Paperdoll Costume

I am wearing my costume. The idea to create my costume came from me wanting something unique and unusual and not like any other costume you've seen before. I recall as a little girl playing with paper dolls and I thought it would be and easy and creative costume. I used recycled cardboard from prior packaging. I broke the box down and laid it on the floor. I laid down to make sure it would be large enough to fit my body size. I researched some ideas of paper dolls online until I found one I liked. I drew the dress free hand with a pencil before I used permanent marker for the outline to cut it out. When things looked just about right, I cut the cardboard and modified it as needed. I had left over paint from a prior craft so I used it to paint the dress. I used a black sharpie marker for the edges, tabs, belt, and outlines. To be sure it would stay on snug on my body, I used the 1" elastic. I crisscrossed two pieces across my back. I marked the areas on the unfinished side of the cardboard where I wanted to glue the elastic. I bonded the elastic with E6000 glue. I also used one more piece of elastic across my bottom side to pull the bottom of the costume dress in towards my body. That also was marked and bonded with glue. For the costume hair ribbon. I used same cardboard, drawn free hand to match outfit and same paint. I used a headband and E6000 to glue the bow to the head band. For the pocketbook accessory, I used a pre-made pre-glued cardboard box from a piece of computer equipment and the black packaging plastic used to ship fragile computer equipment as the pocketbook handle. I just cut it to length and glued with E6000. I painted it with the extra paint I made for the costume. For the undergarments, I wore a pair of white capri pants I already had and purchased some white fabric samples to go around the bottom of the pants. I didn't want to damage my capri pants so I took large rubber bands and secured the pantaloon fabric pieces to the capri pants by placing the rubber band over the fabric pieces. This made a ripple affect with the fabric pieces. Easy to put on and take off. I wore white tights and a shoe purchase from a local shoe store. My undershirt was a white tank top with white fabric pieces rippled off the shoulders. I secured to the tank with hot glue. Other than make up which was white costume make up and some white powder, lip stick, eye pencil, mascara, and red spray hair dye, the costume is pretty much finished at a cost of $14.99 for the purchase of the shoes and costume make up. It was a fun costume to make and wear. Everyone loved it and people were amazed that I made it. I even have people asking to wear it to their next costume party.