Supermarket Sacrilege – The Red Amphibious Party Dress (of Shame?)
I had many ideas for this challenge. There was a flappers dress made out of popcorn, a mini dress made from burger rings, a ra ra skirt made out of lettuce, and a mesh shirt made from bottletops and strawberries.
But, I wanted something full on, crazy, something no one thought to do. I don’t think I achieved that, but I love the simplicity in the final product, so I’m happy. If you would like more pictures (and I have lots!), visit my Facebook (I’ve made the photo album public, so anyone should be able to view.)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36526&l=c14ee&id=620791877Ta Da! I calls it “The Red Amphibious Party Dress”. What else could possibly describe this little baby? Nothing!
What is a dress without a fantastic name?
So, I went to the shop, and bought my materials.
My original plan was a sexy red party dress, with an enormous crazy red patchwork skirt, frogs on the bodice, and bottlecaps for sound effects. I started to shape the dress.
I created the skirt.
The dogs than ate some of my materials, and made the floor in my messy, messy study smell like port wine jelly crystals and paprika. I’m sure they had a great time eating all that. Sigh.
I attempted to dye the poplin I had lying around with the Fire Engine Red food dye and the Red Cordial. My hands became very, very red. I was sure it would stick. To be sure, I left them to soak overnight. But alas – it washed out . Almost completely. You couldn’t even tell I’d let them soak in anything. So I rubbed what Paprika I had left into the material strips. Which just created encrusted, slightly yellow material.
I gathered what little creative energy I had left, and made an enormous tube of white poplin that I could than gather onto the bodice as a skirt to place over the orange garbage bags. I figured I could sew the bottle caps onto the skirt to look like polka dots, but to keep within the red theme I painted them red. No biggy. However, I ran out of creative get go. So I threw my hands up in the air, got grumpy, and ignored the project for a week or two.
When I got back to it, which was a day or two before the end date, I was encouraged and inspired by my fellow craftsters, and sewed the skirt onto the bodice. Now, it looked like a dress. A wearable dress. I started to sew the bottle tops on, and it looked bad. Really blah. So I dropped that idea, and just began on the froggy bodice.
A few hours, and very sore fingers later, I’d completed the bodice, created the bow, and was all ready to head out for pictures. But I needed just the right place.
The Playground. The next morning, my friend and I headed out down the road to take some fun pictures. The dress decided not to fit me anymore, and it kept threatening to come off and bare my shame. But, the playground is the best place to take pictures!
That last picture is my partner proving the frogs are edible.
Thus the dress was made out of:
2 Packets of "Frogs Alive" (Jelly Frogs) - used to decorate the bodice
1 bag of Garbage Bags (had 3 large garden sized bags in the pack) - used to add volume to the skirt,the ties were used to create the bow, and some extra bag was used to make the flower.
About 3 or so metres of poplin (not purchased from the supermarket)
So, although my original list was $17.91ish, I only used about $5 or $8 of materials.
Hope you like it! I think the most fun I had was taking the pictures.
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