DIY: How to make a cheerleader costume from the show 'Daria'

Okay I was supposed to upload this tutorial much earlier than this but so many pics to upload zzz couldn't be bothered but then I was like eh I'd better do it sooner than later or else I wouldn't ever end up doing it.

I bought 50cm of yellow fabric at Lincraft, it was very thin (it's folded over itself several times so it looks quite opage but in reality fabric was very very thin and see-through) so the first thing I did was:

Get some white fabric of my mums (she has a tonne lying around lol) and fully LINE the fabric so the blue of the skirt wouldn't peek through if I had kept it unlined. You'll see the difference later.

I found some yellow thread (always match your thread to the fabric colour, DON'T FORGET to change the bobbin colour thread too)

This thread matched perfectly. I took two spools in case one ran out during my sewing since I was making two costumes instead of only one (one for me, one for RH)

If you look closely, you can see pins in the fabric. Pin both white and yellow together and sew all the edges. In this case you can see excess white at the bottom, it's because the white material I had wasn't exactly to size of the yellow so i pinned down what I could, sewed down all I could then cut off excess white fabric.



Here you can see the distinct difference between lined and unlined on the blue fabric of the skirt. If you fabric is too thin, this is a very important step.

The inside of the fabric is now lined and the yellow colour is more opaque! Yay!

Now get your blue skirt (I used my old primary school skirts for sports; luckily I had two of them)

Measure the waistband to see how much fabric you need for the waist part

(The skirt is not actually this navy, the photo above was with flash, this had strange lighting)

Cut out the length of the band that you measured and sew around the edges.

Pin down and sew sew sew around the whole rectangle! :)

Repeat for the other skirt. Voila band is now on! Cut off fraying ends and cover edges in clear nail polish to harden up edge and prevent further fraying. Also gives a nice, glossy look and keeps it stiff :) (THIS. TOOK. YEARS)

Time to measure and cut out parts for the rectangles of yellow fabric that go DOWN the skirt making it look pleated

Sew around them like I did with the waistband before, and then cut off  fraying parts and cover in nail polish again. All in all I had to make 14 bands (not including the waist ones) for both skirts, 7 for each.

Space the rectangles on the skirt evenly (I left 5cm of blue fabric between each), pin down and sew

Note the space I left between each one. I know I said I made 7 for each skirt, and there are only 6 rectangles in the picture, it's cos the last rectangle is off screen somewhere haha

I have pinned all of them down and now it's time to sew sew sew!

These are both of the finished skirts! I layered one on the other in this pic in case you guys can't tell it's two different skirts :)

I bought two shirts as bases for the tops of the costumes. I got them in different colours so they would match the colour of the skirts better (the skirts are a little different in colour, one is a bit light, the other is more navy)

Measure around the collar and around the cuffs because yellow fabric is going to go around here

Mark with a pencil and cut

At this point it's very important to change your thread to the colour your shirt is, in this case, blue. Change your bobbin too. If you kept everything yellow, any mishaps you did would show as glaring yellow thread on the outside of the shirt. Besides, using blue means the finished product looks neater, the stitches are invisible etc

Notice the thread change?

Anyway, when I cut out my yellow rectangles  I cut out DOUBLE the width of what I actually needed because I was going to FOLD IN HALF the yellow rectangle before sewing it to the edge of the collar and sleeves. This was because it was going to eb directly touching our skin, I wanted it to feel comfy with no touch edge or fraying :)



This is the inside of the shirt with all the yellow rectangles FOLDED DOWN already, SEWED ALONG THAT FOLD and then pinned to the inside of the shirt.

This part was VERY difficult (REMEMBER THE SHIRT HAS TO BE INSIDE OUT):

When sewing, be VERY careful not to SEW THE EDGES OF THE SLEEVE TOGETHER!! When you press the presserfoot down, MAKE SURE, the other side of the sleeve ISN'T IN LINE WITH IT or else you'll end up sewing both sides of the sleeve together and then ofc you can't put your arm through anymore haha

Sew the tops over the collars :) Notice the edge of the sleeve is smooth, no cut parts/fraying things? It's cos I folded the fabric in half before attaching the whole cuff :D Now it's comfy and looks better too!

When you've finished sewing, cut off stray ends and again, coat edges with nail polish. Note: This wasn't really necessary because it was only the INSIDE of the shirts (and obvs you can't see that when you're wearing it) but I'm a perfectionist and decided to do it anyway.

Both finished shirts :)



I had a bit of leftover fabric so I decided to make two ribbons for our hair:

I measured around my head and added about 5-7cm onto that.

And then I sewed all around the thin strips of fabric and covered ALL the edges in MORE nail polish (again, not necessary in this case but I'm a perfectionist HAHA)

More and more sewing....zzzz

Anyway THEN WE ARE DONE!!! WOOHOO! It took me ALL off teh weekend before muck-up to finish 2 costumes (the worst part was when I finished one thing and felt so proud then I was like NOES gotta do it ALL over again for another costume :( ) But yes, I am immensely proud HAHA and my sewing skills got exponentially better after this project. May I just say, advice: Before you start sewing take at least a couple of days (I took a week) to really really visualize what you want it to look like, what EACH step should be, even draw sketches or else if you begin sewing without a plan you're going to get lost pretty soon.

Project length: Defintiely 8+ hours, not sure exact timing. I actually got a wrist sprain for a day cos of sewing for so long in all the same time period HAHA I didn;t really give myself a break because my mum needs to use the sewing machine most days and if I got it done quickly I wouldn't get in her way when she was working :D

Hope these tips helped for any future sewing plans you guys might have!

Love: Michelle

P.S. if you want more pics on how the final product looks, feel free to look on my facebook, I have an album of muck-up photos :D

School Photos

Today was raining again! :( We had our school photos today, and luckily they were indoors rather than out on the oval like the last two years. In total my school photos were $71 !!

That's cos I bought the Captains and Prefects photo, the Captains photo, the whole grade photo, the muck-up photo, and the $31 basic photo pack with the split grade photos and the individual ones. Phew! That's a lot!

I seriously wished they ahd a pack with just the individual photots, not the split grade one. It's cos since this is our last year of high school, I want to get the small individual ones to give to my friends :) I still have the school photo that VL gave to me in my wallet last year. So cute!!!

Also since it's our last year of high school and we're never buying school photos ever again, I figured I would splurge :D I LOVE looking back at school photos esp ones from primary. It's such fun!

Today was also Muck-up photo day! Although we were quite rushed (expected to change super quickly before and after the photo adn return immediately to class) and the weather was disappointing (I remember last year's muck up was SWELTERING) it was still great fun to dress up :D I saw so many amazing outfits people must have put a lot of time and effort into.

I love this photo and RH and me :) Repping that LAWNDALE HIGH YEAH

Btw in case you can't tell, we are cheerleaders from the show 'Daria'.



BT and CJ came as Daria and Jane Lane respectively. I love this photo of them (hehe I took it :D)

                                                                     Sah cool guys!

In this photo BT and I tried to get into character.

She's doing a good job at being cynical and anti-social and Daria-like and I was trying to curl my hair and look vacant lol



AM went as Totoro!! Awesome!

I also liked the Tetris people! Soo cool!



Anyway those are some of the photos I liked that I took today :) Next post will be a DIY on how I made the Daria cheerleader costumes for RH and me :D

Love: Michelle

P.S. Gave my dog one of the pig ears :D

A rainy week and curly fries

Today, it is my sister's 19th birthday! we can't celebrate it with her though cos she's on her road trip to some lake. She's been texting me though and said it's been raining really hard over there (they rented a house close to the beach). I feel sorry for them cos they can't use their outdoor spa and go to the beach a lot in this sort of drab weather :(

Today after school, AM, BT, RH and I went to 'Great Bagel and Coffee' in Castle Towers and ate curly fries with morrocan salt, something we have been craving for a while :) So nice to have a chat and a break from studying (although we did go to the library after eating).

It's so cool how when we're together, sometimes everyone is talking and getting excited and then a second later we will all break off and stare into space for a few minutes in relaxed silence haha. It's like that at recess too; sometimes we will barely say a thing to each other but the silence is so relaxing and comfortable. :)

On another note, THANK YOU KT for the cool presents you got me from HK :)



Studio Ghibli CD!! I can't believe you knew exactly something I've always liked :3 I ALWAYS listen to Hayao Miyazaki's soundtracks whenever I'm studying (even when I'm not) :D For example my 'Study Playlist' on YouTube is basically all made up of Studo Ghibli instrumentals :)

Also THIS ROFL so reminds me of the all the times I would tell you of my Crisis-Core-addiction last summer. HAHA it's so cool :3

Thank you! You still have to tell me about all your HK adventures sometime haha like bowling until late in the night and studying in special HK libraries :D

Oh another thing; my dog has recently been obsessed with PIG EARS. She LOVES chewing them. My mum always buys her them everytime she goes out to the store

Yummy pig ears for lucky Biscuit :) Now I better finish my Ext1 creative piece. Our teacher told us on Monday if we don't hand it in tomorrow then we will get an N award :(

Love: Michelle

P.S. Muck up tomorrow!! Hopefully the weather clears :(

Haus Party and Chinese New Years Eve

Hello guys! Happy Chinese New Years Eve!

As if customary with my family every year, we had a MASSIVE spring clean today.

I was in charge of cleaning the downstairs tiled floor :) Whilst usually that involves mopping the floor maybe twice, since today was such a special day it involved MOAR EFFORT!

This is the method:
1. Mop the whole floor
2. Using tile cleaner powder put some powder on each tile and scrub each one with one of those hand-held scrubbing brushes until it shines
3. Mop the floor again
4. Using a rag (my old pyjamas lol that my mum cut into a rag) shine each tile

Phew! Took me almost 2 hours and halfway through my mum was mopping the stairs then she said she'd help me and then knocked the bucket of dirty water over the tiles I'd just scrubbed. *Cry* Had to redo those lol.

But SERIOUSLY after all that effort the floor SHINED! I swear you could see reflections of everything in it and light dancing-it was just like those cartoon moments when they clean the house and it looks like this:

HAHA Pride-over-9000 :P This is me:

ROFL DOMESTIC DIVA! HAHA jks as if I look so chic when I clean. I was in my pjs LOL crouching on the floor for like an hour just scrubbing and I forgot to tie my hair up and since I was wearing gloves I didn't want to touch my hair so I kept trying to flick it off my neck and face by doing some weird I-whip-my-hair-esque thing.

Since I've been cleaning so much I've compiled a list to aid anyone else on a Intensive Cleaning Session:

Michelle's Top Tips on How to Make Cleaning Fun
-Listen to music. I like to put my iPad on a table and listen that way :D
-Pretend you're Cinderella. I did this ALL THE TIME when I was younger and cleaning the house. In fact I did it even when I wasn't cleaning LOL.
-Think of it as training. Okay if AM is reading this she will be most upset with this tip but it helps me when I'm cleaning; I think since I'm going to married someday (hopefully ROFL or maybe /foreveralonewithcats) I'll be cleaning a lot so it's good preparation for future times, no?

Yesterday, GZ, AM and RC visited my humble abode :) I have this 7 piece fondue set

I got it for Christmas 2 years ago and I've only used it once so I dug it out of my closet and we had fondue :D

After a while the fondue got really sweet so GZ and RC (who doesn't like chocolate or cream so the fondue was kinda a not his type kinda thing lol) had roasted marshmallows

                                               Looks like a comet or something

                                                              This one's on fire

Moments of the day:

-When AM got to my house and saw Chloe (RC brought her dog) in my backyard (remember Chloe?)

                                                                    Dis dawg

and thought Chloe was Biscuit (she really hasn't been to my house in a long time...) LOL

                                                                       Dis be Biscuit

AM: OMGGGGGG IS THAT BISCUIT?????????? SHE'S SO BIG!!!!!!!!!!!!

(haha)

-Dis game

RC is sooooo good at this game.

-"I guess you can kinda see the resemblance." "Is it my glasses?" ROFL

Also funny story, I was making jelly cups on Thursday (3 layers with different flavours: blueberry, grape and mango) for my guests yesterday and on the counter my sister had opened a packet of those all natural dinosaurs and I decided to be creative and put a dinosaur in each jelly cup.
I was so proud of myself when my sister came home from a party she was at I told her what I had done and she was like "What???? Why? They're really absorbent and they'll taste really soggy and bad!!"
Turns out how she knew this was cause sometimes at parties and stuff her friends soak gummy lollies like dinosaurs and gummy bears in alcohol overnight and since it's so absorbent it soaks up all the alcohol and when they eat the lolly the next day it's like a shot or something ROFL the stuff I learn from my sister.

Another thing I learnt was that (my sis was talking with her friends that had driven themselves over) this other guy was really drunk and saw this bottle on a table and thought it was alcohol and drank it. Turns out it was table cleaner. He promptly spewed everywhere apparently. HAHA oh man these uni kids.

Love: Michelle

Hope you guys have a safe and happy Chinese New Year!

P.S. Today I went to Parra to buy stuff for muck-up photo day. These are the items I bought: 2 blue shirts, yellow material. If you can guess what I'm going as from this WOW I would be impressed but for those people that already know shhhhh keep it a secret until the actual day of muckup haha (I bet heaps of people would already know by then lol but I want to have the pleasure of people trying to guess what I am before I tell them :D )