How Crafting Is Like Writing a Research Paper

For a perfectionist, crafting is a lot like writing a research paper. Before starting, you brainstorm ideas. You then research those ideas to help narrow them down to a more specific vision. You proceed by sketching rough drafts over and over again until you feel prepared to officially start the final product. Once you know how you want to execute your work,  you begin and make slight changes along the way. It takes patience and a lot of trial and error to master your craft, just like a well-written research paper.

To demonstrate this systematic process, I am going to go through some of the thought processes and steps I used to create this year's lip sync costumes for our newest pledge.  

Step 1: Since I was making nearly fifty costumes with a tight budget and in a short period of time, I had to be smart about the design; meaning, I wanted something not too elaborate, but something that made a statement and look fierce on stage.

The theme was Billboard’s Top 100, so each chapter got to select a year to choose songs from; our year was 2005. Once the coaches picked the songs they were using for the routine, I brained stormed trends and fashion from 2005. I then searched each song they selected and took notes on the artists’ style in each music video.

Step 2: I focused on the artists and styles that stood out the most to me. With songs like "Beverly Hills" by Weezer, "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy, and "Holla Back Girl" by Gwen Stefani, the costumes had to be “bad-ass”.

I made sketches of my ideas to help me picture the end product. However, it wasn’t until I went to the craft store to purchase the materials that my ideas finally started to form into a vision. I bought enough material to make a few practice costumes.

Step 3: While making the practice costumes, I found a couple complications with the stripe I wanted to sew down the sides of the pants. I went back to the drawing board to try and find a simple solution for the problem. I luckily found a cheaper, faster, and much less complicated way to add the stripe. My solution = duck tape!

Step 4: After hours of brainstorming, researching, sketching, planning, and testing, I knew what I wanted them to look like! I purchased the rest of the materials and after many, many more hours of actually putting together the outfits for forty-eight girls, I was finally done and proud of the finished products! 

Here are some photos from Lip Sync: