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DIY Katy Perry Carousel Dress


   
    




For a friend's circus themed birthday party I wanted an interesting and different costume, first i was thinking to dress up as puppet and hubby could be puppeteer , but he wasn't fond of the idea :/ so I started searching online for unique costume ideas...even before puppet idea I had thought of making a dress inspired by Manish Arora's 's circus outfit worn by Katy Perry... but I couldn't find any tutorial or anything about the dress upon searching online.. after spending a few late night internet surfing I was actually over it..at the same time I had no costume planned for the party.. so I thought to give it a go and make a Katy Perry Carousel Skirt...instead of making it a dress I made the skirt so i could style it with my hijab..It took me 2 days to figure out the way to make it and few days to actually make it... end result was all worth the effort..It was a big hit! so if you wish to amaze your friend's and family on the next themed party, I have got this tutorial for you..




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Material:
  • 2 poster boards
  • felt
  • embroidery hoop (I got the biggest one they had at lindcraft
  • paper straws 
  • bamboo Bbq skewers 
  • beaded party necklace
  • skirt (sew or buy a basic aline skirt with elastic band and a lining)
  • wrapping paper (2 different types,)
  • paper cutter knife 
  • Hot glue gun 
  • lots of glue gun refills 
  • scissors 
  • circus images 
  • carousel horse images (print them on a thicker paper)
  • fabric stiffener 
  • thread and needle 
  • measuring tape


Construction: 

First thing you need to do is sewing your skirt, simple A-line skirt with elastic band will do the job, just make sure it has enough flare to cover the carousel structure from the above. 
we need a really stiff fabric for the structure, I used black felt and stiffened it with fabric stiffener, just follow the instructions given on the bottle, if you can't find fabric stiffener you can use mod podge or any glue with water, soak your fabric in it for sometime ..drain the glue and water out of the fabric and let it dry overnight.
Now using paper cutter knife cut 2 rings from the poster boards, just make sure the inside of the ring is same size as embroidery hoop.

                                       

I took the screw part of the hoop off and used sticky tape to hold it together, you will have 2 identical hoops now, take your stiff felt and start gluing it around the hoop at the top.. measure how long you want your skirt to be and glue the felt around the hoop at the bottom like so..

                


Glue the felt edges together.


you will get a cylinder shape structure. 


Measure and mark lining of your skirt where you want to attach your cylinder structure. and glue the fabric inside the felt cylinder or stitch it like shown below: 

 


(I pinned it around first to make sure I wont mess it)
 You can pull the top of the skirt out.. the lining of the skirt is now holding the felt cylinder from the inside and the top of the skirt is a tent part of carousel. I didn't like the elastic band exposed so I turned it inside out.




Take one of your gift wrapping paper and cut the same size as your felt cylinder and glue it on.

               


Remember you had cut 2 rings out of the poster board earlier, now is the time to glue them onto the top and bottom of the cylinder.. I wanted to make sure the rings stay on so I cut strips of felt and glue them at the bottom of the ring and cylinder like so :
    

     

cut 6-8 to rectangles out of the 2nd wrapping paper and glue it all around the the cylinder.. and glue the bead necklace around the each rectangle. I got some circus images from the google search, and glued them onto rectangles.

       

 To make carousel pillars,  I used stripped paper straws, the straw wasn't long enough so I cut another straw and with sticky tape joined them together and run the bamboo skewer through it. Now measure and mark where you want the straws to go on the top and bottom of poster board rings.Pierce the bamboo skewer through the marks from bottom ring to the top ring. and pull the the skirt over the top ring.. ( i hope it makes sense :/ )


     

Cut little flags out of the gift wrapping paper and glue them on the top of the skewer. Using thread and needle make few gathers on the edge of the skirt where the skewers are like so :
  

Measure the circumference of the ring and cut the piece of felt in measured length to cover the ring, now using glue gun just glue the felt along the ring to get a neat look. 

glue the horses on the paper straws using the hot glue gun. and there you have it.. your very own Katy Perry inspired carousel dress/skirt ( you can make it into a dress too with some sewing skills) , I styled my skirt with black pants and white blouse from Zara, black scarf and lace gloves (I bought the gloves from dollar store and cut the finger tips) and mini top hat clip (for tutorial click here). 


I hope the tutorial makes sense, if you have any questions.. email me or leave a comment.
And don't forget to share it ;) xxx




                                               















3 comments:

  1. Saba aapi you are an genius........literally*******May you have success in your Creative career***-Amene

    ReplyDelete
  2. Saba aapi you are an genius........literally*******May you have success in your Creative career***-Amene

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow dear, I never thought that carousel dress can also be made this way. My daughter also loves such stuff and I think throwing her a similar themed party will be a great idea. But first I need suggestions for best San Francisco venues. Can you share some for me please?

    ReplyDelete