Having never before made a costume sculpted from EVA foam before, I rely HEAVILY on tutorials from more talented crafters. For some reason, where to begin with this sword construction really stumped me. Here's how this project went down for me - hope it helps you!

Items used were: 1) interlinking foam mats, 2) thin color craft foam, 3) glue (both hot glue, contact cement and modge podge), 4) carpet knife, 5) small sander and dremel, 6) paper mache paste, 7) pipe, 8) spare fabric
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To construct my sword, I started with printing out a picture of the sword in the desired size. Instead of free-hand drawing anything, all I did was cut apart my picture and use that as my pattern. This helped save time and hassle.

Once the base was cut out, I used the dremel to create a trail to fit my handle into.  To provide sturdiness to the sword, this copper pipe spanned nearly the entire length of the blade.
One of the things that stumped me while reading about how to make a foam sword was the discussions on priming and sealing.

Before painting, everyone seemed to endorse priming first, saying that because it is such an absorbent material, it will absorb any paint applied to it. So to prime it, I mixed equal parts Modge Podge and water and covered the sword with two layers of this mixture.  After those layers dried, I painted it.

I know it's not perfect, but not too shabby for my first attempt right?

Once Upon A Time has some truly FANTASTIC costumes - I mean, that goes without saying. There is so much detail put into these creative interpretations on classic Disney characters that I'm constantly amazed everytime I revisit the series. If you were to ask me to choose a favorite, I wouldn't be able to.


However, one costume that really stood out to me was Aurora's purple gown.

Maybe because it's more informally feminine than other characters, like say, Belle's gold dress. Another aspect that drew my attention was the frayed edges of the dress and how it just fit so well with the background of the enchanted forest.

Overall, it was tough deciding what costume I wanted to make first, but I was very anxious to explore Aurora's outfit further .

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This dress was made into 3 parts: a skirt, bodice and the corset. And because this was only my 2nd costume to ever make, if I was honest, I'd say that the hardest part was everything.

Typically I always start with the hardest piece first which (big surprise) is the corset. Fortunately, I had one on hand and was able to base the form of Aurora's on the one I already had, with a few minor adjustments. Anyway, this is what I came up with...

Corset originally used grey ribbon instead of strange mismatched purple/pink