A Major Award- Part 2

   I will admit that I cheated on the headwear. I bought a knitted dalek hat on Etsy.

After buying my hat and finding the perfect inexpensive skirt at Burlington Coat Factory, I had to start figuring out...1) what to use to make the dalek bumps and 2) how to secure them to the skirt.

Dalek outfits are a pretty popular cosplay for girls, so I found a lot of DIY blog posts explaining various methods on how to pull off the bumps.  Some girls just used felt or fabric circles with no actual bump.  Some suggested the bottom of plastic Easter eggs, some said foam balls worked well while others used Styrofoam.  Knowing how much Styrofoam costs ($3.99 for just one half ball), I was leaning towards some sort of foam ball.  I decided to head to Five Below one Saturday because I thought they might have something that could work. 

As soon as I saw them, light shown down and I had to control my desire to leap with joy like a caveman who just finished hunting and killing his first t-rex. 

They were metal balls filled with puzzle pieces that easily separated into two separate half bumps. They were only $1 a piece and because they separated into halves, it was like getting each bump for only 50 cents. Perfect!

My first task was to paint them. I don't think a dalek would look right wearing Hello Kitty bumps...although... a Hello Kitty-dalek mash-up would be interesting... some other time. 

According to my dalek making predecessors it is better to hand paint the bumps using acrylic paint as opposed to spray painting them.  I don't remember anyone explaining why, but I wasn't prepared to find out for myself, so metallic silver acrylic paint it was.

 

Of course I had to have some entertainment while I was painting.

 

After painting the bumps, I needed to figure out a way to adhere them to my skirt.  Because they were hollow, there was no back, so I had to create some kind of backing.

I purchased a piece of black felt and then cut the felt into circles.

After cutting out the circles, I used a hot glue gun, mostly on the inside of the half balls, to adhere each bump to a felt backing.

I then glued a piece of Velcro to the backing and adhered pieces of Velcro to the skirt.  I figured this way if I needed to wash the skirt or if I wanted to reuse it for something else in the future, it would be better to make the bumps removable.

I only put on three rows of bumps, because using metal, if they were all around the dress, it would be impossible to sit (that was the reason some girls used foam balls).

Once the skirt was completed,

 

I moved on to the shirt.  The skirt took longer than anticipated to finish, and since I was running out of time, I didn't put as much creativity into my shirt.  It ended up being a $6.00 black tee from Old Navy and some shiny duct tape. 

 

 

I completed the outfit with a plunger with a silver painted handle and a whisk, and of course, a girl needs her accessories.

 

Now I was all ready to go to Doctor Who night at The British Chip Shop.

 

 

Note: My super cool dalek bracelet was purchased at All Things Fun.