So the saying goes, it's the most wonderful time of the year. AND that means, it's also the time of the year that The Harris Sisters present to you our 2018 year in review in the form of a 'Twas the Night Before Christmas parody.
For those of you new to our blog, this is a Harris Family tradition that dates waaaayyy back (back before computers, and blogs, and social media, and such). Yes, these were originally created with good old fashioned pencil and paper while sitting at the kitchen bar on Christmas Eve night.
So, to keep this grand old tradition alive, we still bring these to you on Christmas Eve (albeit in a slightly more newfangled way).
We had lots of fun this year! We're so glad we got to "meet" some of our new friends and keep up with our old ones. We hope that you had fun reading along with us!
'Twas the Site by Three Sisters - 2018
Twas the site by three sisters, Two Zero One Eight
The fun we've had this year has been really first-rate;
And then in November, we thought it was high time,
To give our blog a brand new design,
With a new look and feel, we'll bring you content next year,
We're already planning and preparing, my dears!
As January 1 nears - oh my, how time flies!
We wanted to make sure we acknowledge you guys,
To all who have followed, shared, commented, and liked,
"HARRIS CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!"
Merry Christmas from Deanna, Donna, and Misty! (and Daddy - we're pictured here in 1979)
Every year as Christmas draws closer, I would like to think that I come up with some pretty good and creative gift ideas. This year, I bring you two years worth of crafty gift ideas!
For one Secret Santa gift exchange last year, the kids wanted the presents to be homemade. I made a prayer box:
This was a pretty easy project. I took an empty Altoids tin and decorated it with scrapbooking paper, a favorite Bible verse, and a nice pom pom fringe.
I then added some small Post-it notes inside to finish it off. As with most of my homemade presents, I wanted one for myself when it was finished, so I knew this one was a winner.
Homemade gifts were where it was at last year, as we found ourselves trying to figure out another idea for our 4-H Christmas gift exchange. Our "giftee" liked jewelry, so we tried our hand at making a necklace.
The beads on this necklace are actually torn magazine pages. You roll long skinny pieces of paper around a skewer and glue the ends to create the beads. We threaded the finished beads through some twine and paired the necklace with some sausage balls for a gift.
This year, we didn't have as many crafty gift exchanges, but my oldest daughter wanted to stretch her gift giving buck to include everyone she has ever met, so we landed on creating photo cubes. The first one I attempted came out great. I printed pictures on regular paper and sized them exactly to the size of the cube using the Paint program on the computer. That was probably the trickiest part and the most time consuming. I glued them on and then applied a layer of Mod Podge over the top. The corners looked like they may present a problem, so on the next one I changed it up a bit.
The kids painted the corners of the cube to allow for a smaller photo on each side. That way the photos would lay flat and be easier to decoupage. However, I liked the look of the first cube better, so I did some engineering.
I cut out frames for the smaller photos, and I added a felt bottom to both of them so they can be used as paperweights. Because these specific cubes will be cousin presents, each cousin got their own side of a cube.
For my last craft, I made teacher gifts! In keeping with the theme of being cheap saving money, I stole one of my daughter's ideas. Our movie theater has one night a week when the movies are $5, so I bought $5 gift cards and added a note: "Treat yo'self, to a movie (on a Tuesday)."
I scrapbooked the explanation onto a card and put it all into a popcorn box along with a snack:
So, if you're still mulling over what to get that mailman who has been inundated with delivering your Amazon packages, break out the Mod Podge and be sure to make an extra to "Treat yo'self."
I made these homemade gingersnaps last weekend, and not only were they super yummy, they were also pretty festive looking too. If you like gingersnaps, you will love this recipe, and the white chocolate dip gives them just enough to make them a little extra.
White Chocolate Dipped Gingersnaps
2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon allspice 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup + 2-3 tablespoons sugar
divided 3/4 cup canola oil 1 egg
room temperature 1/4 cup molasses 1 11 ounce package Ghirardelli white chocolate chips 1 tablespoon shortening
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a mixing bowl, mix flour, soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and salt together. Set aside.
In a standing mixer, beat 1 cup sugar and oil together for 2 minutes. Mix in the egg until combined. Add the molasses
while mixing on low speed. Add the flour mixture a little at a time while mixing on low speed. Mix until well
combined.
Place the remaining 2-3 tablespoons sugar in a bowl and set aside.
Shape the dough into 1 inch balls (I like to use a cookie scoop so they are all the same exact amount of dough and then
I roll it into a uniform ball). Roll the balls of dough in the 1/4 cup sugar and then place on an ungreased baking sheet 2
inches apart.
Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookie springs back when
lightly touched.
Promptly remove from pan onto a cooling rack.
Dip in chocolate once cooled completely.
Lay wax paper or parchment paper on your work surface. Melt white chocolate with the shortening in the microwave at
50% power in 30 second increments until smooth. Dip each cookie halfway in the chocolate and let the excess
chocolate dip back into the bowl.
Set the
cookie on the wax paper until chocolate hardens.
Store in an airtight container.
Note:
I have shared this recipe exactly as it was written. However, in all honesty, I used an egg straight from the refrigerator and no ill will came to me or my cookies. Do so at your own risk though. :)
Do you ever go into autopilot with your Christmas decorations and put out the same decorations in the same place year after year? Well, that was the case with my front door wreath.
I had the same Christmas wreath on my front door for years, and while it served a purpose, it was looking more than a little tired, and I was definitely in the mood for a change.
But here's the new and updated wreath this year!
When Ryan and I first got married (WAYYYY back in the 1990s), I decorated in nearly all silver and gold for Christmas, and I kept that look for quite a few years after that. Here's what the wreath originally looked like.
Even IT was sad. Just look at the ornament at the bottom trying to jump ship! (Get me outta here!) Can you even believe it was the same wreath?!?
When we moved into the house we live in now, it came complete with a hunter green front door, so a gold Christmas wreath actually matched pretty well and I kept it (probably longer than I should have).
Well, I could not take the hunter green front door anymore, so I had that painted to purple (which you see here), so last year was the wreath's last hurrah.
Here's the whole Harris Family paying our respects to the wreath last Christmas (2017). Goodbye gold wreath! It's been real!
This year, I was determined to get a new Christmas wreath. I didn't really want to make a new Christmas wreath just because there is so much else to do this time of year. But I also could not find one that I liked that I could just purchase.
So, I decided that I would update my Christmas wreath and give it a whole new look! My gold wreath was getting a makeover!
How to Update and Repurpose an Old Christmas Wreath
Wired ribbon to create a bow (if desired - I left a bow off of mine)
Additional faux greenery, picks, etc. (if desired - see notes below)
Directions
Fluff up your wreath and reposition any branches.
Next, remove the bow and any other items on your wreath that you do not want to keep. (I removed about half of the gold ornaments.)
Hot glue ornaments in a random pattern to the front and sides of the wreath. Make sure to place ornaments of different colors, sizes, and textures next to each other to create interest. I used ornaments with glitter, shiny, and matte finishes in small, medium, and large sizes. And I also included a few ornaments with textured finishes for interest. Continue adding ornaments until you are happy with how your wreath looks.
Use the chenille stems to wire the glittered Merry Christmas sign to the front of the wreath.
Hot glue holly picks randomly around the wreath. (Note: I made sure that two of the holly picks covered where I wired the sign because my chenille stems were pink.)
Notes:
When I originally made this wreath, I took an artificial wreath base and then hot glued in a variety of plastic greenery to create a heavy and large wreath base. Of course, this gives me added incentive to continue to revamp this Christmas wreath instead of getting a new one.
If you're starting with just a standard artificial pine wreath and you want to add some oomph to the wreath itself, you can take floral picks, parts of another wreath, or even parts of a garland and glue them securely into the wreath. This will add volume to the base to give you a designer look.
The glittered Merry Christmas sign is a heavy tag board covered in glitter. If you want to weatherproof it, you might consider covering it in a protective finish. My wreath is under a covered porch, so it should be safe for just the month of December.
There you go! If you've got about 30 minutes, you can create a whole new look for your Christmas wreath this year! Hope I've given you enough ideas to inspire you to revamp your own front door wreath.
Well, here we are knocking on the door of another December, and thus another holly jolly holiday season. So it's high time I share this project with you that I've been working on for some time now. In truth, this little project is honestly YEARS in the making, though my contributions are much more recent. May I present to you this costume jewelry Christmas tree made from my husband's grandmother's jewelry. John has always lovingly referred to his grandmother as "Smith" and I have heard so many stories about good old Smith over the years I almost feel like I knew her myself. She actually passed away shortly before I met John so I never had the pleasure, but working on this tree connected me in a very special way to her.
Smith actually started this tree herself many many years ago. John's parents saved it all this time and presented it to me along with a large bag of her jewelry several months ago, wondering if I might like to finish it. So this is the "before" picture of the tree as I received it. It was a large felted cone sitting atop a velvet covered box. Several pieces of her jewelry already adorned it along with many many hand beaded straight pins and a mix of painted cockle burrs thrown in for good measure.
This large pin that reads "Mother" was my favorite of the items that were already on the tree. I actually ended up carefully removing all the jewelry, pins, and cockle burrs to begin with a clean slate, knowing that each of these pieces would find their own special spot on the tree once again as I started rebuilding it. In fact, I'm pretty sure the "Mother" pin was the first thing I placed back on the tree when I started the reconstruction.
Here you can see some of those cockle burrs, along with another favorite. I loved the twisty turns of this watch swagged onto the tree.
So once I removed everything from the tree, I wrapped it carefully in satin ribbon, pinning it to the tree all the way to the top. I wanted to use all of Smith's original components, but the tree itself was very old, so the ribbon provided an extra layer of support for the tree as well as a pretty and clean backdrop to begin the process of adding the jewelry back on.
I sorted all of her jewelry out before I started pinning to see what she had and make a little plan for myself. She acutally had quite a few Christmas-y pieces like this Santa pin that I prominently displayed near the top. If you look carefully to Santa's lower right side, you will also see a large gold pin that reads "Lucille". That was Smith's first name. The pin near Santa's right hand bears the initials "DH". The pin is actually from Deaconess Hospital, but since those are also my (maiden) initials, I worked it in close to the "Lucille" pin.
I used a grouping of hat pins and stick pins to create the top of the tree. See the initial "L" pin in the middle? Another "L" for Lucille.
I didn't have quite enough of Smith's jewelry to complete the tree, but thankfully John's parents also gave me a bunch of John's mom's old jewelry too. So I supplemented with some of Jan's things here and there. The signet pin you see her bears Jan's initials. I love how this tree connects these generations. It all started with Smith, sprinkled with some of her daughter's- Jan's- things, finished my me, and one day this pretty little tree will pass on to Lexi- who would have been Smith's great granddaughter.
And here is the final product. Just in time for Christmas! Actually, I finished this tree back in October in time for what would have been Smith's 100th birthday this year.
She stands nearly two feet tall with the base, but if you are hoping to recreate something similar, you could certainly make it to whatever scale works for you. Cones in all sizes are available at your local craft store. And this was actually very very easy to complete. I just used straight pins to attach the jewelry to the tree, so nothing is permanently attached and the pieces are all still intact.
I'm so pleased with how she turned out. And honestly, I don't think I will take her down after Christmas. She is a beauty, made with love, and we will celebrate that year-round.
If you guys have been following us for any amount of time, you know that I share my crochet projects when I complete them. Last year at the beginning of January, I shared a Super Thick Stash Busting Afghan that I had been working on.
Well, what you don't know is that immediately after I finished that project, I started on a year-long project for a charity donation. My goal was to make as many afghans as I could make in one year. And at the end of this year, I would donate them to a charity who provides blankets and afghans to foster children from The Harris Sisters' hometown of Roxboro, NC. I had no idea how many I would end up making - but I ended up making 8 crochet afghans to donate!
I made them in a variety of colors that would appeal to both boys and girls. And I also made them in various sizes so that they would be appropriate for any age from babies all the way up to big kids. If I had stuck with the baby sized blankets, I probably could have churned out a few more, but I felt like the big kids needed a few to choose from too. So you will see two gigantic ones in the group!
For these afghans, I chose simple patterns that I was already familiar with so that I could make them quickly. But, if you're interested in crocheting for charity, you might want to take the opportunity to expand your skill set and learn some new stitches or patterns. That's part of the fun!
Here are some close up photos of the individual afghans so that you can see how they turned out. This one is a toddler/little kid sized corner to corner afghan with 5 skeins of Lion Brand Homespun Mixed Berries. Perfect for any little girl who is a fan of princesses, or unicorns, or fairies, or fairy princess unicorns!
This one is a toddler/little kid sized granny square afghan in Lion Brand Homespun Candy Apple, Fawn, Fiesta, Olive, and Colonial.
This one is a baby sized afghan that is four different squares joined together. Three of the squares are traditional granny squares and the fourth square is a granny stripe. I used Lion Brand Homespun Golden and Lion Brand Homespun Black and Red Heart Baby Clouds in the colorway Cloud on this blanket. Since we are in North Carolina, this one is perfect for the baby who has parents who are Appalachian State or Wake Forest fans!
This is a baby sized corner to corner afghan. The majority of the afghan is two strands held together: Bernat Baby Sport Pink Rose and Bernat Super Value White. The two stripes are Red Heart Baby Steps Binky Prints, which is a variegated yarn baby yarn (although they look a little green in this photo).
This is a BIG kid super thick stash busting afghan. I didn't keep track of how many skeins of yarn are in this one, but I held together three skeins of blue yarn at a time and used a size S hook to make it. It created a pretty variegated affect.
This is a toddler/little kid sized corner to corner afghan that I made holding two strands together throughout: Bernat Baby Sport Pink Rose and Bernat Super Value White.
This is the other BIG kid sized afghan. For this one, I held together a red, white, and blue strand together and used an S sized hook to create a patriotic afghan.
So this was my BIG crochet project for the year. And I know some of you might be thinking "How on earth did she do all of that?" (in addition to the king-sized Captain America Afghan that she finished in September???)
Well, the short answer is a little bit at a time! And, you know what? It doesn't really matter to me how much I am donating, either! I am sure that whatever I am able to donate will be appreciated by the group and ultimately the receivers - even it if was only one!
And if afghans seem like too big of a project for you to tackle, or if hats or baby booties or scarves are more up your alley, then you can seek out charities that accept those kinds of donations! Here's where you can find places to donate your work.
Crochet for Local Charities
This is the perfect time of year to decide to get involved and crochet for a charity that is local to you! You can talk to people at hospitals, cancer centers, nursing homes, children's homes, women's shelters, homeless shelters, churches, or animal shelters to see if they might be interested in crochet donations and what types of items they would accept.
Other Charities That Accept Crochet Donations
If you don't have a local charity that accepts crochet donations, these are 10 organizations that accept donations of crochet projects:
Project Linus accepts blankets for children in need. You donate your projects to a local chapter.
Binky Patrol gives handmade blankets to children with chronic and terminal illnesses and those who are in foster care or are experiencing trauma.
Warm Up America distributes crocheted afghans, caps, and other items.
Operation Gratitude sends care packages to troops overseas and will include handmade items that are donated.
Soldiers' Angels sends afghans to active duty military, VA hospitals, and military families who are expecting new babies.
Snuggles Project provides scared or difficult animals a handmade blanket to help them calm down and increase their chances of adoption.
The Red Scarf Project provides red scarves to foster children who are headed to college.
Hat Box Foundation gives handmade crochet hats to to people with cancer and others in need.
The Pink Slipper Project gives crochet slippers (any color) to women and children living in shelters for victims of domestic violence.
Find Other Charities That Accept Crochet Donations
Here are a few online resources to find charities that are seeking crochet donations:
CGOA This is a huge alphabetical listing of charity organizations across the United States that accept crochet donations.
The Crochet Crowd This is an interactive map showing charities that accept crochet donations near you.
Whether you're looking to do some stash-busting, or looking to expand your crochet skills, or just looking to make a difference by donating your time and your talents, I hope this has inspired you to put your talents to use!
Now you know what you can make and where you can donate it, so you're all set to crochet some projects to donate in the new year! Maybe get together with some friends and plan a crochet charity project party. Sounds like a great way to ring in the new year if you ask me.
I'm not sure about the weather where you are, but in the South, we're still having warm days this Fall. This means that my marigolds are still going strong in the garden. We've had a cold snap here and there, though, so I thought I'd pass along a tip for you fellow gardeners who might want to save marigold seeds from your own garden this year so that you can have free marigolds next year!
This has become somewhat of a tradition in our home. Last year, we purchased a 25 cent package of marigold seeds from the dollar store and planted those in a pot on the deck. They took off and bloomed from May all the way through November. That's a lot of blooms for 25 cents!
The boys helped me to collect seeds from those marigolds and we dried them and gave them away as Christmas gifts from the boys to their grandparents, aunts, and uncles last year. And we kept a package for ourselves.
Well, the marigold seeds that we saved and planted this year have bloomed even more than the ones last year! And they're still blooming midway through November. So we wanted to make sure to keep some seeds from those plants too! And once you know how easy it is to save seeds from marigolds, you'll want to do it every year.
Saving marigold seeds is easy. Here's how you do it:
Collect Dried Marigold Blooms (Seed Pods)
As you walk through your garden to deadhead your spent marigold blooms, wait for them to begin to dry out if you want to save them to collect the seeds. The best time to collect dried marigold blooms to harvest the seeds when the petals are dried out, and the base (the seed pod) is turning brown.
If you find some seed pods still on the plant that have turned completely brown, you can collect those too, and see if the seeds inside are still viable (not rotted or molded).
Dry Marigold Blooms Inside
To make sure the blooms are completely dry before removing seeds, leave them on a paper towel for a few days before opening the seed pods. This step isn't completely necessary, but I always do it just to make sure I'm not working with partially dried blooms. You want the seed pod part of the blooms to be mostly brown. A little green is OK, but if there's too much green, you might want to do this step just to make sure they've dried out enough to proceed to the next steps.
Open Marigold Seed Pods & Remove Marigold Seeds
Hold the base of the seed pod over top of the paper towel and pull off and discard the dried marigold petals. You will see the marigold seeds inside attached to the base. Marigold seeds are slender, pointy, and two colors.
Pull the base apart and discard it. Separate the marigold seeds and spread them on the paper towel to dry.
Dry & Store Marigold Seeds
Allow your seeds to air dry on the paper towel for about a week.
Place your seeds in a plain paper envelope to store over the winter. Store the envelope in a cool, dry place.
Plant Marigold Seeds
Plant the marigold seeds that you saved this year directly outdoors the next growing season. Marigolds are easy to grow and make a perfect project to let the kiddos help you with in the garden.
Once you plant them, marigolds grow quickly without a lot of extra effort on your part. Most will do really well in full sun. Marigolds can, however, stand up to 20% shade if they have bright light the rest of the day.
You can plant marigolds in poor to average soil as long as it's not soggy. In fact, marigolds bloom better in poor soil (which is how I got better blooms the second year, it turns out - the second year they were planted in good, old-fashioned North Carolina red clay). Better soil will cause marigolds to grow lush foliage at the expense of flowers.
And as an added bonus, marigolds are deer resistant - can't beat that!
If you're past the season of saving marigold seeds this year in your region, I hope you'll save this idea for next year.
With the popularity of the Star Wars movies on the rise again, we just knew it wouldn't be long before the boys wanted to be Star Wars characters for Halloween. And 2018 was that year! We actually chose Star Wars as our family costume theme in 2006 when Aidyn was only a little over 1 year old. That go round, Aidyn was Yoda, and Jaxon had not yet been born, so in fairness, neither of them remember us ever doing family Star Wars Halloween costumes. They've just seen pictures.
So guess where I headed? Straight to my costume closet to search for our Han Solo and Princess Leia costumes. Of course, Ryan and I are old school Han and Leia from A New Hope. (We are old enough to remember the original movies the first time they were in theaters.) And you know what? After 12 years, the costumes still fit! If that ain't some Halloween magic, I don't know what is.
The original Han and Leia are in prime form!
Aidyn also wanted to be Han Solo, and lucky for him, I knew how to sew a DIY Han Solo costume since I had already done that once before. (Details below.)
So that meant we had a duo of Solos, which is OK by us. We'd like to think of it more along the lines of the happy Ben Solo that Han and Leia never got to have. Can't you just imagine it? Father-Son talks about how to always shoot first.
And swinging on the swing set without a care in the world . . . but things like that can only come to fruition on Halloween because we ALL KNOW that the real Ben Solo turned out to be a rotten egg and followed in his Grandpappy Darth Vader's footsteps.
But I digress. Jaxon wanted to be Chewbacca, which took a little more ingenuity to create a DIY version. (Details below.) And he totally got into character - even making random Wookie noises throughout the night while we were trick-or-treating.
And if you're wondering whatever happened to Aidyn's old Yoda costume, well that fit our pup Smitty perfectly this year. We repurposed our old Darth Vader costume for our boy Chance too! Here's a picture of the whole motley crew:
So that's a wrap for the Walkush Family Halloween 2018 - Star Walkush.
If you want the Force to Be with You on Halloween, read on for tutorials for how to make your own Star Wars costumes.
DIY Han Solo Costume Tutorial
So, the main pieces of any good Han Solo costume should be relatively easy to find. You will need a pair of navy blue dress pants, a black vest, tall black boots, and long sleeved cream colored or off white shirt. (Han's was actually more of a 3/4 sleeve fit, but long sleeve is easier to find and will work perfectly for a costume.)
I headed straight to the thrift store to hunt for these pieces, and I found the pants, the cream colored shirt, and a black button-down shirt that I then modified into a vest.
Supplies Needed for Han Solo Vest:
Black button down shirt
Seam ripper
Black extra-wide double fold bias tape
Black thread
This requires a minimal amount of sewing. First you'll use a seam ripper to take off the collar, buttons, and sleeves. It will start to look more like Han's vest almost immediately!
Next, you'll try it on your model and pin the bottom up to the right length and cut off any excess. Use a sewing machine to hem the bottom and sew black bias tape around the arm and neck holes.
Cut the excess fabric into four pockets, hem, and sew them to the front of the vest. And you're all done.
Lucky for us, Aidyn and I have the same size feet right now, so I lent him a pair of black riding boots to complete the costume. We purchased a gun holster and some iron-on blood stripes for the pants. And his costume was all set!
DIY Chewbacca Costume Tutorial
Chewbacca Costume Top
The Chewbacca costume needed a little more effort in the sewing department. I purchased a furry Chewbacca hoodie for the main part of the costume, but if you are a more accomplished seamstress, you could easily sew one of these too.
Chewbacca Costume Pants
Supplies Needed for Chewbacca Pants:
Brown Grizzly bear faux fur
Black or brown thread
Parchment paper or wax paper
Marker
T-shirt material (optional)
Elastic
Safety pin
Pair of pajama pants that fit your child to trace
For the furry pants, I purchased one yard of brown Grizzly bear faux fur at our local craft store. Instead of using a purchased pattern, I traced a pair of pants that already fit Jaxon onto parchment paper and then used this DIY pajama pants tutorial for the main part of the sewing.
The only thing I did different from the tutorial is that before I finished the waist, I sewed a band of t-shirt fabric to the waist opening and then threaded the elastic through that. I figured that would probably feel more comfortable on the skin than an elasticized waist made out of the faux fur.
Chewbacca Costume Shoe Covers
Supplies Needed for Chewbacca Shoe Covers:
leftover Brown Grizzly bear faux fur
Black or brown thread
Elastic
Chalk pencil
I used the leftover fur fabric to sew some simple shoe covers for the costume. I took a pair of Jaxon's shoes, draped the faux fur over top of the shoes, and cut around the edges (making sure to leave plenty of extra).
I then cut another piece of fur the same size as the first one.
I then flipped the fur inside out and roughly sketched a line up the back of the heel where I would need to sew a seam.
And I sewed a straight seam on that line, which looks like this when you turn the fur right side out.
But, we're not done with the wrong side yet! While you have the fur on the wrong side, roughly trace an opening for the foot by feeling where the shoe opening is beneath the fur. Remember, it is better to trace a hole too small and go back and cut more than to cut the hole too big the first time!
Sew two pieces of elastic to the shoe cover so that they will cross under the shoe at the ball of the foot and at the heel.
Cut out the hole and flip the shoe cover inside out, and repeat for the other shoe. Your shoe covers are complete and Chewie will have furry feet for Halloween night!
Chewbacca Makeup Tutorial
I used this makeup tutorial to recreate the look of Chewie's face:
And you're all set with your homemade Chewbacca costume!
DIY Leia Costume Tutorial
Most of these notes are from memory, since I made this costume years ago, but if you want to attempt your own costume instead of purchasing one, here's the way to do it.
My costume dress is actually a white liturgical (praise) dance dress. It was the right length and had the high neck and flowing sleeves. I opened up both shoulder seams and then took a small strip of fabric and sewed it into the seams to mimic the hooded part of her dress.
The belt is made out of faux white leather and the silver parts are actually the backs of soda cans cut into the right shapes and then glued on. I outlined the metal shapes and "drew" on buttons in the center with silver glitter paint.
I wear white go-go boots with this costume since those are the easiest white boots to find in costume shops.
And this is the tutorial I use for doing the big Leia buns. You'll need faux hair in the same color as your own to get the volume to create large buns and don't forget LOTS of bobby pins!
I actually split the hair into two portions and wrapped the portions in two separate directions, pinning as I went along. If you don't want to go to the trouble of using faux hair, and you have fairly long hair, you can always use the hair donuts to make smaller buns or just purchase a Leia wig.
