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: Party Favors II

So as you know if you have been following my page, I just celebrated my 29th birthday with a Jane Austen Garden Tea Party.

In my earlier posts, I have shared some of the earlier pieces in putting the party together and of course I had to go over the party favors.

But I realized after I posted it, I completely forgot to include what I put in the gift bags for the little girls who attended my party!

From Clueless

So like for the adults, all the girls were given a teacup of their choice. I had picked out a few small ones especially for the little girls Each cup cost no more than $4, varying from $2-$4.

I needed more bags than the ones I purchased at Hobby Lobby, so I ended up going to the dollar tree where I got three brown bags with pink sparkles for a $1.

The girls were also each given a reusable teabag from Madsen Creations and for the material I chose this beautiful flowered print in the shapes of different fruit. Strawberries and pineapples were a must have in regency times.

Each girl was also given a beautiful gold teaspoons from Best Starloop. A set of 16 for $15.99 ($0.99 each).

And each girl was also given a bag filled with loose leaf tea I already owned, giving each person a different tea. The tea I used was: Adagio Tea Scottish Breakfast, Caroline’s Coffee Roasters Princess Earl Grey, Crafted Leaf Golden Tip Lapsang Souchong, Good Earth Rosa de Jamaica, Harts of America Sleepynight Tea Extra Strength, Tiesta Tea Fruity Paradise, Tiesta Tea Nutty Almond Cream, Tiesta Tea Royal Breakfast, Tiesta Tea Victorian Earl Grey, and TWG Singapore Breakfast

I also gave them each Chocolate or Vanilla wafers, each one only costing $0.38 in the bulk section at Winco.

But while these were nice, I also wanted to make sure the girls had more fun in their party favors. They also were each given a rose pen and a slinky (the pens were $1 at the Dollar tree and the slinkys came in packs of 2 for $1. I also gave the girls the leftover balloons from the pack I used to make my teapot piñata.

They came out to be about $8 a party favor. The girls all liked it and used their bags to store their candy from the piñata.

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

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

And in other news, Happy 4th of July! I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday!

Jane Austen Birthday Party: Party Favors

So as you know if you have been following my page, I just celebrated my 29th birthday with a Jane Austen Garden Tea Party.

In my earlier posts, I have shared some of the earlier pieces in putting the party together and of course I have to include the party favors.

So for the first thing I wanted to do was have teacups for everyone to drink out of, whether they wanted tea, lemonade, or water; and have enough for them to all be taken home. I found two at a local vintage shop, fourteen at Goodwill, and two more at a different vintage shop. I tried to have a real variety so there was sure to be enough for everyone to have one they would love. Each cup cost no more than $4, varying from $2-$4.

I was just going to buy plain brown bags for people to take their favors home in, but when I went to Hobby Lobby I found a beautiful printed set of 12 for 6.99 (making them about $0.58 each). You can see three of them that I used for the prizes.

To go with the teacups I ordered reusable teabags from Madsen Creations and chose this beautiful flowered print in the shapes of different fruit. Strawberries and pineapples were a must have in regency times.

I also ordered these beautiful gold teaspoons from Best Starloop. A set of 16 for $15.99 ($0.99 each) was a great deal, and they are so beautiful.

I also filled a bag with loose leaf tea I already owned, giving each person a different tea. The tea I used was: Adagio Tea Scottish Breakfast, Caroline’s Coffee Roasters Princess Earl Grey, Crafted Leaf Golden Tip Lapsang Souchong, Good Earth Rosa de Jamaica, Harts of America Sleepynight Tea Extra Strength, Tiesta Tea Fruity Paradise, Tiesta Tea Nutty Almond Cream, Tiesta Tea Royal Breakfast, Tiesta Tea Victorian Earl Grey, and TWG Singapore Breakfast

And to finish it off I decided on Biscoff Chocolate and Vanilla wafers, each one only costing $0.38 in the bulk section at Winco.

They came out to be about $6 a party favor. A great deal? I think so and a cute party favor.

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: What’s in Your Purse Game

For more Jane Austen party ideas, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: Guess How Many Sugar Cubes

Jane Austen Birthday Party: What’s in Your Purse Game

So as you know if you have been following my page, I just celebrated my 29th birthday with a Jane Austen Garden Tea Party.

In my earlier posts, I have shared invitations, decorations, the menu, piñata, prizes, paper fan making, croquet, and more.

But you can’t have a party without games! The first game was Jane Austen trivia and the second game was a tea tray memory game. For the third game I decided to go with “Guess How Many Sugar Cubes”. For the last game I wanted to do “best dressed”, but my sister refused to help me by judging the winner. So instead we did “What’s In Your Purse?” I had wanted to do a Tea version a friend did a few years ago at a party, but I couldn’t find a copy of it and neither could she. I found this one online instead.

This game is always fun, and of course it just depends on whether the guests brought their big purse or a little one.

The winner received the teapot, honey, and scone mix from the Tea Tray Memory Game.

I know I’m sure you all wondering what else could I possibly share but I’m not done! I still have my music choices, my hair, my regency dress, and what kind of party favors I gave out to to share. Stay tuned!

For more of my Jane Austen Birthday plans, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: Guess How Many Sugar Cubes

For more Jane Austen party ideas, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: Tea Tray Memory Game

For more Jane Austen games, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: Jane Austen Trivia