Princess Serenity Costume Progress

If you don't know, I do costumes also.

I don't know how to sew yet, but hope to learn soon.

But, I do know how to do props and other items.

Once I drop this baby weight, I plan on making armor as well with a material called Worbla.

Here is my progress so far on my Princess Serenity

I've been a bit stuck due to weather (can't spray paint when it's raining) and being sick (dang allergies)

I will have more soon and will update it with more once I have more finished.

Items:

Dress

Staff

Earrings

Jewelry

Hair Accessories

Shoes

Wig

Here is a reference photo for what we are looking to accomplish. We will be doing a photo shoot while I am pregnant to imitate this. 

I bought the dress online, but even with me giving them my measurements, the dress was terribly done and didn't fit. So, I have a friend fixing the dress now. I will add a photo of it when I can.

 Step 1 of the staff- making the moon shaped top

I made a pattern in paper, traced it onto styrofoam, then cut it out

 I then covered the styrofoam with paper clay. It takes 1-3 days to completely dry depending on thickness.

Once it is dry, I will sand it smooth to get rid of fingerprints made when sculpting.

 This is the staff while drying

 I took wooden door knobs from Joann fabrics in the wood section and I hot glued them to a PVC pipe I got from Home Depot. This was a 1/2" pipe and matching knobs in size.

This is the bottom of the staff.

 This is the top of the staff made the same as the bottom.

 This is the "crystal" that will be hot glued in the crescent moon shape once the moon is dried, sanded, and painted. 

 This is the crystal turned on. It is an LED light I found in the wedding section of Joann Fabrics. I had to buy a bundle of 8, but it was worth it to have something that would light up and had the shape I wanted. The only party I don't like is the little "handle" on the side for hanging the light. Not sure If I will try to sand it off or just leave it for ease. It changes colors as well.

These hair pins came with my dress, but the peals popped off immediately upon taking them out of the package. I simply hot glued them back on and make sure there was plenty of hot glue all around to secure them on.

Here is the photo showing the wig. I had to restyle it since it was not styled very well. You can also see the dress before I altered it. I am holding about 6 inches of fabric in the back to make it look tighter. This photo was taken about a month ago, so the fitting today didn't need to be taken in quite as much (got a growing belly)

I will be adding sequins and pearls to this dress once my friend is done altering the size.

Other things I am working on right now for this costume:

Flower hairpiece

Pearl necklace

Pearl bracelet

Earrings

Shoes

Project Monsters Inc Baby Shower - The Diaper Cake

So, I have been off the grid for a while.
I have had a lot going on and not a whole lot to share on here, unfortunately.

But, coming soon is our baby shower.
With that, I will have lots of projects in the next 2 weeks in preparation.

The first project is the diaper cake
I haven't finished it, so I will either be updating this post later with the rest of the final touches or I will write a new post to include it. Most likely, the former.

Here are the photos to show what I have so far!
Enjoy!

 Here are most of the materials and costs

-cake pans (I used a 10x2 and 8x2) $20 (will also be using them to bake the party cake)

-rubber bands $.70 (only used 4 rubber bands of this whole bag)

-box of diapers $35 (used 3/4 of a box of 88 diapers)

-receiving blankets $12 (only used 2 of the 4 in the package)

-ribbon $10 (only used a small portion, but had to buy the whole spool)

-safety pins $? (had them in my craft box)

-small figurines $8

-small cardboard paper roll (paper towel or toilet paper) $0 (recycle!)

 I placed the diapers in the cake pans a few at a time and tried to evenly space them around to create a kind of pinwheel effect. This left a small hole in the middle, which I filled with the cardboard roll to make it more sturdy. Then, I took 2 rubber bands and put it around it all to hold it together. Pampers has that yellow line in the middle on the front (to help you tell when a newborn is wet) so I lined them up with that to be a the halfway point. I used about 40 newborn size diapers to fill this pan.

 I did the same for the smaller pan, but there wasn't really any space in the middle.  I made sure to put as many as I could fit in there (about 24 fit this pan) to make it as sturdy as possible. I then put 2 rubber bands around it just like I did the other layer.

 This is how it looks undecorated.

 I took a receiving blanket in the theme of the party (monsters inc) and wrapped it and shoved the ends into the empty cardboard roll to create a look of "fondant" or icing.

 The top layer didn't have the roll to tuck in edges and was very big to try to pin (ended up with a bunch of bulges everywhere), so I folded it in half 2 times longways and wrapped around the outside. I then secured it with one rubber band to hold it together. I originally was going to use safety pins to secure, but it was making a lot of holes in the receiving blanket, which I didn't like.

 Next, I cut ribbon to match the color scheme of the party. I made it just over long enough to wrap around the circumference tightly, then secured it with a safety pin. Since I was using 2 types of ribbon, I wrapped the second layer and safety pinned that one as well and secured it to the first layer.

I repeated that process for the smaller "cake" and put it on top of the larger "cake"

Next will be decoration. 

I am looking up ideas on line and gathering materials for how I would like to decorate it.

All in all, this project was quite easy to do.

I would love to experiment more with these in the future, if given the occasion.

Look for more updates soon as I work on more projects!

**Update**
Here is the top of the cake
I may add some ribbon or something the day of the shower, but it is pretty much done.
My first attempt wasn't too bad I suppose
The "roses" are washcloths (learned how to fold from tutorials online)
The top is a Sully blanket from Babies R Us that has a rattle attached.
It's (the blankie and rattle portion) held up with another toilet paper roll to prevent it from falling over when moved.