know Elsa discards hers but as Izzy is 5 I'll let her get away with it).

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I hope you'll agree that Liz did and excellent job and you would never guess its he first full thing she's made by herself. Also, hand sewn. I am not really sure how she had the patients for that.

Anywho, it looks perfect to me!

I hope that's inspired a few of you that are debating making costumes for little ones. It may not be as hard as you think!

I'll be back with a Frozen inspired post of my own in a few days.