As a uni student, fancy dress has become something of a favourite past time of mine. I love dressing up for different socials and nights out, but more than anything I love trying to make my outfits as unique or as homemade as possible - anti-conformist as ever!

 

For Halloween last year I dressed up as Pocahontas. Admittedly not the most scary outfit ever but it was so much fun to make (especially as all  I used was a pillow case and some ribbon!) This year, after much deliberation, I decided to go as Minnie Mouse. Again, not particularly scary but I remember seeing pictures of one my fave fashionistas Ashley Madekwe dressed as Minnie and ever since I've been waiting for the opportunity to do it myself! Since I'm contemplating dyeing my hair soon (more on that soon!), I wanted to make the most of my Minnie Mouse-esque hair while I've still got it.

 

Onto the actual costume, I already own a number of black crop tops and black shoes so that half was sorted. I have a pair of ears so all that was left was the polka dot skirt. I searched high and low for one I could buy, even in the kids sections of shops! Determined not to admit defeat I ventured to the market and bought a square metre of red and white dotty material. Cue my DIY polka dot skirt!

 

As much as I love creating and customising clothing, I'm not very good at doing things off the cuff, so I decided to cheat a little bit and use a skirt I already own - much easier!

 

I started with the big square of material and cut it into a smaller piece that was more manageable to work with. I then started pinning the material directly to my skirt so I would be able to take it from a square shape into a more fluid skirt shape.

 

 

Once I had pinned it all the way round, I cut it to shape and thought (rather naively) to myself, well that was easy! If only!

 

Of course when I went to try it on, because I had pinned the material when the elastic of the skirt wasn't taut, as soon as I tried to pull the skirt over my legs, half the safety pins began to buckle! So after a bit of fiddling around, I tried again and voila! One polka dot skirt perfect for Minnie Mouse.

 

 

I will do a follow up post to this, complete with a full outfit picture. What are any of you dressing up as for Halloween?

 

Jade :)