Sunday, 2 November 2014

How to: Cat burglar halloween costume DIY


Hiya folks!  Hope you all had a fab spooky Halloween weekend, dressing up, going trick or treating or just staying in watching scary films!!  I’ve seen quite a few good outfits this weekend.  It’s good to see people get all dressed up in costumes and go out!

I was working on Halloween night, but the other bar staff and I dressed up for it!
To be honest, I was a little bit stuck on what to dress up as, because I still wanted to be able to get on with my work…so I went to Pinterest to get some inspo!  (It’s a wonderful thing, Pinterest!!!) So after some ‘research’ I thought I would go as a Cat Burglar.

My post this week is basically about ‘my version’ of a Cat Burglar costume and the DIY aspects of it.
So to begin…
 

The Cat Burglar loot bag!
Cat Burglars always have a loot bag to carry all ‘their’ valuables.  So I thought that I would make my own bag.  Half because I wanted a wee creative part to my costume, and half because I ran out of time and didn’t have a chance to look for one in the shops.  Oops!

What I used:
-          A pack of jute sheets (£1)
-          A little box of small gold fabric studs (already had in my craft box)
-          A spool of beige thread (already had in my craft box)
-          Puffy fabric paint (under £2)
-          Gold fabric glitter glue (under £2)
-          Cotton fabric for lining (already had, old t-shirt)
-          A roll of jute string (£2)
 

 
 
 
Steps:
1)     I put two of the jute sheets together and sewed a pocket/bag shape onto the sheets, to join them together.  I did this freehand, so it was quite a mess as I’m not the best at sewing - obviously it would be easier if you are good at sewing, or have a sewing machine!

-        Remember it doesn’t really matter if the inside is a mess as it is the inside, so it won’t be seen.

-        Jute probably wasn’t the best fabric to use for the bag - it would have been easier to use cotton or another fabric that doesn’t fray, as much anyway.

2)     Because of the fraying aspect of the material, I had to create an inside pocket for the bag out of a piece of a cotton t-shirt.  Obviously if I had more time I would have picked a material that worked better with the bag!  I just made a pocket with the cotton material and when I had finished that, I sewed it into the jute bag.

3)     I then used the little square fabric studs and created the S-shape of the dollar sign.  The studs are quite easy to use because all you really need to do is put them through the fabric and push the spiky bits down with a pencil, or something else.  Be careful though, because those wee bits are quite jaggy and sharp.

4)     For the vertical line in the dollar sign I used the white puffy fabric paint, let it dry overnight and then used the gold glitter glue over it.

-        I probably wouldn’t use the puffy fabric paint for this if I decided to make the bag again.  I’m not sure if it was the choice of fabric or because of the kind of fabric paint, but in the end I didn’t really like it.  I thought it ruined the look of the nice gold studs.

-        I would most likely go for a fabric pen instead, or maybe just do the whole thing in studs.

5)     The last thing I did to complete the bag was to thread some of the jute string into the jute fabric to ruche it in a wee bit and give a more bag shape to the bag.
 
 

So that was all that went into making the bag for my costume.

To make it a wee bit more interesting, I put some costume jewellery – pearls and rings with big sparkly stones - into the bag, along with some plastic diamond jewels.
 
 
 
 
 


The Cat Burglar nails!
As well as the loot bag with the diamonds and jewellery, I fancied doing my nails to add to the costume.  I decided on stiletto nails with a bit of nail art on them.

What I used:
-          A set of false nails, stiletto shape (under £5)
-          Black nail polish (already had in my nail polish collection)
-          A set of nail art gems
 
 

Steps:
1)     First of all, I picked the right size nails.  I then fixed the length of the nails so they would look natural for my hands.  I did this by filing the nail base (the part that will be right up to the cuticle) so the nail wouldn’t lose the stiletto look, which would happen if I filed the tips.

2)     When the length of all the nails were fixed, I used a length of sticky tape and stuck the back of the nails to it, to keep them in place when I painted them.  I then painted them with two coats of black nail polish.  Unlike painting your actual nails, you don’t really need to worry about the nail polish being completely dry before putting the second coat on, as you can leave the nails overnight to dry.

-        Obviously, if you are doing the nails for the night, then leave the same amount of time between coats as you would with natural nails.

3)     After the nail polish had completely dried, I then picked the gems I wanted to put on the nail.  I decided to put the nail art onto my ring finger nails and my thumb nails.  For the ring finger nail, I put as many gems as I could fit onto the nail and I stuck them on with the nail glue I would use for sticking the false nail onto my natural nail.  For the thumb nail, I just put one pearl gem at the centre of the nail base.

-        I chose to use the nail glue to stick on the gems, as opposed to clear nail polish, because I find that sometimes that the gems fall off easily and I didn’t want this happening at work.

4)     Once the gems were completely stuck on, I put a coat of clear nail polish over them to definitely keep them in place.  A clear topcoat was also put on the gem-free nails.
 
 
 

Along with the DIY accessories, I wore all black with cat-ish eye makeup and put a set of cat ears on.
 

 
Ta dah!  Cat Burglar costume all done…and all for under £20.  Great!  You don’t have to spend loads on your outfit, just DIY it!

That’s it for my Halloween post guys.   You can let me know what you thought of my outfit, on here or on my social media page, if you like.  All links are on the right.

So, until next week then…see ya!
 
 

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