You know those days when you just have to make something, and finish it, just so you can feel like you’re actually achieving something?

For so long I’ve been working on things which need time before I can have the satisfaction of the finished job… like working in the garden, planting seeds or working in the casita. It’ll be a while before I can share the fruits of those labours… they’re more work in progress (or an ongoing never ending battle).

So, I decided it was time to tackle something I could finish in a few hours.

For a while now that I’ve known I need somewhere to keep my jewellery. I don’t have tons of it, but I do have a few things I like to wear. And when I finish wearing something I tend to hang it on the nearest doorknob.

Not ideal.

I also didn’t want to make it a statement piece. I like the pretty ideas on Pinterest but didn’t want something that made my jewellery a feature. So I measured the width of the wardrobe and found a long frame I had which would fit on the side. The idea being that it would be there, easy to reach but not on the wall like art.

In the spirit of quick and easy (and cheap), I didn’t remove the print and replace it with something I could screw cup hooks into, I just taped up the frame and sprayed the print with gloss black (cause that’s all I had and hey, silver looks good on black). I then used transparent plastic sticky hooks for hangers.

Did I mention easy?

Since the wardrobe is now white (and still unfinished), the frame looks nice with the original timber and white finish. Maybe I’ll paint it one day, but it will do for now.

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No cook would be complete without a rolling pin so I’m lending one from my collection for the film. The cook is only in one brief scene at the beginning of the movie.

Another small part is that of the guard. He’ll be wearing the grey tunic, black leggings, puffy pants, ‘boots’ and a blue cape we already had in wardrobe.

The guard will also be holding a staff when he guards the King’s chambers.

Note: the kingdom where our story is set is a peaceful one (till evil makes an appearance) so there’s no need for weapons. Therefore the guard holds a glorified feather duster instead of a sword.

Wayne made the staff for another production and I repurposed it for ours. I created the feather puff ball using a styrofoam ball and used hot glue to stick feathers into it. I then glued it to the brass bell Wayne had attached to the large stick.

All self respecting guards need a helmet, so our guard has one I made using a very thin foam sheet I found in the bottom of a shopping bag. I was about to throw it away when I realized it was the perfect material to make the helmet out of.

I used some metal beads used for hanging multiple strands together – they look like military insignia, and finished it off with a gold button on the top.

There are 3 kings in our movie so I gave them each a colour to keep things easy to sort. The first king is King George. His main colour is brown. For his tunic I used a black top with gold strands through it and added a fur collar and a couple of gold buttons with a chain.

The shawl (a table runner!) adds a dash of ‘je sais quoi’… although when he’s being more formal he’ll wear his cloak made of a shiny heavy brown fabric with a wide dalmation collar.

The costume is completed with brown leggings, brown ‘boots’, a crown and the ‘good magic crystal’.

When Prince Oscar becomes king he replaces the cap for the crown and wears his fur lined cape.

What I ended up doing is cutting red and pink fabric into scalloped strips to give them the look of fish scales. I then attached these to a black ‘apron’ of fabric. The apron tapers in towards the feet where it joins onto a tail which is stuffed with filling to give it body. The tail ties on at the waist and has 2 large elastic loops which hold it in place against the legs. There is no back to the tail and will be worn with black leggings.

The mermaid has a great crown I made with brown florist wire, crystals, silver wire and starfish I made using a porcelain clay recipe I found on Pinterest.

Sorry about the blurry photos.

She’ll also have a magic wand (cause mermaids are magical creatures, at least in our story!). I made the want using a plastic seahorse, a bamboo stick, some wire and crystals.

When Lucy the mermaid becomes human she’ll be wearing a gorgeous blue dress. I made this dress using the easy pattern I found on Pinterest, with the smoother armpit cuts. I absolutely love this dress, the colour is just beautiful and the lace and pearls on the sleeve are so pretty.

When she’s human Lucy will still wear her mermaid crown, though she’ll add some pearl necklaces to her outfit.

 

This dress wasn’t made the easy way. I didn’t have enough fabric to make this dress using the simple fold over and cut pattern. I had to make it the normal way which involves cutting a bodice, sleeves and skirt all separately and joining them together.

It turned out quite well considering.

Queen Mary will be wearing a gold necklace given to me by my friend Merrill. Only borrowing Merrill!

And of course she’ll be wearing a crown. The wiring for the crown was done by Wayne. I finished it with the black and gold band and the gold beads.

Queen Sophie will be wearing this gold dress with black and gold trim, also made from a doona cover. Since Queen Sophie is being played by a guy this dress has a lace bit in front to hide chest hair…

Queen Sophie’s dress was the first one I made so its made with the same easy dress pattern which involves cutting two pieces and sewing them together. None of the dresses have zips or buttons… Given that the waist measurements are wide enough to go over the shoulders there’s no need for them.

Queen Sophie spends a lot of time crying so I made her a fine lacey hanky out of a scrap of white cotton and some lace.

Then there’s the bad guy… He doesn’t start out bad. At first he’s just a normal guy. When he’s normal he wears an off-white gathered sleeve tunic with a red velvet vest.

And he’ll have the ‘bad magic crystal’. Of course.

Since the ‘bad magic crystal’ and the ‘good magic crystal’ are related they’re made in the same way using chandelier crystals, wire and beads, but whereas the good crystal is pink and silver, the bad crystal is black and silver.

Then there’s Wallace. He starts out as a prince and wears a burgundy tunic trimmed with gold braid made from a velvet-look shirt.

With this he wears burgundy leggings and black and purple ‘boots’.

In case you’re wondering, the ‘boots’ I keep referring to in quotation marks are obviously not real boots. I’ve made these to be worn over the leggings and sit over the top of the shoes. The guys will wear black shoes and the boot tops should make it look like they’re wearing proper boots.

I made the first pair by cutting out fabric and folding it over at the top and adding velcro for attaching it.

Too hard. For me. I kept attaching things to the wrong side and having to unpick them…

Instead, I bought stretchy pants from the op shop clearance rack, cut the legs off around knee high, added tops to them and voila… boots!

Back to Wallace though. When he becomes king he’ll wear a shorter burgundy tunic (another velvet look shirt) and puffy pants.

Yeah. Right.

As I said before, shirts might sound like a good way to make tunics but they’re not. They have buttons down the front and pockets and the sleeves aren’t nearly wide enough for a full puffy effect. My first attempt at making a puffy sleeve shirt was to add slices of fabric to shirt sleeves.

This was the result:

First I removed the buttons and collar. Then I sewed the front shut and added braid to fancy it up. It wasn’t enough, so I added criss cross in silver thread. Better, but not great. I tried buttonholes for the laces.

Monumental fail.

Turns out I’ve completely forgotten how to do nice neat button holes. And you really need more than one layer of thin cotton to do them properly anyway.

That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

I removed the cuffs and added elastic to the sleeves (the shirts are way too big for some of the guys I’m making costumes for).

Last, as I explained, I wanted puffier sleeves. So I cut out some long ‘slices’ of grey cotton fabric and inserted them into the sleeves. Two on each sleeve. They work okay.

Tried the shirt on the king and the shoulders are like, halfway down his arm. Sigh. I’m putting in a kind of capped look which I’ll fill with padding.

It’ll do.

Next came the dresses for the two queens and the mermaid-made human. Three dresses needed.

I’d found this design on Pinterest, sorry, no website attached to this one:

How perfect is that? So easy! Just a couple of cuts and viola, a dress!

I found a fabulous old doona cover at the tip shop which was perfect for the first dress and made it up using an average measurement of the two actors playing the roles (one is a girl, the other a guy). Basically, I made the dresses to fit me cause it ends up they’re more or less the same size as me in the bust area (though obviously distributed differently).

The dress turned out great though I did shorten the sleeves. The doona was the same on both sides so all I had to do was follow the pattern and cut out the shape. Easy.

I added a bit of black and gold braid at the neck and under the bust, then added a bit of lace to hide chest hair (cause this is the dress a guy will be wearing – a comedic touch as he’s so much taller than the small statured king).

However, one catch. That pointy armpit thing doesn’t work in real life.

So I amended the pattern. Later I found these patterns which are more or less what I did to fix my dress.

This pattern is great, however I didn’t need any waistlines… Which is good cause by making the dresses kind of square at bust and waist there’s no need for zips.

On to the next dress. This fabric was donated by a colleague. Another creative, collector of ‘things that will come in handy one day’. Its a beautiful blue shimmery satiny type fabric and there was enough to make the dress using the first pattern. With the rounded armpit of the second.

This time I added lace to the neckline, facing inwards in a medieval fashion. I then added a ribbon which is stitched in place at the back, then goes through loops at the side and ties up under the bust.

I also kept the sleeves open a la Guinevere’s gown above and sewed on a string of tiny pearls to decorate the sleeves. It looks amazing.

The sleeves are a little long, but turns out the actor can put her hands through the last gap in the sleeve and it looks fantastic. And intentional!

Happy accidents are my friend. I create in such a slap dash manner that I really rely on these windfalls!

For the evil character’s cloak I used a pattern I found on YouTube by a guy who makes his own medieval costumes the easy way. Pretty cool dude.

The basic pattern is the same folded over, half circle pattern as the capes I made before, but this time I had to do some patchwork to get enough fabric to create the length of cape needed… I didn’t have any single piece of fabric big enough. The only black fabric I had was a slippery type I have no name for, but it has some weight to it so it will swish well on film.

At the neck I put a simple black button, nothing flashy about this bad guy’s cloak. On the hood though, I went with a more evil/ku klux clan type of hood, long and pointy.