Two awesome fantasy geek things smooshed into one - D&D and GOT. I had the idea to pun off of this and make myself a Mother of Dungeons and Dragons costume almost immediately after last year's LOJ Masquerade Ball, and I couldn't wait to work on it. What's funny about that is that I didn't actually make my outfit until the week of the ball! I spent so much time working on Bryan's dragon outfit that my own - which was the one that set the theme for our attire - was nearly an afterthought. I had the foresight to buy the Dany wig and a white gown with a funky hemline on Amazon about two months ahead of the ball, and I gathered all of the supplies ahead of time, so thankfully it was a quick project. My D20 Staff of Awesomeness got it's own construction post, but here's how I made my jewelry and dress:
Step 1: All The Best Rolls – Nat 20s abound! Would The Mother of Dungeons and Dragons have anything less on her accessories? I originally intended on making a tiered, strung necklace from these plastic dice, but my drill bit kept breaking off when I tried to drill holes in them so I finally gave up and superglued them together, reinforcing the design with wire and some other metal fittings in places on the back. It worked fine, but resulted in some jagged glue spots that scratched up my neck, so I added some craft foam to make it more comfortable to wear. .
Step 2: Nasty Woman and the Bad Ombre – Well, I had this grand plan to make the ombre on the dress by dip-dyeing it, but time ran out and I was forced to improvise. I bought a couple of cans of spray fabric paint and started in. I wanted it to look as if I had walked through dragon fire and my dress was charred and still alight - the ombre was the charring part. I was so afraid I was going to screw up the top part of the dress with paint, as I wanted the bodice to remain white, so I was as careful as I could be with keeping the plastic over it while I worked. It was 90+ degrees out, and I live in an apartment with only a patio for spray projects like this, so I improvised with some drop cloths and a couple of umbrellas for shade. Both of the fabric paint cans ran out rather quickly, but thankfully I had a can of black primer spray paint that we had tried to use for D&D miniatures but it didn't work well, so we abandoned it, and I ended up using it to finish the dress. It was meant for this all along, apparently! It isn't a perfect ombre, but it turned out well enough, and once i added the other embellishments it looked pretty darn good.
Step 3: This Girl Is On Fire – In keeping with the "walked through fire and is charred but still alight" theme, I wanted to fill in the funky hemline with some color and sparkle to make it seem like it was full of embers. I layered 2 yards of a bright red tulle inside of 4 yards of a black, glittery tulle, and hand-stitched it into the skirt. Then I hand-stitched some gathers into it to give it a tumbling flame look. (My quality control inspector Fergus helped out inside the skirt to made sure everything was secure.)
Step 4: Details, Details – I felt like the waistline needed something to bring together the charred and ember-like gathering of the skirt, so I ordered a last-minute dragon belt buckle from Amazon Prime for $8.00. It showed up within 48 hours and actually looked pretty cool! I hand-stitched it into the dress and then secured it with hot glue so it wouldn't flop around while I walked.
And there you have it! The Mother of Dungeons and Dragons at the ball, with her Dragon escort. So much fun to wear, and such an awesome process to make.
I've already thought of next year's costumes ...