Too, too pretty, no?

Brace yourselves, folks: There are going to be a lot of photos on this one! You may remember me mentioning that I seem to be becoming much more of a girly-girl now that I'm out of my twenties. Is that normal? I don't know, but I'm enjoying it. My current obsessions? Cupcakes and tutus, not necessarily in that order. I found this adorable tutorial for making a tutu...

It was so cute, I immediately added it to my Pinterest board, Things I Want to Make. A few weeks later, my dear friend Angie asked me if I wanted to do some back-up vocals and instrumentals on her new album. Um, yeah! I (half-jokingly) said, "Okay, but only if I get to help with the styling for the photo shoot for the album cover..." and then, a moment later, inspiration hit. Oh. My. Gosh. Angie *needs* a tutu for her album photo shoot. NEEDS. Yes!!! So I got started with a repurposed skinny strap nude tank and some light blue tulle...

You'll see that I followed the basic method on the tutorial, but instead of looping the tulle lengths onto a long ribbon, I tied a little knot and then stitched it onto the hem of the tank.

Here's what the tutu looks after the first layer of tulle. I totally made marks at regular intervals around the hem of the tank before I started sewing in order to ensure even layers. I'm definitely a nerd like that :-)

Things started getting a little fancier during the second layer. I interspersed some black dotted mesh within the strips of light blue tulle. I didn't want the whole thing to get too dark or serious, but at the same time, I didn't want Angie to end up looking like a puffy blue cloud.

The third layer saw the addition of some super-long strands or, as Angie called them, "The long pieces for me to step on." Ha! Well, at least it makes things interesting, right?

This is a gratuitous tutu shot, post fluffing and wrapping some lovely little bows in the black mesh up near the top. Don't you just want to pet it??

So Angie came over to try on her tutu. Our friend Dawn came over, as well, and pointed out how much Angie looked like Cartman (from South Park) in her ginormous sunglasses. Ha! Of course, we had to pause for a photo.

And then the tutu went on. Look! Almost unconsciously, Angie morphed into a cutie wanna-be ballerina, complete with rounded arms. Dawn is lurking behind the door there. You can't see her, but she's there.

The next step was for Angie to explore her modeling skills. This look is...I'm not actually sure what this was. But it made me laugh, so I thought you might enjoy it, as well.

Okay, all straightened up now.

Oooh, let's see what's down here!

Testing the spin-a-bility

Aaaaw, like a little princess!

...and finish with a yoga pose!

Doesn't Angie look absolutely serene now that her tutu is complete? Let the album cover photo shoot begin! Want to see what Angie does when she's not modeling tutus? Check out her blog here.

Let me end by saying how happy I am to have move the original tutu tutorial pin to my Things I HAVE Made board on Pinterest :-)