My Regency Gown from MadsenCreations

So I don’t know about you all, but I’ve been wanting a Regency inspired gown for quite a while now.

I had planned to have one made for Modesto Jane Con but time ran away with me and we didn’t get a chance.

But this time I was ready. I put an order in early with Madsen Creations and was determined to have my Regency gown for my birthday party.

Now I don’t know about you all but I’m one of those people who I need to see something on me and struggle at looking at fabric and seeing the end result. Oftentimes I don’t know what I want and kind of hem and haw about it all. This time I had seen lots of Regency gowns in different films and had a better idea of what I really wanted. Of course I really wanted a coat like Catherine:

But that is too, too hot for CA spring.

Instead I really wanted a blue gown, as blue always looks good on me, and after searching through many gowns the biggest influence was the cut of Lydia’s gown in Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and the style of Daphne’s gown in Bridgerton.

I haven’t actually seen this show, but I loved the pearls on the dress.

After the gown was selected we went on a trip to the fabric store. Originally we were going to find a lace to add on top of the gown, but there was no fabric that I really liked and time was limited. Instead we purchased blue linen, blue thread, pearl buttons-and swapped out the plans for an overlay for an applique (being inspired by Emma (2020).

I also needed a new fan, as my pride and joy is a red fan from Spain that my brother and sister-in-law gave me, and would clash with this gown. I needed a few supplies from the dollar tree and found a blue fan that matched the fabric for $1.

From there my work was done and Madsen Creations took over. She made this dress in a week, yes one week! Isn’t that amazing?

She ended up using a lace overlay with pearl buttons she had leftover from a previous costume she made. She also said that if it wasn’t for the trickiness of the pearls in the overlay, the dress would have been completed in two days.

My dress was absolutely beautiful, a perfect dream and I looked great in it.

If you are looking for any custom work, definitely check her out.

We are almost done with my party plans. Can you believe it? Just a one more thing to share and then I’ll be back to our usual book reviews and such.

For more on Madsen Creations, go to Jane Austen Runs My Life Collaboration with Madsen Creations!

For more Madsen Creations products, go to I Tried Madsen Creations’ Reusable Cloth Teabags

For more Jane Austen products, go to Marrying Mr. Darcy: The Pride and Prejudice Card Game

Jane Austen Birthday Party: Catherine Morland’s Regency Hairdo

So we are almost done with going over my Jane Austen 29th Birthday Party planning.

We have gone over invitations, decorations, the menu, games, my teapot piñata, prizes, and party favors. In this post I’ll be going over my hair choice, the next will feature my gown, and then last but not least my party playlist.

So my hair and I do not have a good relationship, it rarely ever does what I want it to.

So I was first going to try and do a hairstyle like Marianne Dashwood:

But it wouldn’t come out right. So then I tried for Mary Crawford.

But my hair was just not cooperating.

Its times like that that make me wish I had a maid to work on my hair.

I was feeling really stressed as I was running out of time when I decided to try and do what I do when I’m feeling down and stressed, look up my girl Catherine Morland.

Her hair didn’t look too difficult, so I googled to see if I could find a step-by-step guide and discovered this one for doll hair. I figured that if it worked well for the doll, it should theoretically work well on human hair, right?

The directions come from Never Grow Up Doll Guide Blog. She did it for some kind of Regency doll photo shoot. I really liked her step by step directions as they were easy to follow and she included lots of pictures. As I was doing mine on my own, I didn’t take any pictures, but here is step by step how to create Catherine’s hair.

1. Choose a piece of ribbon (I used a leftover piece from my gown) and place it tie on your head like a headband. Leave two sections of hair loose in the front.
2. Secure the ribbon by Bobby pining it in.
3. Keep the two sections of hair separate by clipping them. I put the extra hair in claws so it would stay put:
4. . Then put all your hair (except the front two sections) into a ponytail.
5. Take your ponytail and twist it into a bun, Bobby pining it to stay in place.
6. Take one of the front strands and twist it, placing the end on top of the bun and looping it around the bin. Pin in place.
7. Repeat step 6

I didn’t take a really good picture of my hair, but it looked fantastic. I definitely recommend doing this to your hair.

We are almost done with my party plans. Can you believe it? Just a few more things to share.

For more of my Jane Austen Birthday plans, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: Party Favors II

For more Jane Austen party ideas, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: What’s in Your Purse Game

Jane Austen Birthday Party: Invitations

So I have been planning my Jane Austen 29th birthday party for a few years, and I’m not letting the Coronavirus get in the way. I had always planed a garden party (social distancing check), trying to keep it small (small groups check), and our county is moving a tier down. But even if everything gets on lockdown again and it turns out to be just me, I’m having it!

Party time!

Those who follow me on Instagram have seen that I already started by collecting tea cups which I plan to use for people to drink out of and take home as their favor. I started early on that as I wanted plenty of time to get enough.

After that, I moved on to invitations. Emily Post recommends that invitations should be mailed out 4-6 weeks before the event. I had planned a weekend to work on them, but things didn’t go quite as planned.

My life motto right there…

So I was getting close to the 4 week mark and needed to get invitations out. I found a couple cute ones on Etsy. One by PaperColada was nice looking and a good price, but I struggled with editing it. So I ended up giving that one a pass.

Another one by AgentKat was gorgeous, but the price was a bit too high as I still needed to pay for printing them. I gave that one a pass as well.

There were other paper ones that could be made and fit the style and price I wanted, but they wouldn’t be ready in time.

So I tried making my own cards. After visiting CVS, Staples, Walgreens, Zazzle, and VistaPrint-I ended up settling on Walmart. The cards weren’t exactly what I had envisioned, but they still came out cute. I made three different ones with free Regency pictures I found online. This one photographed the best.

The invitation says:

You are cordially invited to a Jane Austen Garden Tea Party

In honor of Miss L—- Twenty Ninth Birthday (I wanted to do Nine and Twenty, but I wasn’t sure everyone would get it.)

“It sometimes happens that a women is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.” -Jane Austen

Please RSVP with haste at —

Costumes are not required but encouraged

I can’t wait to share some of my other plans with you all.

For more Jane Austen parties, go to Jane Austen Bridal Shower