I was in a Nutcracker Performance! Part 1 - Costuming
I originally wrote this blog post second, however I think it makes more sense to post it first. All of the eloquently written background information about this performance is in the second post (which can be found here).
Here is a quick run down of everything you need to know:
I was accepted into an online belly dance show called “Raq’n Nutcracker” where everyone was assigned a song.
I was given Waltz of the flowers.
I was inspired by Disney’s Fantasia.
I was a little over ambitious with the amount of costuming I wanted to use…
There is a LOT of costuming in this performance. So much that I really needed a separate post about how I put together the costuming or you would have been reading a novella length story in one blog post.
The Costuming
I admit. I might have done a little too much for this, but I'm so happy with how everything looked, I can't be too upset with myself. I started by taking an inventory of all of my dance costuming and matching it with as many flowers as I could imagine. Some of my flowers changed during this process, originally I had rose as one of my flowers but I switched it to peony. A few of the flowers came from looking at what costumes I had available, and others from what materials I had available that would be very quick to turn into a costume. I did a lot of pinterest searching to find different floral costuming ideas so all of these flowers would look very different. I ended up with Peony, Poinsettia, Cala Lily, Iris, Tiger Lily, and Morning Glory. I also put together a costume for the Dreamer.
My costume for Peony
Peony - I did not make anything new for this costume… I used my wedding dress. The outfit, technically three pieces, was designed for performance, but I loved having it for my wedding. I still occasionally perform in it, and it was perfect for the fluffy white flower I was wanting to portray. I added a peony flower headdress that I purchased from my friend at Bold Oracle, as well as a green and gold body chain and a few bracelets. All were items I had in my performance wardrobe.
My Costume for Poinsettia
Poinsettia - This was another flower I did not make anything for.
I was able to shop my costume/performance wardrobe AND my Christmas decorations for this one! For the top I wore a lovely red velvet scoop neck crop top that I purchased from my friend at DWebb Designs. I paired it with a green multi layered skirt I made a few years ago. My thought was to look like the red and green leaves of the flower. I then added a lovely green and gold headband and belt set made by my friend Stacey McPartland. I attached a poinsettia pin to a red and silver beaded necklace, put on a few bracelets and arm bands, and then shoved poinsettia flowers from my Christmas decorations all over the costume! Quite literally. They were placed under different costume pieces (headband, crop top, and in my belt) and I just hoped that tension an friction would keep them there while I danced. Luckily they stayed put!
My costume for Cala Lily
Cala Lily - For this flower I reused a purple two piece outfit that I had purchased on Thred Up a few years ago. This was one of the costumes that was very easy to match to a flower, because the shape of the skirt reminds me of a Cala Lily. I added a beaded belt, a gold necklace, and a few bracelets and arm bands. I made a headdress for this costume using two faux flowers I purchased at JoAnns. I added gold and beaded decorations to the base of the flower, which helped me to attach them to either side of a broken gold bracelet. This allowed the flowers to hang on either side of my face; a very Rachel Brice inspired look. I threaded a green ribbon through the base of the broken bracelet to help attach the head piece to my head.
Iris - this costume took up the most space, and was quite heavy! I started with my very first dance troupe performance bra from when I was in the Bleuebellatrix Project. I also used a knee length Bennegeserite Witch skirt that I purchased off a friend second hand. I really wanted a particular 30 yard FCBD (Fat Chance Belly Dance) style skirt to be the statement piece for this costume. However I acquired it second hand from a friend and it needed repairs. This performance was a great excuse to finally fix the seams that needed to be sewn back together. However, I did not wear the 30yrd skirt like a normal skirt, instead I wore it more like a floofy butt cape. Rather than wearing the waistband around my body I folded it in half, added two safety pins to either side of the folded waistband, and used a green shoelace to attach it around my waist. I layered this over the knee length skirt, and tucked part of the 30yrd skirt into the waistband to get that layered iris look.
My costume for Iris
Because of how big this costume is, I wanted a headdress to match how full the skirts were. I used an old headband as a base. I then found scrap of the purple floral ribbon that was used on my old dance troupe bra (here's to hoarding materials forever!). I layered some extra lace I had from a separate project over the floral ribbon and hand sewed iridescent purple beads to attached the two layers together. I draped this over the headband and glued it down. I then glued and hand sewed many faux leaves to the headdress including large foam leaves that I pulled off the Iris flowers I had purchased from JoAnns. I made it a little asymmetrical, so there are more flowers on one side, and more leaves on the other. I added more lace and some dripping silver beads to finish it off.
I used the rest of the stem and foam leaves from the faux irises to make a leaf belt. I bent the stem so that it curved around the back of my body, and then the leaves I bent to face the floor on either side of my hips. I used a silver chain I decorated with more beads to attach the two sems to the front of my body. I also added a sequenced multi-colored yarn creation that was once a hairpiece to the back of the leaf belt to disguise the duct tape I used to attach the overlapping stems at the back. This was layered over the skirts and a belt I had made many years ago using the same multicolored yarn. I completed this look with a blue and gold body chain that used the same beads I used on the bra, and multiple arm bangles and bracelets.
My costume for Tiger Lily
Tiger Lily - I had a lot of fun reusing my Flareon cosplay for this flower! (Read about Flareon here) To make this flower costume look different from my cosplay, I added a few more accessories. Tiger lilies have a lot of black dots close to the center of the flower, but they become less dense further down the petals. To simulate this idea (without painting on one of my favorite cosplays) I made an overskirt to layer on the cosplay skirt. I used almost all of my extra and scrap fabric from when I originally made this cosplay back in 2022! I wanted this overskirt to have a kinda messy petal like look. So I sewed the scrap fabric to a belt in different sized triangles. The belt was made from the fabric I cut from the bottom of the original bridesmaid dress when I hemmed it for my friend's wedding! I then sewed numerous black beads all over the overskirt. To add a little more black to the skirt I also layered a sparkly back sequenced hip scarf on top of both skirts!
For the headpiece I used scrap ribbon that had been used for the trim on the hem of the Flareon skirt and cape. I attached 4 tiger lily flowers, and two buds, to this ribbon as well as some gold beads and accents I had in my scrap bead bag. The ribbon ties behind my head to keep the headpiece in place, and the flowers hang on either side of my face. Similar to the cala lily.
I also made a belt for this flower using the extra stems from the faux lily flowers I had purchased. I liked that they would not go to waste, and it added a nice pop of green to the costume! For this belt, I glued extra leaves on the stem, added a few gold beads and tassels, and bent the stem to fit around my waist. Because it reached all the way around my body I drilled a hold in the base of the stem and inserted a jump ring and a lobster claw clasp. This clasp hooked onto a pretty chain I found in my scrap jewelry bag on the opposite end of the stem, where I had left a bud. I had an extra flower, so I attached that to the pretty chain as well.
I finished off the costume with a matching set of black beaded jewelry that included earrings, a necklace and a body chain. I made this set quite a few years ago, and the beads from that set matched the beads I had sewn onto the overskirt. I love when I can incorporate pieces from old costuming a jewelry to make a new cohesive look. This is the exact reason I hoard so many crafting supplies!
My costume for Morning Glory
Morning Glory - I made the most costume pieces for this flower than for all of the other flowers! My idea with this flower was to have a yellow top for the middle of the flower, a white skirt layer and a purple skirt to show the color gradient of this flower. I started with a knee length purple bridesmaid dress I wore at my sister's wedding close to 10 years ago. It was an infinity styled dress, but I had removed the long strips of fabric that are meant to be wrapped around the body as the bodice for the dress. What was left was a cute lavender skirt and a lot of rectangle fabric! I used most of those rectangles to add a long ruffle to the hem of the skirt to give it more flounce.
For the white part of the flower I waffled back and forth over what shape I wanted it to be, but eventually settled on a white velvet miniskirt I had made as a mockup for costumes I made for my dance troupe (The Bleuebellatrix Project). I threw together a belt using another strip of the white velvet, a couple of circular pins, and strings of white and AB iridescent beads I pulled from a necklace I had made, but wanted to find a new use for.
For the yellow top I used extra velvet from that same dance troupe costuming I had made. I cut out three rectangles of fabric to make a halter top that is fashioned similar to a swimsuit. The thinner rectangle I used for the band that wraps under my chest. I attached the short edge of the other two rectangles to this band, these stretch over my chest and tye behind my head. It's a very simple top that ends up looking like a V-neck halter top. I wanted more embellishment on this piece, so I added a double layered white lace trim to the V-neck, and another loopy white trim under my bust. I added gold coins to the trim under my bust.
Because morning glory flowers grow on a vine, I really wanted vine-like details to my arms. I made very simple arm bands using green scrap fabric from my leafy sea dragon costume (read more about that here). I also used a scrap green fabric that had been ripped from the lining of a leather skirt I repurposed to make leaves. The technique I used to make the fabric leaves was very fun!
Starting with a rectangle strip of fabric, the top corners are folded down to touch middle of the fabric on the bottom edge to make a triangle. Ideally the folded edges touch in the middle. Then, the fabric is gathered along the bottom edge and pulled tightly together so that it looks rounded, giving the leaf shape. I attached the leaves a long strip of stretch green fabric, and added beaded and gold coin details to the base of each leaf. I made a braided bracelet from the stretch fabric for my wrist and added a beaded and tied arm band for my upper arm. These were attached on either side of the long strip of fabric with the leaves. I made one leafy vine for each arm.
The headband for this flower took the longest of all the flowers, primarily because I had to paint each of the faux flowers the correct color. I could not find any light purple faux morning glory flowers at any store, so I painted some red flowers to match the light purple skirt. Each flower took two layers of paint. I attached the painted flowers to the same loopy trim I used on the yellow top and added gold bead details to every loop. I had 3 flowers on one side of my head and 4 on the other.
My Costume for the Dreamer
Dreamer - For the dreamer, I used a costume I had made for a duet performance I did with my friend and the other half of Bloomfeathers. It's a simple square crop top that can be worn open or tied at the sides and a handkerchief wrap skirt that ties at the side. They were made from a light creamy pink stretch lace fabric. This is the same fabric I used for the godets, overskirt, and cape of my Flareon (and Tiger Lily) cosplay but for that I had it dyed orange.
I liked this costume because it looked a little like a pretty nightgown.
I also included a lovely beaded cocoon robe (that I had purchased for a 1920’s party) for the beginning of the performance. By the end of the performance, (Spoiler Alert!) the dreamer gets her own floral headdress as well. I used a pink beaded headband and two more flower clips that I also purchased from Bold Oracle. Everything else about her costume was kept very neutral and simple as a contrast to the brightness of the flowers.
I was finishing costumes even while we started filming. So I would finish up a costume during the day, and film two of them later that evening once my partner was off of work. Let me know what you think of how the costuming looked in the video (Which is at the end of part 2) Did I capture that Fantasia vibe?
