DIY Costume - Flower Fairy

Guys, I'm so excited for this week! All week I'll have easy and fun costume/dress-dress up DIYs for you--just in time to get ready for Halloween!  I studied costume design in school (and people always immediately think of Halloween costumes when I tell them that!) so this was super fun for me! 

I am actually making these costumes for my niece Adeline's 3rd birthday coming up in the next few weeks, she loves dress up.  A couple of things I'm trying to focus on for these costumes: 1. Easy for kids to get on and off themselves, 2. Use materials that I have readily available, 3. Pretty quick and easy to make.  All of the costumes this week are perfect for dress-ups, and you can add a little extra pizazz to use for a perfect Halloween costume.

This costume is a perfect girly-girl dress up outfit but can be made into a killer Halloween costume as well! For Halloween, just add tights/shoes, a dressy shirt and a magic wand! You can also add wings to this costume for the perfect fairy costume.  I got the idea for this costume because I have gazillions of fake flowers left over from a book I wrote and I wanted to use at least some of them up!

Flower Crown How-to

What you'll need:

• Various fake flowers
• A strip of felt (would be best to use green, but grey was all I had!)
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors

1. First, take a measurement of your child's head.  Ad's head measurement was 19" and I wanted the final crown to be 18 1/2" around so it wouldn't slip down over her eyes.  So I cut a strip of felt 1" wide by 19 1/2" and then overlapped the two ends 1/2 inch.  To secure the crown, I sewed the ends together as in the photo above, but you could very well hot glue them down. :)
2. Prep your flowers buy cutting the long ends off with scissors.
3. Use hot glue to glue flowers to the felt crown.  Some flowers had longer stems that I couldn't cut off so I glued them on their sides (as shown in the photo above) and then covered this up with flowers that could lay flat.  Glue flowers around the entire crown.
4. Check for bare spots and add in smaller flowers or random petals.  Voila!

I feel like any little girl would be in heaven with this fun crown, I want to make one for myself!

Tutu how-to

You use a bunch of tulle for this project. I didn't want to buy anything new, so I used tulle I already had.  BUT, it would have been a billion times easier/smarter to use those rolls of tulle you can buy at Hobby Lobby/Michaels.  So if you want to make it easier on yourself, use rolls of tulle.

What you'll need:

• Tulle - regular tulle: about 6 yards (some people use up to 10 yards for giant puffy skirts!), tulle on rolls: 3-4 rolls 
• Elastic - I used 1", but if you have a choice, I'd recommend 1/2".
• Scissors

1. Measure your child's waist.  Ad's measurement was 17 1/2", so I wanted the final elastic waist to be 16 1/2" or 17" to account for the elastic stretch.  So I cut my elastic to be 17 1/2" and then overlapped it 1/4" and zig zagged it closed to make a loop.
2. Cut up your tulle.  If you are using tulle fabric like I did, cut it into strips 4-6" wide.  Next, decide how long you want your tutu to be and double that measurement.  This is how long you'll want your strips to be.  For example, I wanted my tutu to be 12" long, so my strips were 4" wide and 24" long.  *If you have rolls, you'll just need to cut strips for length.  Make it easier by using this tutorial for cutting rolls of tulle.
3. Fold one strip of tulle in half. Fold the tulle over the elastic and pull the long ends of tulle through the loop as shown in the images above. Pull tight to secure.
4. Continue step 3 around the elastic band using all of the strips of tulle. Be sure that you aren't stretching out the elastic as you go.  I ended up doing two layers of tulle, first pink and then another layer of white tulle.  When you're done tying, trim any scraggly ends of tulle and you're done!

This is an easy project you can finish in about an hour or two and when you're done you have a fun, bouncy, twirly skirt that your little one will love!

That's our costume for today! Visit back every day this week for more fun dress up and Halloween costume ideas!