DoA Triathlon 2015 ~ Challenge 3: Outfit

Hello! Thank you for keep reading me, this is the last entry regarding the DoA 2015 Triathlon, and the challenge was originally named The Show Stopper, on which we had to do an outfit! First of all, you can see my previous entries on the following links:

[ Challenge 1: Wig ] [ Challenge 2: Shoes ]

Challenge 3: The Show Stopper

This time was a really fun but difficult challenge. You can read the original description it on this screenshot, but I will be summarizing it too.

We basically had to make an outfit that will unify the designs of a wig and a pair of shoes, made by different contestants! We were privately sent six images (three wigs and three shoes) and we have to pick one of each. But this wasn't all! The materials we could use should have only one of these precedence: a post office, a florist store or a hardware store; we could use no fabric at all, and the budget had to be under $11, although mats bought for previous challenges were allowed. We were also allowed to add a couple of details from materials of the wigs.

This time I was also smart and got a screenshot of the voting categories, which you can see on this screenshot.

I will be putting my inspiration wig and shoes under the cut, along with more info and everything :3 There is also a video about my dress!

I had two plans, to be honest, using different combos of wigs and shoes (and different materials), in case the first attempt were a failure. I happily managed to go through my original idea, and ended up choosing this wig (entry #4) and these shoes (entry #43) for which I don't know their creators... if you happen to know them, please let me know so I can add them! The pics I linked were the ones posted on the Triathlon and belong to their owners.

I selected materials from the postal office, and they are mostly envelopes I cut down (letter envelopes made of white paper and manila envelopes). I used white glue, and the decoration was the beads and blue-wavy-things from the wig. My tools were pencil, brushes and thread/needle to prepare the beads decoration.

Since the wig had a boat, I decided to use postal office to be able to match the colors (brown and white) and make a some-sort-of-piratey style of dress. I thought of the shoes as sea-foam, and thus the dress goes to full white on the lower part and lower layers, to "put" the boat on the sea foam. I had thought of making sleeves, but discarded the idea.

The dress is actually removable, and consists of two parts: one is the back 'train' and has three layers of paper curls, and mostly covers Coco's butt, because the corset had a big aperture in the back, and paper can't be "fastened" as fabric. This 'train' is tucked on the waist by a "paper buckle" made from an envelope that was really thick... this fastening is similar to the one of the main dress, which can be seen on her back:

To make the corset part what I did was to resemble the pattern of a fabric corset, but with simpler forms, and then cut the paper with some "seam allowance" only on one side. That "seam allowance" due to lack of a better way to call it was cut in triangle shapes and the glued on the inside of the other part... I don't know if that makes any sense. I can add a picture of the inside if you want! That 'process' I did shaped the paper to the form I wanted.

For the beads, I set them on a pattern similar to the wig's: round round oval, and then repeat. I didn't know how to make the tiny blue waves, so I ended up using the origami tutorial for the leaves (which I used on my shoes) but with 1.5x1.5cm papers. They were so small to make, you don't know how many hours I spent twirling those things! Bless my long nails that helped me press the teeny tiny sheets.

I was, of course, full of work, and had to make this at night because it wouldn't be me otherwise... but I was able to be one of the firsts to submit, so waiting to see the voting categories and the other entries was painful.

Before I forgot, I simple white shoes to go with the dress in order to resemble the white paper shoes I chose. I also wanted to use the curly white wig that I have (and haven't used in the whole year), but it was unnerving trying to style it on a bun, so I packed it again and picked the blonde frizzy one that -to my surprise- looked incredibly well with this bun. It also remained tied and didn't fell at all.

As before, I also prepared a video about the dress! This time I went back to try to film this while having the camera on the tripod -to avoid my pathetic handshaking- but I was stupid enough to leave the camera in a vertical position! *facepalm* I was later saved by my video editor that allowed me to turn the video, but OMG such a failure. Anyways, I keep learning... and hopefully improving.

Well, this was the last challenge of the Triathlon so it means the posts are over!

Summarizing, this was a great experience, to be honest, and I'm really glad I joined! (Also thanks to enabler hubby and enabler friends who told me to join when I mentioned the idea on Twitter). I think I learned a lot, not only about crafting, but also with the camera! I loved attempting to make videos, and I got some really pretty photos that I'm really proud of -from the wig and the dress I like almost all of the photos!

Anyways, thank you so much to all of you who read my posts and everything. Hope you are doing great! Any dolly news to share? :D