Vintage Barware and Cocktails

I plan to use these two recent vintage finds for our Halloween party this year. The Bar Aid, which I picked up at a garage sale, is a metal box with a wheel that allows you to flip through over 50 recipes. The cocktails are interesting and retro - no Sex on the Beach with this recipe... book? wheel? scroll? You get the idea!

Here's the Bar Aid's version of my favorite cocktail, an Old Fashioned. That's way more whiskey than I use in my mix! 

The second item I'll have out with the bar is "a guide to pink elephants" which includes the 200 most requested mixed drinks (on alcohol resistant cards, that was nice of the publishers!). 

This little gem was published in 1952, which is well after the time period of our depression era murder mystery party. I don't think the guests will mind (or notice!). The party IS circus themed so how can I go wrong with a guide to pink elephants?

Here's the Old Fashioned according the pink elephants. I've never, ever had an Old Fashioned with Curacao.... may have to give that one a try =)

DIY Costume - Half Man Half Woman part 2

Here I am again working on the half man half woman costume for the our murder mystery party. In an earlier blog post, I showed a couple examples that I found online to use as inspiration along with a dress and man's shirt that I picked up. This post will show you how I've started to deconstruct these garments and begin the process of putting them together to make one awesome costume. Please bare with me as I've never done this before and there were some trials, errors and seam ripping!

Here are the three pieces that I'm working with.

I thought I'd start with the pants after looking at everything for about 20 minutes and second guessing myself.
Commence seam ripping!

Ten minutes later and I now have two halves.

I pinned the left leg to the dress at the waist.

I sat down at my sewing machine and took some deep breaths. Then stitched them together.

Voila!

Alright, now I'm on a roll! On to the shirt! I cut the shirt in half, leaving a little extra material on the left side for the seam allowance.

Here's where it gets dicey. I cut away the left top side of the dress so I can replace it with the left side of the man's shirt. Then, I realized that I should have done this step before attaching the pant leg. Commence seam ripping.

I pinned the backs of the shirt and dress together.

Then sewed them together and added the left leg of the pants back on.

I have quite a bit of finishing touches to do now. So, I'll be putting this on and figuring out what to do next.
Stay tuned.