So, the Christmas do has come and gone. There were so many great ideas for male costumes, but for some reason I felt a bit limited on girly ones. This year's theme was Best of British, and after going back and forward between Dusty, Duffy, generic 60s chick, Queen Victoria and Hermione for weeks and weeks, I settled on Looney Luna! Hogwarts student has always been on my list of costumes to do, so I decided to go with that in the end, although with a much more limited scope that I would originally have done as I only had 1 week to make the costume after taking so long to figure out what to wear. I actually made the decision after ordering a wig online, figuring it would inspire me once I got it... Once it was on, Luna was the obvious character to go with.
Since I wasn't going to do an exact costume replica like I would have done if I'd had time, I went completely lateral on the skirt and cardy, going with a high waist pencil skirt, and a long grey boyfriend cardy. The school shirt and cardy were purchased on sale, both less than half price, and the wig was from an online auction (brand new and half the original price because the seller didn't like the colour)!
The hardest part was definitely the raddish earrings, which I made from Sculpey. the first attempt fell off the hooks in the oven and ended up gorgeous on the front and a charred mess on the back, but I learned a lesson with the second lot and bent the end of the pin, which kept them together well. The wand was an old paintbrush - I just pulled the brush off with pliers, wrapped the end with hemp twine, using pva to glue it, and then just did a light coat of pva over the whole wand and blew on some gold powder guilt I had. Not authentic to Luna, but it looked great!
The only sewing I did was the skirt which turned out great, and the bag. I also created a Quibbler cover based on the copy Luna carries in the last movie, and ironed it on to a white over the shoulder bag I made from an old pillowcase. I was extremely happy with the quibbler cover, it looks so authentic! I managed to get some Spectraspecs online so they went great with the quibbler over. Finally, I created a Ravenclaw badge, ironed it on to a piece of fabric then sewed it on to the cardy.
Overall I was happy with how the costume turned out, though I'm keeping Luna on my list of costumes to do as I still want to do it properly, complete with lion hat and cape.
The night itself was average, much better than last year, but still not as good as other years past. Mainly it's the incredibly long and boring awards ceremony at the beginning, which lasted about 2 hours total. I'm very glad that I went with Luna in the end, as there were dozens of all the other costumes I thought of. There were a lot Harry Potters, a Voldemort, a Snape and some generic hogwarts students (including a few 'adult' costumes), but no other Lunas thank goodness :) I tracked down Voldemort and got a great photo with him, he had the full makeup and nails done which looked great. I also managed to score a photo with the teletubbies :)
Looking at the pictures I'm glad I put in the effort (or really, lack of effort) into letting my hair and eyebrows go back to blonde (my natural colour) as much as possible. It was just about brunetting time when I found out the theme and started thinking of wearing a blonde wig, so by not colouring then like I normally would, my eyebrows were nearly as pale as normal by the time the party came around, which I think really helped pull the blonde look off. I'm no stranger to preparing my hair for a costume months in advance, though this was the hardest so far as blonde roots on mahogany hair is not a good look!
Anyway, I forgot to mention that the carpet is all completely ripped up in the spare room and it's looking well on its way! It's not complete but it's a perfectly usable room now, and I sewed up my skirt and bag in it. Not having the carpet down made cleaning up super easy, and meant I could roll around the room in my chair to get the various bits and pieces I need. Also, this was my first time using my new machine on a large scale (the pj shorties don't count as they were a quick job on the kitchen bench!). It sewed like a dream through the skirt, until the finishing touches of the bag, where it started going insane, coiling the bobbin thread and jamming. I finished the bag by hand and ran out the door because I was late, and haven't had a look at the machine yet to figure out what's going on, but I have the feeling that there's a piece of the iron on caught in it. Fingers crossed it's easy enough to fix :(
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