Genie Costume

A Genie costume was requested this year. I love that my ten year old comes up with these unique ideas.  Last year we put together a sock monkey costume that I still don't know where the idea originated.

I am not opposed to purchasing a costume and I did look for one. What I found was that the child costumes were likely on the small side for her and the adult ones were not really appropriate. 

After looking at more genie costume images, I decided we could just make one. 

Remembering flannel lined satin existed and might be warmer alternative gave us a starting place. I figured copying some pajama pants she had would make easy bottoms. I did have her try on a pair of my pjs to get a lower crotch length and we used that as a guide too. 

The top gave me a bit of a headache. I wasn't sure how we should design it.  Finally I settled on a peasant top.  I looked at online patterns and used the pictures as a guide of what shape to cut. Then I made a top that wasn't right at all. After seeing where it needed to be bigger and contoured better, I tried again and it is acceptable. If I were to make another, I would probably alter things more and make the bottom lower. 

After we had working pants and a top, we went to JoAnn's to get some trim. There were many options to choose from. The gold circles for the top were stitched along black elastic which made it easy to add. The gold trim for the pants had no stretch, so I was more careful adding it. I sewed along the top edge of the trim with gold colored thread. I intended to sew along the bottom too, but liked the way it stood out from the pants and decided to leave it sewn to just the top. 

We did consider using some thin scarf like material to cover her midriff or around her hair, but decided against both. 

Fortunately I had ordered a nude long sleeve leotard for her the week before which arrived just in time to wear on our trick or treating around the village.

Amelia Bedelia Costume

I haven't dressed up for Halloween in a while.  One of the parent volunteers suggested we all dress up for the school party.

There was a Fasching Party I dressed up for last February and spent some time considering costumes.  For that one I decided to go as a photographer/safari goer mainly because I could wear fairly normal clothes and take lots of pictures.

But when I looked at costume ideas, I looked for ones that were redheaded.  Amelia Bedelia was one of them.  This costume seemed to make the most sense for a school party though.

I headed over to Savers to get some second hand clothes.  Initially I planned to get a black dress, but I found an A line skirt I really liked and then got a knit black top and white blouse.  Sadly, I did not own any of those items.  I purchased white fabric to make an apron and used a black headband with black cardstock paper to make the hat.  I had a hard time finding flower daisies, but a very sweet senior couple helped me out and found yellow flowers that were close enough.  These flowers had long stamens, I simply removed them and hot glued a white felt circle instead.

The apron was not a quick make.  I had hoped it would be, but I had certain elements I wanted it to have.  I started with a gathered skirt and added a 4" ruffle at the bottom.  Then I created a waist band and made smaller ruffles to go next to the straps and upper part.  Every picture I found of Amelia Bedelia shows the back of her apron with the back crossed.  So I created long straps that would cross in the back and then I tucked them through a small belt loop sewn into the waist band and finally ending with a bow in back.

The mechanics of adding a ruffle, then turning or not turning the straps was difficult to figure out.  I ended up doing a lot of turning under a 1/2" and pressing, then sewing wrong sides together.  That seemed to be the easiest.  The whole project probably would have taken less time with a proper pattern and instructions.  But it was completed well before bedtime and that was my goal.

Sock Monkey Costume

My older daughter wanted to be a sock monkey. I checked out the commercially made costumes and also what others had done as DIY. I didn't really like the commercial ones and thought she might like something with more color. Her sock monkey toy is light and dark purple stripe. I searched for a hat to start and found a pink stripe sock monkey hat. From there I sought out pink striped pajamas. Finally I found pajama separates that would work.

After they arrived, we headed to JoAnns and found almost exactly matching micro fleece pink and dark pink for the tail. I made stripes and ended with a white fleece tip. More white fleece was for the mitts and leg bottoms.

Originally I planned to just make long mitts and leg warmers and preserve the pajamas.  But once the tail and bottom were on, it seemed like it would be best to just alter the pjs further.  Also, the pants were a hair too short for my daughter, so adding the white was helpful.  At the very bottom, I added a fleece cuff.

 For the monkey butt, I used more white fleece with some red fleece zigzagged on.

If I had planned to cut the sleeves and legs initially, I might have been able to salvage them for the monkey tail.  Though I am pretty proud of my matching fabric and same width stripes.

As I was finishing the costume, I really needed my daughter to try on the top and pants in order for me to add the white parts.  She was at school so I decided to make her a sock monkey bag.  I had seen a nice trick or treat bag here and used the basic idea.  It was fun to get the parts together.  My dimensions ended up being about 8.25" by 29.25" with a 10" circle on the bottom.  I think because I used fleece, it was rather floppy.  I went back and added 3/4" elastic in the top.  The elastic gave the front a bit more body and the gathered back will hopefully hold the candy in better.

Bonnets

A friend asked me if I had a bonnet she could use for a Halloween costume. I didn't, but I tried to offer some easy bonnet ideas and suggested there are probably many tutorials out there, possibly even out of paper.

After I sent off my suggestions, I couldn't help checking out some tutorials. I found one that seemed easy and quick. My daughter would need a bonnet this year also for their Colonial Days.  I offered to help my friend out.

Adult vs child bonnet

The tutorial seemed to be for a child's sized bonnet. I looked around for adult sized bonnet dimensions and wasn't finding exactly what I wanted. I decided to just made the bonnet as the tutorial stated and then know better what to change for a second one. 

The child sized bonnet fit me ok, but when my daughter tried it on, I liked the way it fit her better. I decided to add 1" to the brim front, 1" to each brim side and 2" to the crown square.

Child sized bonnet - age 9

The tutorial used a 14" x 14" crown piece and a 3.5" x 18" brim piece.  For the adult bonnet, I used a 16" x 16" crown and a 4.5" x 20" brim.  After trying on the bonnets again, I could go either way with the width of the brim (3.5" vs 4.5").  Especially with me adding the 2" (then folded to 1") ruffle, it does extend into the face more.

Each piece has a curve cut into one edge.  I did use craft interfacing on both sides of the brim pieces.

Some helpful tips for the tutorial I did were the following.  After sewing a ruffle from a folded 2" strip almost 2x the width of the brim, finish the ends before sewing into the brim.

In the tutorial, it states to tuck the gathered crown in between the two brim pieces and topstitch.  Doing this would leave raw edges on the brim.  The missing step is to fold under (and iron) 1/4" on the raw edges of the brim before tucking the gathered crown piece in between.  This allows topstitching to occur with no raw edges showing.

Another helpful step is to leave a small opening in the straight crown section.  The directions state to fold under 1/2" and top stitch.  This leaves unfinished edges inside the hat.  I left a small opening near each end (in about 1") to insert 1/4" elastic through and used the 1/2" seam as a casing.

I made bias tape out of a 1.5" strip by about 9".  I noticed afterwards that many people make wider ties.

Beansie Bunny Costume

The three year old had many ideas for Halloween this year. She does enjoy dressing up and has a nice selection of dress up clothes and past Halloween costumes. I thought I would be sharing about a Lalaloopsy Halloween costume, but that was changed to ghost, lion, tiger, fox, and finally Beansie. Hopefully we can make it one more week without another change. 

Beansie was my husband's favorite toy as a child and has been waiting in a drawer for another child to love it. I was always cautious with old Beansie and let the other kids see it and then we would put him away. But things are always a little different with child number three. Kessa adores Beansie and even slept with him a few times. When she suggested a Beansie Halloween costume, I thought that would be fun and certainly nice and warm for our fall weather. Finding light yellow footed pajamas just made it even easier to make her wish a reality. 

Once the pajamas arrived from FootedPajamas.com, I took them along to the fabric store for ear material.  Adding bunny ears should be an easy task. I got pale yellow fleece and white fuzzy material. After washing, I cut out two bunny ears and added batting for some shape.

Floppy Ears

For the hood I added elastic in the front seam and two darts from front towards the back extending about four inches. Then I cut two slits for the ears and inserted the ears and stitched them in.  I thought I might be done and had my daughter try it on. The ears didn't stay up at all and apparently, that is a big part of Beansie's persona. 

While considering my ear options, I decided to remove the feet.  Initially I figured I could just remove the stitching and then eventually sew the feet back on. The bottoms were adhered to the fleece somehow and wouldn't come off. Knowing the pjs were too big for Kessa, I decided to cut off the feet above the elastic. That worked well for the first leg, but the second leg had the zipper extending through the elastic. 

Fleece Leg Cuff

It was at this time I realized I would be making more serious alterations. I removed the stitches in the zipper all the way until the crotch, shortened the zipper, and resewed the leg seam. I also took up the crotch seam a bit. Finally I made cuffs out of the extra fleece and sewed those to the bottoms.

Not only did my bunny ears not stand up, they were the wrong shape. I remade the ears and played around with interfacing and finally wire. I ended up inserting coated wire and wrapping the wire ends around a wide headband.  The ears then pushed through the holes on the hood.  This seemed to work. To keep the wire from bothering my daughter's head, I wrapped the headband and wire with strips of thin batting.  

Wire covered with batting

Headband inside fleece channel in hood

To keep the headband in place, I sewed a fleece channel in the hood.  The last step was to hand stitch the hood to the ears which were already in place by that time. 

It is a rather cute bunny costume and per the original Beansie, it has a black belly button and no tail. 

Unicycling Unicorn

There is a Kiddie Parade in my town every year to kick off the Fireman's Carnival. I didn't know much about the parade until someone encouraged us to check it out a few years ago.

This year we decided to do it again. Kids dress up, there are strollers, wagons, a few bikes and trikes.  My nine year old daughter rides a unicycle and the three year old can ride a tricycle and bike with training wheels. 

We considered different costume options. First we were going to go with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. We have a Minnie dress. Then I saw a unicycling unicorn and thought a unicorn would be a great idea for my unicycling daughter. We tried to convince the three year old to have a triceratops costume or maybe a pony. At the end, she wanted to be like her sister. 

After surveying our potential supplies, we went with white felt, white micro fleece and organdy ribbon. 

We started with the horn and our helmets. After trying out some thin cardboard, white card stock worked best. Next I used clear packing tape and a hot glue gun to secure white microfleece and ribbon.  For the ears I used white felt and pipe cleaners.  Clear packing tape made it easy to attach everything to the helmets and would later be removable.  I also made a mane, tail, wrist and ankle cuffs out of the microfleece with hot glue.  I would normally sew things, but using the hot glue was quick and easy.

The girls didn't win the competition, but did get an honorable mention and won six dollars.

When old is new again

Having a new baby does that. What was put away for years resurfaces again and for the new baby, everything is new.

The first blast from the past is this little tutu skirt. Tulle was layered, then machine gathered followed by ribbon being folded over and stitched in place. I made a few of these as gifts for the little girls in my life probably six or more years ago.

The next is the tiger costume. This was a major undertaking for the mom of a young toddler. It got a lot of use 10 years ago and was the perfect choice for a chilly Halloween night for the newest toddler.

Sorcerer Mickey Costume

We were planning a trip to Disney World and planned to attend the Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Sydney already had a Minnie Mouse costume I had purchased. I talked Kyle into being Sorcerer Mickey.

I found some costumes, but they were vintage and very expensive. I decided to try to make it myself. I thought a lot about the cape part and how to make the collar. I looked at many, many images on Google. Finally I was ready to cut my fabric. It went together pretty well. I purchased a Sorcerer Mickey hat and found blue shiny athletic pants which I shortened to long shorts. I also got black leggings and a long sleeve black shirt. When it was all put together, there was no mistaking, Kyle was Sorcerer Mickey.
Unfortunately it was unseasonably HOT in Disney that October and Kyle couldn't tolerate the costume for long.