Carnival Outfit Complete Look

 My first handmade carnival costume. I'm very proud of it. It took a lot of work but I can see why they charge so much for these things ($250 and up in the thousands). As I said in my previous post, I spent about $45 on fabric and embellishments for the entire thing. I used an old bra for the top and a swimsuit bottom. For the base of the headdress, I used a plastic 3-ring binder that I cut up. For the base of the arm and leg bands and the belt, I used canvas. It was put together with needle and thread and hot glue. My sandals were $17 from Ross and the belly chain and beads were things I already owned.

I took some photographs while making the body of the costume:

The headdress.

A part of the headdress and the belt.

Beginning stages of the bra.

Here I've added a few more things to the bra.

Beginning stages of the leg bands.

The finished belt.

The finished bra and belt.

The finished arm band.

The finished leg band.

Detail of the bra. You can see the tons of seed beads I used.

Detail of the sequins I sewed on and some seed beads that I sewed on.

Another detail of some strands of beads hanging from a ring that was stitched onto the bra.

The completed look.

Making My Own Carnival Headdress

Unfortunately, I didn't take photos while I was making this. I made it last weekend while sitting at my mom's house and watching a movie. It took me almost 4 hours and about $40 worth of crafting supplies: Rhinestones, ribbon, felt, feathers, beads, plastic, hot glue, battery operated lights and a clip-on fancy butterfly.

This is the entire piece. I am currently working on the body pieces to go with it (bra, belt, arm and leg bands).

Close-up of the feathers I used. The peacock feathers and the brown and gold feathers were expensive compared to the others (2 for $3).

With the battery operated lights on ($5 at AC Moore). You can see the butterfly (also $5) I used in the center. These two items were the most expensive, so of course you can forgo these two features and save $10.

With the overhead lights off, you can see how it would look at night. Very pretty and oh so gaudy. You can also kind of see it from the side to see how it goes on the head.

Another close-up view so you can see the rhinestones, ribbon, beads and mesh with rhinestones.

Tell me what you think in the comments below. I will get a picture up with the whole outfit in a couple of weeks. (Oooh ... Scandalous.)