Tag Archives: costumes

Minnie Mouse Dresses

This past weekend we went to Disney World with our mothers. Christian’s mom has never been before, my parents go every weekend. And it was fun as always.

But let us back up a bit. On Thursday before our trip I mentioned that I needed to make a new Minnie skirt for Dinah (she has outgrown her old one). And Christian was like “it would be cool if you could make it like a dress.” Like a dress? Oh, so he thinks I should make a dress. Sure, why not make two? I’ve got two days. Easy.

Except not so. Thursday night was eaten up by Children’s Ministry stuff and my Baby, Take a Bow post. So, that left Friday night. Yay?

They were finished pretty much just in time to get in the car and drive to Orlando. No, I did not sleep. Yes, I am crazy.

But look how cute!!

Their dresses were made from a hodge-podge of patterns. I used a self drafted bodice with white neck binding…

the sleeves from the Shirley Temple dress…

and a circle skirt.

For the white sash I just used simple grosgrain ribbon.

And (of course) they had to have matching bows.

I was EXHAUSTED after a night of no sleep and a day roaming the Magic Kingdom, but it was worth it. I received so many compliments on their dresses. Affirmation = energy for me, so it worked out nicely. :) But next time, I think I will try not to be so ambitious!

Here are the little Minnies enjoying their day at Disney.

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If you would like me to make a Minnie Mouse dress of your own, please check out my shop!

Peter Pan Hat Tutorial

Here is the promised hat tutorial!

These were really easy to make and I cranked out 14 of these in about 2 hours. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Materials Needed:
Peter Pan Hat Pattern (You will need to make sure you have Page Scaling turned OFF before you print. Cut it out and match up the diamond shapes and tape together to create your pattern.)
Green Felt (by the yard-the sheets aren’t big enough…using the space wisely, I got 12 hats from 1 yard of 72 inch craft felt)
Red Felt (sheets are fine – I got about 10 feathers per sheet)
Red Pipe Cleaners
Coordinating Thread
Fabric Glue

Okay, here we go!

1. First step is to trace your pattern onto your green felt. You will need to cut 2 pieces for each hat.

2. With your sewing machine sew along the two slanted edges of the hat with a 1/2 inch seam. Be sure to back tack well at the start and stop. Clip the seam allowances to a scant 1/8 inch.

3. Flip the hat right-sides out and finger press the seams to help them lay flat. You could try to use a warm and dry iron, but I found the finger pressing works fine and you don’t run the risk of melting your felt. Flip up the backside of the brim. You should have about 2 – 2.5 inches of flipped up brim.

4. Now for the feathers…You will need to draw a little template. Mine was roughly 7 x 2.5 inches. Cut small notches on either side, if desired. Trace your template on to your red felt and then cut out your feathers.

5. Cut 8 inch lengths of your pipe cleaners. Glue the pipe cleaner to the feather piece as a stem.

6. Place your feathers how you want them on the hats. On mine I snipped two small parallel lines near the brim to hold the feather in place. You could also simply glue your feathers where you want.

7. You are finished! Now place your new hat on the nearest cutie.

If you make hats, I would love to see pictures of them! Just add them to my Flickr Pool!

Happy sewing!

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Not feeling crafty? No worries! You can now buy hats in my Shop!

The Wendy Dress

I promised details on the Wendy Dress in the Peter Pan Party post and here they are!

Because I tend to be a stickler for details I wanted Dinah’s Wendy Dress to be as accurate as possible.

Source: speakin-colors.blogspot.com via Harmony on Pinterest

Some elements it needed to have:

Boat neck
Empire Waist
Puff-bottom sleeves
Flowing skirt
Large blue hair bow

This dress ended up being a Frankenstein with pattern parts coming from many different sources…

I based the bodice on the Winter Rose Dress from iCandy Handmade. I sized it for Dinah and then chopped it off to make it empire waisted.

I drafted a sleeve block for Dinah and then adapted it to make the puff-bottom sleeves. I used the tutorials found on ikatbag. Such a great resource!

For the skirt, I didn’t want there to be a lot of bunchy gathering at the top, but I did want the skirt to have a ton of movement at the hem. A circle skirt was the perfect solution. I used the MADE circle skirt tutorial to make a pattern last fall for Dinah’s Goldilocks skirt. I pulled it out and added length to the hem.

To adapt the skirt to a dress, I simply cut a line from the hem to the waist. I stretched the waist out to match up with the waist on the bodice, pinned and stitched them together. After that I inserted the invisible zipper and stitched up the seam.

I didn’t want to lose any length at the hem, so I used my handy-dandy rolled hem foot. I purchased this foot separately when I purchased my machine. There was a learning curve to it, but I was able to figure it out and I was happy with the result. It isn’t perfect, but since this was just for a play costume I was okay with how it turned out.

The finished product is a perfect swirly, twirly Wendy Dress!

Oh, and I made a cute over-sized hair bow for her.

She likes it.

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If you would like me to make a Wendy dress of your own, please check out my shop!

Halloween 2011

This year Dinah was Goldilocks for Halloween and the rest of us were the Bear family that she intrudes upon. I knew this would be a really cute and simple costume to create.

It consisted of a white blouse (already on hand) and a black dirndl type vest on top. To make the vest I drafted up the shape I wanted based on a vest we already had. It is double sided and has ribbon laced down the front. This was probably the most complicated piece I made.

For the bottom I made a circle skirt trimmed with eyelet that my grandma sent me from her old stash. (Under the skirt she wore a store bought tutu to give the skirt a bit more fullness.)

And little pantaloons trimmed with a wide eyelet.

And an apron with a pocket to store her spoon. Now she is ready to steal some porridge.

I also made her little Goldilocks curls. I actually bought a wig and snipped off the curls I wanted and glued them to barrettes under huge black bows I made. They turned out really cute, even it if it looked like her roots were showing!

For us bears, I made ear headbands for me and Papa Bear. I used felt and stitched them to little, brown headbands. Mine had a little bow.

I also made us some bear paws. For these I took $1 bin knit gloves and cut off the fingers. Then I glued brown minky/fur to the tops along with felt triangles (to be our claws).