All Dolled Up
In 2019, the normal party that we would have on Halloween was no longer going to be on Halloween. We moved the party to an earlier date in October, so we thought we wouldn't need to dress up this year. Oh, how wrong we were. There was a conversation around how do we continue to allow people to dress up, and participate, but on a virtual level. When that was figured out, the convo was fully centered around what we do to make our virtual world translate for the competition.
Our boss likes to call us dolls, and I had seen some doll costumes when I was online looking for inspiration. I presented it to the team by saying that if we were dolls, it gives you all the option to dress in any way you want as a dolls; they liked the idea. It allowed some to be creative, some of step out of their comfort zone and some to not have to put too much money into it because they could use something that was in their closet. Then to bring the dolls together, I decided to take the images, edit out the background & put us all in a dollhouse!
Upstairs (left to right); Danielle was Wendy with Tinkerbell, Lisa was a "broken" porcelain doll, Nugget (on the bed) is an Ewok, and Grace a harajuku doll.
Downstairs (left to right): Maxine picked workout Barbie, Karen & Lindsey were wind-up dolls, and Sara (me) picked Little Bo Peep paper doll.
I selected a paper doll because I felt like I could make it pretty easily and then by creating my own, I got to pick what kind of paper doll I was. The moment that Target put out costumes, they had a Woody & Buzz Toy Story 3 costume for Hobson & Harrison! Bo Peep just seemed like the logical decision for my paper doll and because the movie came out in 2019, there were fun things like the fighting staff that I could incorporate.
To make the paper part, I probably would have done the whole thing different if I could do it again. Paper was too thin and was curling, even when I painted it. I had bought a paper roll in white that helped me with the availability to test run and really figure out the exaggeration that I wanted.
After getting all the pieces painted & cut out was when I discovered the issue with the curling; so now what?!? Then, how to I attach to myself and make it something that I can get in and out of?!? UGH! I went and bought muslin with the hope that I could attach. Well, glue didn't work and you could see it through the paper, so mistake number one that I made. If I could do it again, I just would have pinned the paper to the fabric & sewn them together and never would have added the glue. After sewing the muslin and the paper together, I sewed some ribbon so I would be able to tie the pieces to me. If I could do that again, I probably would have done the legs with elastic instead of ribbon, and would have created the dress with a vest-like structure in order to be able to wear it where I wanted it as the ribbon didn't really hold it up as well as it ended up being heavier than I expected due to glue and muslin additions.
I really loved how the imaging came out for the overall appearance of what we had come up with as a creative solution to our new virtual idea of presentation on our costumes. We, again, unfortunately, didn't win, but we were all dolls and loved what we had come up with!
Our boss likes to call us dolls, and I had seen some doll costumes when I was online looking for inspiration. I presented it to the team by saying that if we were dolls, it gives you all the option to dress in any way you want as a dolls; they liked the idea. It allowed some to be creative, some of step out of their comfort zone and some to not have to put too much money into it because they could use something that was in their closet. Then to bring the dolls together, I decided to take the images, edit out the background & put us all in a dollhouse!
Upstairs (left to right); Danielle was Wendy with Tinkerbell, Lisa was a "broken" porcelain doll, Nugget (on the bed) is an Ewok, and Grace a harajuku doll.
Downstairs (left to right): Maxine picked workout Barbie, Karen & Lindsey were wind-up dolls, and Sara (me) picked Little Bo Peep paper doll.
I selected a paper doll because I felt like I could make it pretty easily and then by creating my own, I got to pick what kind of paper doll I was. The moment that Target put out costumes, they had a Woody & Buzz Toy Story 3 costume for Hobson & Harrison! Bo Peep just seemed like the logical decision for my paper doll and because the movie came out in 2019, there were fun things like the fighting staff that I could incorporate.
To make the paper part, I probably would have done the whole thing different if I could do it again. Paper was too thin and was curling, even when I painted it. I had bought a paper roll in white that helped me with the availability to test run and really figure out the exaggeration that I wanted.
After getting all the pieces painted & cut out was when I discovered the issue with the curling; so now what?!? Then, how to I attach to myself and make it something that I can get in and out of?!? UGH! I went and bought muslin with the hope that I could attach. Well, glue didn't work and you could see it through the paper, so mistake number one that I made. If I could do it again, I just would have pinned the paper to the fabric & sewn them together and never would have added the glue. After sewing the muslin and the paper together, I sewed some ribbon so I would be able to tie the pieces to me. If I could do that again, I probably would have done the legs with elastic instead of ribbon, and would have created the dress with a vest-like structure in order to be able to wear it where I wanted it as the ribbon didn't really hold it up as well as it ended up being heavier than I expected due to glue and muslin additions.
I really loved how the imaging came out for the overall appearance of what we had come up with as a creative solution to our new virtual idea of presentation on our costumes. We, again, unfortunately, didn't win, but we were all dolls and loved what we had come up with!