Is the death of a beloved fictional character really a reason to have a party? Of course it is! In a couple short weekends I’m hosting a party to figure out who would want to murder Tweedledee and let’s face it, most people probably would. My character is the Queen of Hearts (come on, who doesn’t want to shout “Off with her head!” on occasion) and while I think my costume is fabulous, I should have started making it sooner….sewing 25 hearts on was just ugh. It’s going to be more ugh when I put my husband’s costume together. Initially I made him the knave of hearts (who stole those tarts) but he really is my king and deserves a good costume. I would love to say great, but with the time crunch, good is probably the best I can do.
For my ensemble I took the white dress with beaded red trim I made early in the year and opted to create an overdress for it in black, with white trim and red hearts. The original dress also has large red tie on sleeves to bring more red in to the outfit. Not wanting to spend a fortune on fabric, I chose to work with the evil that is panne velvet. It looks decent but the edges curl horribly among other delights. Even with this disadvantage I almost had it finished in three evenings…I say almost because when I attached the skirt to the bodice I remembered one of the issues I had sewing the hearts on…panne velvet stretches. This combined with its thinness created a terrible drag on the top.
Needless to say, I had to add a thicker liner after the dress had been completely put together. Oh the joy. I have to admit, I do like how it turned out.
Playing the Queen of Hearts set the color scheme for the party to red, black and white. Not generally a fan of the normal red / black style which is so popular, I am surprised how striking I find it when white is thrown into the mix. Not only do Dave and I’s costumes reflect this, but the invitations did as well. I just have to say I am so thrilled with how the those turned out! This time around I chose to stick with simpler invitations with the exception of purchasing a wonderful wax stamp seal to be part of my royal stationary set as I wanted that little extra touch.
The beautiful thing about Wonderland is it provides a rich tapestry of imagination to pull from for decoration ideas. Unfortunately, it can be a bit overwhelming when trying to narrow down what to use and, in my case, what can be accomplished in the time frame given. As my party is to be a darker version of Wonderland, I am trying for more of a creepy feel with the decorations allowing them to be carried over for Halloween, one of my favorite holidays! I’ve got large laminated cards to use for the croquet game as well as the 2, 5 and 7 of spades to “paint the roses red”.
And, while it doesn’t look like much at the moment, giant flowers also underway. This has been one of the more challenging creations as I knew roughly what I wanted, but not necessarily how to make it work. I’m pretty sure I have the details worked out at this point I just have to pull it all together.
Here is one of the 4″ masks painted with the eyes added in. The far right is after it’s first coat of polyurethane. I added enough of it to the eyes to try and fill in the gaps so the tape looks less like tape and more like eyes.
The rest of the masks waiting for their poly coats.
The flower stems in progress.
These may not seem like much, but once combined with our existing Halloween stuff, it’s going to be fun!
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