Inspiration Like An Icy Blast

That's right. Project Arendelle is taking off. Kind of. As in...I got something done. A test, you could call it. I'm not 100% in love with the results, but it's definitely been extremely helpful.

Let me start you at the beginning of the story. I was working really hard to figure out which fabric would be best to make Elsa's cape/train/pretty flowy thing. You know, the thing pictured below.

After a lot of thinking (and a good bit of research to see how the fabric draped) I decided to use tulle as my fabric in this scenario. It had the transparency and the correct weight needed to have it flow properly...and I asusumed it could hold on glitter pretty well in order to make all of those lovely snowflakes. 

Then I realized I had a ton of tulle left over from a project about a year ago. I could make myself a mock-up of the cape thing and test it all out.

Here is me with that very tulle sitting on top of my head. I was going to cut it out into several pieces and use my beautiful new sewing machine to sew it together, but I found that cutting it in one large place actually worked out just fine for me. 

I then made a rolled hem on the top part of the cape in order to help me differentiate it from the bottom (trust me, it can get confusing very easily!). Then I decided to begin making a snowflake pattern on it. 

My method of choice was to paint on Mod Podge in the shape of a snowflake and then sprinkle glitter on top. I made a paper snowflake out of tissue paper to use as a guide, putting it under a layer of plastic so that it wouldn't gut stuck on the tulle.

That's me painting on the Mod Podge in the shape. If you look, you can see the pink-red color of the tissue paper underneath. This was probably the easiest part of it all...I guess. Weird.

Once I had painted on all of the Mod Podge, I began to sprinkle glitter on top of it. I dumped a whole bunch straight from the shaker and then shook off the excess. Then I took that excess and sprinkled that on by hand. Let's just say that I kind of got glitter everywhere...especially my palms.

I'm too lazy to get up and take a picture of the results-but it's not all that special. The shape didn't turn out as well as I had been hoping, and the dried Mod Podge seems to have hardened into an almost plastic-like substance. It makes the fabric stiff and it peels off easily, taking the glitter with it. It would have to stay pretty undisturbed in order to stay on.

But that means I've learned. Either I'm going to water down the Mod Podge, or I'm going to use this thing called Fabri-Tac which apparently works like a charm. Lovely, yes?

-Rain