Making a Life-Sized Holiday Barbie 2021 Dress Part 2: Adding Details to the Bodice

My journey in making my own Holiday Barbie 2021 dress continues.  Last week, I painted the white corset I had chosen for the bodice silver.  This week, I began adding embellishments.  It turns out, sewing on a ton of rhinestones and faux pearl strings is pretty time consuming, so I'll have to update you on the rest of the embellishing in next week's post, but we're making progress.

Materials:

*Silver corset (if you need to paint a corset, see this post)

*The largest rhinestones you can find

*Faux pearl garland

*All-purpose adhesive

*Sewing needle

*White or silver thread

Directions:

Note: The largest rhinestones I was able to find were about 30 mm high.  Thus, I was not able to replicate the pattern on Holiday Barbie's dress.  I used her pattern for some inspiration and then filled in the remaining space with designs of my own.

*Secure a small group of rhinestones to the corset using all-purpose adhesive.  Let dry.

*Sew the rhinestones into place to ensure that they stay on the bodice.  The all-purpose adhesive I use is reasonably sturdy, but for something like a clothing item which you'll be pulling on and off, I definitely recommend securing them with some thread to make sure they stay in place.

*Repeat the gluing and sewing with another small cluster of rhinestones.

*Keep repeating until the central panel is done.

*Next, take your pearl ribbon and glue it onto the corset.  Let dry.

*Sew the ribbon down for extra stability.  I basically sewed every third or fourth string section between pearls.

*The pearl ribbon maps out where the rest of the rhinestones will go.  Arrange your rhinestones, glue down, and sew them in place.

And that's what I've done so far, although the bodice is still far from complete.  Tune in next week to see the next phase of decorating the bodice.

Making a Life-Sized Holiday Barbie 2021 Dress Part 1: Painting the Bodice

This holiday season, I have a rather large project I'd like to try my hand at.  Instead of doing one grand reveal, I wanted to try breaking it up into smaller pieces and posting about my progress as I go.  This could go really well or the project could go disastrously and then I've documented my failure for you all, but either way, it will be a learning experience.  Also, this way I hopefully won't put it all off until the last minute.  If I need weekly content, I'll presumably have to work on it a little here and there so that I can share something with you.

As a kid, I loved Barbie.  I remember seeing Holiday Barbie in stores in her beautiful dresses and wanting a doll of my own, but I never actually had one.  I also loved the holiday Barbie ornaments, but again, didn't have one.  Well, I ended up stumbling across images of Holiday Barbie 2021, and I was in awe of her dress.  I'm like, I'm a grown adult, I can buy myself a Holiday Barbie AND Holiday Barbie ornament and fulfill a childhood dream.  But then I thought to myself that it would be even cooler to become Holiday Barbie.

I scoured the internet for a dress like Holiday Barbie's, but to no avail.  And then I thought, maybe I could make myself a Holiday Barbie dress.  I spent hours combing the internet for the perfect supplies.  I debated and debated whether it was actually a good idea to take on this project, and eventually I hit submit.  And here we are.

Now I know what you're probably not thinking, but absolutely should be: But Amber, you hate sewing.  And I kind of do.  I don't make a point of this, and I love what sewing can do for me, but the actual sewing process I do not really enjoy.  So why make myself a dress?  Well, once I have an idea in my head, sometimes it's very hard to nix it, and I just could not get over the idea of how cool it would be to have Holiday Barbie's glamorous dress.  This may prove to be a spectacularly bad idea.  Or a great idea.  I'm leaning toward bad idea, based on preliminary results, but only time will tell.

Holiday Barbie's dress has a beautiful silver bodice.  To minimize the amount of sewing I would have to do, I picked up a corset which I will be modifying to make the bodice.  I could not find an affordable silver corset with either a back or side closure, so I ended up buying a white one that I could paint silver.  Today we'll be focusing on that part of the process.

Materials:

*White corset

*Silver paint

*Textile medium

*Paintbrush

Directions:

*Cover your workstation in newspaper or some other protective layer to keep it from getting covered in paint.

*Lay the corset down on the newspaper.

*Mix together the paint and textile medium in the proportions given on the textile medium bottle.  Mine was two parts paint to one part textile medium.  This will essentially turn your acrylic paint into fabric paint.  You're supposed to iron it to set the paint, but I don't think this corset is ironable, so I'll just use the corset very carefully.  Once the rhinestones are on, it will be a challenge to wash anyway.

*Once the front is dry and has been set, paint the back.

 *Optional: Paint the inside of the corset.  I painted the inside of the straps, since I was worried about that portion being visible.

Now we have a silver corset.  It's kind of pretty, but it's not very Holiday Barbie.  Next I'll be adding some rhinestones in hopes that this will make it a little more like Barbie's dress.

The big issue I'm having at the moment is that the corset arrived folded in half, and there is a significant crease in that location.  I should have tried tackling that before painting, but I didn't, and so now I'm trying to press it out using a heavy textbook.  But I have a feeling it's there to stay.  So not super optimistic, but we'll see how that goes.

Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake Earrings

Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes are back in stock, which means it's time for yet another snack cake-themed craft.  This year, I decided to add some earrings to my holiday wardrobe.  Need some more snack cake-themed craft ideas?  Check out my Christmas Tree Cake Felt Ornament, Swiss Roll Ornament, Christmas Tree Cake Throw Pillow Technique #1, Felt Gingerbread Ornament, Christmas Tree Cake Dress, Christmas Tree Cake Throw Pillow Technique #2, and Christmas Tree Cake Nail Art.

Materials:

*White oven-bake clay

*Red acrylic paint

*White acrylic paint

*Green acrylic paint

*Ultra fine nail art brush or paintbrush

*Ear wires

*Two sets of jewelry pliers

*Jump rings (optional)

Directions:

*Create two Christmas Tree Cake shapes out of clay.

*Poke holes in the tops of each wide enough for your ear wires to fit through.  I forgot about the curvature of the ear wire loops when I was poking my holes, so mine ended up not being quite wide enough.  Hence the jump rings.

*Bake following the directions on the clay's packaging.  Let cool.  You should end up with shapes something like this:

*If your clay is a little off-white after baking or there are visible specks in the clay, paint white.  Let dry.  If you're happy with the look of your clay shapes, you can skip this step.

*Paint on red bands to mimic the stripes on Christmas Tree cakes.  Let dry.

*Paint on little green specks for the sugar sprinkles.  Let dry.

*Now it's time to add the ear wires.  If you've made the holes large enough, you should be able to open up the ear wire loop, slide it through the earring hole, and close it.  If not, you may need to add a couple of jump rings first, or even slide a headpin through the hole and then bend it into a triangle.

Halloween 2021 Wrap Up

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween season.  I know Halloween has been over for nearly two weeks now, but I thought it would be fun to give you a little window into what Halloween looked like for Brian and me.  Let's start with our day-of costumes.

I went as a scarecrow.  I put together a look similar to this one during October of 2020 (I dress up all throughout October) and liked it so much that I wanted to make it my Halloween day look this year.  Since Brian and I do a couples costume for Halloween day, I needed a corresponding costume for Brian, and I thought a crow would be the perfect counterpart.

This was another costume idea that originated in October 2020.  If you've seen my 15 Halloween Costumes from My Closet post, you may recall that I included a scarecrow and crow couples costume as a bonus idea.  That time, the crow look was fairly simplistic, essentially just a black paper cone beak.  This year, I wanted to make Brian a crow mask.  I freehanded some feathery shapes on black felt and came up with this design.  I'm planning on including the crow mask template and directions in my Halloween 2022 lineup, so if you like this mask and want to make one of your own, keep your eyes out around August or September of next year.  I'll probably include a scarecrow makeup tutorial then as well.

Now let's turn to decorating.

I didn't do a lot of decorating this Halloween season, but I did deck out the front lawn a little to spread some holiday cheer.  When I was little, my dad used to have us paint pumpkins as opposed to carving them because carved pumpkins rot faster.  Also, no pumpkin guts to contend with if you paint.  Last year, I ended up painting a pumpkin for our doorstep as part of a Halloween challenge, and I had enough fun with it that I wanted to try it again this year.

I had this idea of painting a silhouetted nighttime cemetery scene.  I don't really do a ton of art, so I was kind of expecting this to go disastrously, especially since I just kind of winged it.  But I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

The other piece of my Halloween setup was my cemetery.  This is my favorite Halloween setup each year.  Six of the headstones I carved myself, and I have tutorials here, here, here, here, and here if you'd like to see how I made them.  It has a special place in my heart, and if I could only set up one thing for Halloween each year, this would be it.

We decided to set out premade Halloween goodie bags again this year.  We placed them in the graveyard this time around and once again, they were a big hit.  We only had four left over at the end of the night.  Even if things are safer next year, I'm thinking about putting the treats outside.  Not everyone likes being social or feels comfortable interacting with strangers, and some folks may worry about being judged for being "too old" to trick-or-treating.  If more people are able to enjoy Halloween this way, I'm all for it.

Let's move on to the treat bags themselves for a sec.

Since we've started making treat bags, I like to include a mix of chocolate, non-chocolate, and non-candy options.  That way, hopefully there's something for everyone.  Here's a look at some of the candy.

And here are some of the non-candy treats.  Aren't they adorable?  I had to keep reminding myself that these were for the trick-or-treaters, not for me.

We also made an instructional sign, since the bags did blend in a bit with the leaves.  I used one of the free templates in Canva, and it took me under five minutes to make.

Here's a close up on the sign.

And that's a wrap!  Hopefully you enjoyed this little tour of our Halloween setup.  I know it wasn't as elaborate as it has been in the past, but hopefully next year I'll be a little less busy and also have the motivation of a Halloween party again.  Also, Halloween is not a one-day affair in our household, so even though I didn't have as much of a setup, I still celebrated all through October with spooky costumes and outfits as well as spooky reads.  And editing my horror novel, which I'm *almost* done with, for now.

How did you celebrate Halloween?  Are you missing Halloween, or are you ready to move on to other holidays?  Things will be taking a Christmas-y turn on my blog here soon, but if you're looking for more Halloween content, I post almost exclusively Halloween content August through October.  Sometimes May through October if I have a spooky-themed birthday party.

Halloween Rag Doll Nail Art

Halloween is almost here.  Need a Halloween manicure idea?  These rag doll nails are the perfect addition to a creepy doll look.

Materials:

*Nail polish in a variety of colors of your choosing

*Nail art dotting tool

*Ultra fine nail art brush

*Black acrylic paint

*Painter's tape

*Scissors

*Nail polish base coat

*Clear nail polish top coat

Directions:

*Paint nails with a base coat.  Use a regular base coat, not a peel off base coat (or the painter's tape will peel up your polish).  Let dry.

*Choose three colors for each nail and plan out your color scheme for each one.

*Paint nails in a variety of colors.  You probably want to start by painting each one using the lightest color you'll be applying to each nail.  This will end up being the middle color in your pattern, though, so choosing the lightest may not always make the most sense.

*Let dry for several hours.  I usually recommend painting the base color in the evening and letting the nails dry overnight.  You're going to be applying painter's tape on top of this coat, and you don't want to risk peeling up some of the polish.

*Cut wedges of painter's tape and place over the middle portion of each nail.

*Paint the tops and bottoms of the nails different colors.  Make sure these colors are also different from the base color on that nail.

*Carefully peel off the painter's tape.

*Using an ultra fine nail art brush and black acrylic paint or a black nail art pen, paint on lines separating the different colors.

*Paint x's over the lines to look like stitching.

Simple Chucky Makeup Tutorial

Makeup can be a great tool to help a store-bought costume stand out.  The great thing about this Chucky makeup is that it doesn't require any specialized makeup, just two shades of eyeshadow and an eyeliner pencil.  You can also use this technique for other characters with scars, such as Frankenstein's monster.

Materials:

*Red eyeshadow

*Deep purple eyeshadow (like the color of a dark bruise)

*Black eyeliner pencil

*Eyeshadow brushes

Directions:

*If you normally wear makeup, apply light, natural makeup as you usually would.

*Pull up an image of Chucky's scarring.  Using the red eyeshadow, map out the scar pattern on your face.

*Next, follow the lines you drew in red with the deep purple eyeshadow.  You may want to use a slightly thinner brush for the purple so that you don't cover up the red completely.  You should end up with something like this:

 *To finish this look off, go over the lines with a black eyeliner pencil.  Use the pencil to draw straight lines across some of the cuts to look like stitching.  You should end up with something like this:

And that's it!  If you want the look to hold up for longer, you can set it with some setting spray.  I didn't find it to be necessary because I wasn't going anywhere, but if you're going to be out and about for a while, it may be a good idea.

Harley Quinn Birds of Prey Jacket

 

 

So this is one of those crafts that I don't want to post a tutorial of my own for because I went about this one in the wrong way.  You see, I bought a mesh jacket for this project, which meant I couldn't adhere the streamers to the sleeves with hot glue.  So I used packing tape.  Which worked for a few pictures, but left a lot to be desired.  So instead, I'm linking you to the tutorial that inspired this project.  If you want to attempt a Harley jacket of your own, definitely check out that tutorial.

I do want to try this jacket again sometime, though.  This iteration was thrown together over the course of a couple of hours the night before I needed it.  Which meant I didn't have the time to fill out the sleeves like I wanted to.  But hey, for a last minute project, it came out okay.  I would just not recommend following my example here.

Any Halloween costume plans yet?  This year I'm trying to put together Halloween costumes, cosplays, bounds, and looks for each day of October.  You can see what I've come up with so far over on Insta @all_of_my_outfits.

Zombie Candy Corn Earrings

Looking for a spooky accessory that's almost good enough to eat?  Why not try these zombie candy corn earrings?

Here's a comparison of the clay earrings with a variation I made using actual candy corn.  The candy corn was a bit harder to work with, but I was ultimately pretty pleased with how both versions came out.

Materials

*White oven bake clay

*Sculpting tools, e.g., toothpick, nail art dotting tool

*Orange acrylic paint

*Yellow acrylic paint

*Red acrylic paint

*White acrylic paint

*Black acrylic paint

*Brown acrylic paint

*Ultra fine nail art brush

*Ear wires

*Jump rings (I used head pins and bent them into a loop, but jump rings would probably be easier) 

*Pliers

Directions:

*Shape white clay into two candy corn shapes.

*Insert a jump ring into the top of each candy corn.  Use a toothpick or a similar implement to smooth clay over the top of it, so that the jump ring is buried about halfway in the  clay.

*Use a nail art dotting tool to create eye sockets in the candy corn pieces.

*Use a toothpick or similar implement to carve mouths into the candy corn shapes.

*Create two eyes for each candy corn by rolling little spheres of white clay.

*Place one eye into an eye socket on each candy corn piece.

*For the other eye, take a little piece of white clay and roll it into a long, thin line.  Attach one end to the eye socket and the other to the end of the eyeball so that the eye is dangling out of its socket.

*Bake clay in the oven following the directions on the packaging.  When you're finished, the candy corn should look something like the upper candy corn shapes in this photo:

*From here, it's a matter of painting.  Use an ultra fine nail art brush to paint candy corn, following the colors shown in the picture at the top of the page.  Let dry.

*Use pliers to open up the bottoms of the ear wires and loop them through the jump rings.  Now your earrings should be finished.

Comic Style Nail Art

Considering a comic-themed Halloween costume this year?  Why not paint your nails to match?

Here was an attempt of mine at cartoon makeup.  The nails go quite well with the look, in my opinion.

Materials:

*Nail polish base color (in my case red, but could be any color)

*Nail polish base coat

*Black nail art pen or black acrylic paint

*White acrylic paint

*Ultra fine nail art pen

*Nail polish top coat

Directions:

*Apply nail polish base coat.  Let dry.

*Apply nail polish base color.  Let dry.

*Using a black nail art pen or black acrylic paint, paint around the perimeter of your nails.  Let dry.

*Using white acrylic paint, add white highlights to look like light reflecting off of the nails.  Let dry.

*Seal with a clear top coat.  I only have glossy top coats, but a matte top coat might work better here so you don't have actual glinting light on your nails in the photos.

Halloween 2021 Earrings

One of my favorite things to make each Halloween season is a new set of spooky earrings.  I don't always share them with you, because I've already done a tutorial on how to make basic earrings, but I thought you might appreciate seeing the new earrings.  Plus, it's a relatively straightforward craft, so if you're looking for something you can actually make, this is a bit easier than foam tombstones or hand-sewn cosplays.

Since did write a tutorial for making earrings previously (see above link), there isn't a tutorial with this one.  However, I did want to tell you a little more about where I get my Halloween charms.  Joann is my go to, and their Hildie & Jo charms and strung beads feature heavily in my Halloween jewelry.  

Here are the beads, charms, and jewelry I bought from Joann this year.  As you can see, I haven't had a chance to make all of them into jewelry yet.  The tombstone, crow/raven, spiderweb with spider, and skeletal hand charms appear to be new to Hildie & Jo's 2021 Halloween collection.  You can buy them here, and you can see their full Halloween 2021 charm, bead, and jewelry collection here.  There are so many cool pieces this year, and I definitely recommend checking them out if you love Halloween jewelry.  The rounded charms are also from Hildie & Jo.  I bought them last year, but it looks like they have returned this year, and you can find them here.  The charms are already 40% off at Joann, so if you're interested, you'll probably want to grab some asap.

The tarot card charms are from Etsy.  If you do an Etsy search for "tarot charm," you'll turn up all sorts of neat designs, although some are pretty pricey.

Anyway, I just wanted to give you a peek into my Halloween jewelry this year.  Are you planning on making some Halloween jewelry?  I'd love to see what you come up with.

Cheers to Ten Years

Amber's Craft a Week blog turned 10 last week!  I'm in the thick of a major project right now, and didn't have time to write a post on the actual blogversary, but I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your support and interest in this blog for this past decade.  It means a lot to me.

When I started this blog ten years ago, I had no real plan for it.  I just wanted to create some sort of blog, and I was kind of good at crafting, so a craft blog seemed like a natural choice.

Producing enough new crafts to keep this blog going has given me plenty of opportunities to hone my crafting skills.  I have been able to create projects I would not have dreamed of attempting when I first started out.  I am grateful for all that I have gained through maintaining this blog.

Halloween is usually my big season on this blog, especially in recent years.  In fact, about a quarter of all the crafts I've posted I've tagged as Halloween.  I do have big plans for this Halloween season, but I'm not sure if I'll get to all of them, or if I'll be able to post detailed breakdowns of the projects I do create each week between now and November first.  You see, for this past year, I've been working on finishing up a novel I've had in the works for longer than I've had this blog.  I've completely overhauled it and am finally getting close to the home stretch.  Getting that off my plate in a timely fashion is my priority at the moment, which may mean fewer or less detailed blog posts until that is done.  But we'll see what happens.

Thank you to all of you for taking the time to view my blog, whether you're new or you've been here since the start.  I really appreciate it.  Here's to ten more years.

Like the glitter drip wine glass in the photo at the top of the page?  Here's how I made it.  I thought it would be fun to incorporate one of my older crafts into this post, and it fit well with the "cheers to ten years" theme.

A Craft that didn't Make the Cut: Audrey Jr.

I make a lot of crafts.  In fact, as I've been posting a new project just about every week for the past decade, that means I've shared with you somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 crafts.  However, as you may guess, not every craft I make ends up on the blog.  Some are abject failures, but others are kind of good, but with issues.  Audrey Jr. falls into the latter category.

I have a couple of zombie garden gnomes that Brian's mom got me for Christmas ages ago.  They're pretty neat, but I usually just stick them by my doorstep because I'm not sure what else to do with them.  Last year, I decided to give them a couple of creepy plants to watch over.

I made a couple of little plants reminiscent of Audrey Jr. from Little Shop of Horrors.  I used clay to shape heads, toothpicks for teeth for one of them, and stems from artificial flowers for stalks.

They came out looking okay, but the big issue is that they're lacking in structural integrity.  The clay heads are pretty heavy and cause them to lean.  Also, they don't have any sort of base.  Brian and I just buried them as deep as we could and it kind of worked?  Which is fine for my personal use, but not really something I'd feel comfortable writing a tutorial on.

So there you have it, one of the many crafts that I've made that hasn't appeared on this blog before.  It's certainly one of the nicer ones, and I thought it was still worth showing, even if I didn't think it merited a tutorial, since it has some issues.  Would you like to see more of these unblogged crafts in the future?  Let me know in the comments.

DIY Jigglypuff Ears: Pokemonbounding Ep 10

Here's a fun and relatively inexpensive item to make for your next Pokemon-inspired look: Jigglypuff ears.  You can also use this technique for making other ears.  Just modify the ear shape and felt colors to suit your critter.  Otherwise, the steps are the same.

Materials:

*Headband

*Pink felt

*Black felt

*Scissors

*All purpose adhesive

*Fabric chalk or pen

Directions:

*Draw and cut two Jigglypuff outer ear shapes from pink felt.  I think I used my Meowth ear template for this, but you could also freehand the ear shape.

*Draw and cut out two Jigglypuff inner ear shapes from black felt.

*Glue the inner ear pieces to the outer ear pieces.  Let dry.

*Glue the ears to the headband.  Let dry.

DIY Ursula Shell Necklace

Ursula's gilded shell necklace is a key piece of her aesthetic.  Both stylish and functional (great for storing voices), this may be the perfect accessory to finish off an Ursula cosplay, costume, or Disneybound.  See this post for one of my Ursula Disneybounds which uses this necklace, as well as more information about Disneybounding.

Materials:

*Oven-bake clay

*Gold paint

*Paintbrush

*Toothpick

* Jump ring

*Knife

*Necklace chain

Directions:

*Roll out clay into a log shape that is thick at one end and thin at the other.

*Beginning at the thin end, wind the clay into a spiral.

*Once you have wound the clay into the desired spiraling shell shape, trim any excess clay with a knife, if needed.

*Insert the jump ring into the top of the shell.  Use the toothpick to smooth over the clay around the jump ring.

*Use a knife or toothpick to score three lines in the clay, mimicking the look of Ursula's necklace.

*Bake clay in accordance with the directions on the packaging.  Remove from the oven and let cool.

*Once the clay is cool, paint gold.  Let dry.

*Slide the necklace chain through the jump ring to finish off your necklace.

Clay Tentacle Earrings

Looking for a fun, spooky accessory?  Why not try these clay tentacle earrings?  I've used the purple ones for Ursula Disneybounds, and the green ones give me strong sea monster vibes, so I'll probably be putting together a look based on that at some point.

Here's what they look like on me.  This was one of my Ursula Disneybounds.  I also made the shell necklace, so if you want more details on that, let me know, and I'll make sure to include it in a post.

Materials:

*Oven bake clay

*Nail art dotting tool

*Paint in colors of your choice

*Jump rings

*Ear wires

*Round-nosed pliers

*Fine paintbrush, such as a nail art brush

Directions:

*Form clay into two tentacle shapes.

*Insert a jump ring into the top of the tentacle, covering it halfway in the clay.

*Create small disks from clay.

*Use the nail art dotting tool to attach the disks and give them a suction cup shape.

*Bake in the oven in accordance with the directions on the packaging.  Let cool.

*Paint in a color scheme of your choosing.