Happy Monday! As next week is Halloween, I’m bringing you some inspiration ahead of time to help you document your memories. That way you can just sit back and enjoy the day – scrapbook later!
Last week I showed you a way to make a compilation page to document changing decorations over the years. Today, I want to share a way to document a costume coming together. As fellow crafters, I’m sure you’ve made more than your fair share of costumes over the years. It can be quite satisfying when a concept develops from idea to actuality. I had one of those experiences in 2016.
My middle daughter – who was 10 at the time – wanted to be Harley Quinn for Halloween. Anyone not familiar, she is a character from the DC Batman Comics and the more specifically the movie Suicide Squad. Here’s what she looked like in the movie
When we went looking for a costume to buy we were blown away by the cost of them, and I was appalled by the “sex” of them. Especially for my 10 year old! Oh, and there wasn’t anything in her size as all we could find were adult costumes. So … rather than have an inconsolable 10 year old (who is the type to peg all her hopes on one thing and resist every attempt to pivot her from that ‘one thing’. Sigh) I decided to make what we couldn’t buy.
She was taking dance at the time so had jazz shorts. Check.
We found net stockings and suitable ripped them. Check.
We were able to buy the bat and the red and blue gloves. Check.
We found red and blue hair colour spray. Check.
We have plenty of make up because of the girls’ dance. Check.
But the shirt … what to do about the shirt?
We bought a white shirt at the thrift store and I broke out my washi tape, ink sprays and Silhouette to make the shirt you see above. I took photos of the process along the way, fully intending to share them here but … well, I didn’t. Until now.
Documenting … actually, scratch that, printing the photos was a big headache! I’d love to hear what software you use to print photos from home. I can easily use my Project Life app on my phone to print a whole lot of 3×4, 4×6, 2×3, or various sizes of square photos onto 4×6 photo paper. But when I went to grab my 4×6 photo paper, I discovered I only had two sheets left. Not nearly enough. But I had lots of 8.5×11 sheets of photo paper.
But could I find a way to print 8.5×11″ on the Project Life app? Nope.
After many trials with other software programs, I settled on my trusted Canva and a photo collage template. But that did mean I had no idea what size the photos were going to be. Which led to yet another problem. How to fit them all on one 12×12 layout!
My solution was a fold out mini album of sorts. Here’s a look at it.
As the photos were not consistent sizes, I bounced them around to de-emphasize this fact. Then I added brief journaling about the process. I start with the inspiration photo, then the step by step photos of how I recreated the shirt in question.
The top card sets the tone with its “I can totally make that” sentiment. Then when you open it you see – on both sides of the “mini album” – progress photos all matted on a cork pattern paper. I felt the cork made it more inspiration board-like. There is a tiny bit of embellishment on the top card – mostly to show you where to grab it to open it up and view the photos underneath.
I wanted to keep the base of this layout pretty neutral so went with blacks and those spiderwebs to reinforce that this was a Halloween costume. But the costume itself has bright shots of red and blue so I brought that out in the title. Since this costume and character are quite chaotic, having three different fonts in the title totally works.
Typically I would create all sorts of embellishment clusters but to keep the focus on the photos and the pull-out with even more photos, I kept the rest of the page pretty simple. A few black enamel dots and coloured gems was all it took.
And there you have it. A fun way to document a costume creation process. Have you ever made a layout like this? Or added a pull-out section to a layout? I’d love to see it, please leave a link in the comments. Thanks as always for visiting today. Have a wonderful, fun and safe Halloween next week!
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