Our best Will and Kate.

My husband works for a great company that throws themed costume parties every December. About 1,000 people go to the parties and almost all of them show up in amazing get-ups. This year’s theme was “Entourage,” which no one understood. The party team had to put out an email explaining that “entourage” could be any group, like the gang from Scooby Doo or Bay Watch, or anyone who has an entourage. This was a hard one, so Steve and I didn’t settle on a costume until the day of the party: Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

On the way to the ball.

Because I am the Queen of Craftiness, Steve has an unrealistic expectation that I can pull anything crafty out of my ass in about two minutes flat. OK, OK, so his expectation isn’t all that unrealistic: I did have a wedding dress that looked surprisingly like Kate’s which I’d strangely purchased from the Goodwill this summer. That was done. But the rest, well the rest was going to test every bit of my Crafty Reserve.

Raw materials: The coat + a tree skirt, ribbon and ornament hangers.

My mom and I went to about 5 thrift stores and we couldn’t find a single red coat for a man. We finally got the brainstorm to find an extra large women’s coat in red. We found it at half off — godbless KMart — for $40.  By this time it was noon, and we were seriously under the gun. We made the decision to get all the embellishing supplies at KMart, or we faced a night with me in a wedding gown and my husband by my side in a lady’s coat.

We picked up a pile of 1/2 off Holiday decor: a tree skirt, royal blue ribbon and ornament hangers.

We used baubles from my grandma's stash to embellish.

At home I had a box of my grandma’s beads from the ’60s and ’70s. I knew that would be a treasure trove for the medals. A few hours of stitching later, we had a coat fit for a prince.

We didn’t win the costume contest — Gilligan’s Island did — but people said we were robbed. I think it’s because we didn’t have Pippa and her cute butt hopping around behind us.

The tree skirt became the collar and sleeves.

The robe edging from the tree skirt became the edging on the lapel.

I have no problem putting effort into the tank top and slipper-boots because Kendal will wear them all the time, but the faux leather skirt? Forget it. This is a one-night deal, so the construction is  down and dirty. I bought this very cheap oil-cloth type material at Joann’s. Oil-cloth = raw edges with no fraying. That’s a very good thing.  I measured Kendal at the hips, figured out how many 2″ pleats it would take to cover her, then made a quick pattern out of cardboard, traced & cut them out. I lined up the pleats in a waistband cut from the same oilcloth, folded the waistband over and pinned and sewed the whole thing together. That’s it! It took one evening in front of the TV.

Seaming the individual pleats at the waistband holds everything in place.

Here's the rightside view.

The tin studs were the time suck.  I bought a couple of one-time-use tin roasting pans at the Dollar Store and cut a bunch of 2″ circles out of them. Then I slit the circles to the middle and made them into little cones. I tucked the bottoms of the cones unto themselves to form a base, then glue-gunned them to the skirt. As I glued, I man-handled them so they looked a little weathered.

I made the studs from a tin roasting pan I got at the Dollar Store.