I seem to go to a lot of costume parties. Just recently I wore a sailor dress for our Nautical Nonsense party and I dressed as Dionne from Clueless for a 90s Party (my friend Claire went as Cher). This weekend I have a Childhood Heroes party and then in a few weeks I have my Winter Wonderland party.

I was really stumped with the Childhood Heroes theme. I thought of going as a Spice Girl, seeing as I spent most of the late 90s idolising them. When I learnt most people were going as their favourite childhood movie or TV character, I thought of Maria from The Sound of Music. Then a parcel containing this dress arrived from ASOS and I decided it would make the perfect outfit to dress as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

I had so much fun making the ruby slippers. Mine are a tad more glitzy than the original pair, but I love them.

I bought a pair of red heels from Kmart for $15, painted them with PVA glue and dusted them with red glitter. It was a messy process, but the result was great:

These bows (or ‘nerd bow ties’ as they were called) came from a junk store.

All I had to do with glue gun them on.

Press firmly.

Voila!

Perhaps if I click my heels together at the end of the night I can avoid paying for a taxi home?

Fun fact: Did you know that in L. Frank Baum’s original novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wore silver shoes? The movie’s creators changed them to ruby to take advantage of the new Technicolor film process (thanks Wikipedia!).