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: Paper Fan Making

So as I have been saying in every post, I have been planning my Jane Austen 29th birthday party for a few years, and when the lockdowns happened last year I began to grow worried that I wouldn’t be able to have it. But luckily we moved down a tier, I had it, and we all had such a wonderful time.

Party time!

So in my previous posts I went over the invitations, the prizes, and the decorations. The next step in my party planning was activities. I had planned for three games, but I also had four little girls coming and needed something to occupy them; along with those who didn’t like playing games. I had thought about doing a tea blending, but the weather was supposed to be warm with wind. I looked about on Pinterest for ideas, and found fan making on the PennyWise blog.

Hmm…?

I love fans! They are so pretty and useful and I thought it would be perfect for the girls to make with their moms, or for any party guest to make if it grew too hot. With my party being the first of May, weather in California can either be extremely hot, medium hot, cool, or occasionally cold. I figured fan making would be something fun all can do to add to an outfit or a useful tool in the sun.

Austenland (2013)

So I didn’t follow exactly what they did in the PennyWise blog as I didn’t want to pre-make anything, and I also didn’t want to worry about having to supervise glue gun usage. So I took her idea and made a few changes.

Supplies:

• Colorful Paper (Scrapbook Paper works best)
• Stickers
• Clothespins
• Colorful Tape/Craft Tape
• Stapler (Optional)
• Ribbon (optional)

Directions:

1. Add stickers to scrapbook of desired.
2. Fold the paper back and forth, making accordion folds.
3. Staple the bottom part together and then pin by the clothespins or just pin the ends together with the clothespins.
4. Cover the clothespin with the Craft tape.
5. Add ribbon or other notions if desired.

Here is my example:

I then left everything out on a table so people could choose what they want and do it how they like.

This was a lot of fun. Only one child made one, as the rest had my friend make them for her. Then when it grew really warm, a few other of my friends decided to make some as well. My one friend is super artistic and made an extremely beautiful one. I didn’t get a chance to take a picture but she is fantastic at everything she sets her hands to.

This wasn’t too expensive, the thing that cost the most was the Scrapbook paper. I wanted a pack of paper that looked more vintage, to go with the Regency style of everything. They had cheaper ones, but not the style I wanted and I went with the more expensive one at Hobby Lobby (80 sheets for $19.99). The clothespins were $2 a pack. I bought three different types of craft type: two came in a pack of 2 for $1 and the other a pack of 3 tapes for $1. The stickers I already owned.

As only a few made fans I had a lot of paper left over. You know how much I enjoy making my own cards, so I used them to make thank you cards and have lots to choose from for any future ones I design.

I’ve been having so much fun sharing all these things with you, and even though the party has ended I will be continuing to share all my other party plans!

For more of my Jane Austen Birthday plans, go to Jane Austen Birthday: Prize One

For more Jane Austen party ideas, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: Decorations

For more Jane Austen crafts, go to Jane Austen Birthday Party: Teapot Piñata

For more on Northanger Abbey, go to Northanger Abbey Audiobook Narrated by Anna Massey