Amazing Handmade Red Queen Costume

I was getting ready to take a little vacation from work and my department decided we were going to all dress up as Super Heroes and Villans- So I chose a Beautiful Villian! The Red Queen from the Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland. I had a vision and it was going to be amazing…… I found a old red wedding dress and that was my focal point to get started. I printed out a ton of pictures online and the ideas just started pouring out. When I began shopping to build my idea off the dress I had a hard time at first. Then I found a cool thrift shop that I purchased a white blouse for $2.99, pointy old fasion boot style red leather shoes for $10.00 and then off to the fabric store for the rest of the trimmings. Red, Gold, black ribbons, gold shiny material and black velvet and black felt. All excited about my costume coming together in my head, I loaded up the car and headed out for a 3 hour drive to visit a friend out of town. I decided whiile he was working I would sew my costume at the hotel to pass the time. It was coming out amazing. I cut hearts out with the gold and the felt hot glued the 2 hearts together, layed them all out and pinned them then hand sewd each one on the dress. Sewed the black, gold and red ribbons around the sleeves and the collar of the white blouse and then made black velvet puffy sleeves to attach to the blouse as well. The dress was a corsette dress so I tucked the blouse into it to pull it down and not have a bunch of puckerd material. I took gold ribbon and tied bows and then cynched it up on each side of the dress so that my awesome funky red shoes would show and I wouldn’t trip as I walked throught the office on my dress. It took me 3 days of sewing but it came out so awesome and the pin pricks and glue burns were so worth it. I went to a costume shop and found the Queen of Hearts Wig and black and white striped tights and my outfit was complete. I had no idea that in the 3 days I had been away and my cell phone didn’t have service that my boss was trying to get ahold of me to let me know they changed the theme of the costumes and were no longer going as Villians and Super Hereos…. but they were going to dress up like Toddlers in Tiara’s – WHAT THE HECK!!!! I worked so hard and I was proud of my costume and even though I didn’t fit in with their team theme- I was the RED QUEEN of the tiara’s and I won 1st place at my job’s costume contest. The toddlers didn’t win – but I stood out and people were amazed I made my costume! I guess in this case- they should have stuck with Villians hahahaha That was such a great feeling! But wait- the fun doesn’t end here- I stopped at a friends on the way home to hang out while they handed candy out to the neighborhood kids and I ended up standing in their front lawn posing for pictures with the kids and their parents like I was one of the characters at a Theme Park yelling “Off with your head”!! Greatest feeling and from that point on I have decided I am always going to be individual and make my costumes to stand out. Good times and that is how I became – the REAL Red Queen.