homemade halloween 2011: angelina ballerina

October 30, 2011August 22, 201415 Comments

for halloween this year, my ballet-loving 3.5 year old is angelina ballerina (a ballet-dancing mouse, of course). i had a lot of fun making or adapting her existing ballet stuff, and she was very excited to wear the full costume. ready for the rundown?

EARS:

i covered a headband with white fleece, fashioned ears out of white fleece and pink felt, and attached a big pink satin-y bow. my hot glue gun became my best friend with these!

BODY:

she has legwarmers on as armwarmers, is wearing her regular ballet leotard, and her little things to sew tutu with felt rose clipped on (here are the details on the tutu and rose). because of the fact that it ties in the back, it’s the perfect tutu design for her…

TAIL:

her mouse tail is made out of the same white microfleece, which i stuffed with polyfill and then threaded in a length of floral wire (like you use to make the ubiquitous paper pom poms) so it holds its shape. i just safety-pinned it to her leotard, which is hidden by the bow.

SHOES:

i found her some new pink ballet flats at the gap for $5 on a lucky break (her old ones were super worn out and getting too small). i hot glued lengths of satin ribbon into each for a toe shoe effect, though the ribbons don’t stay up very well. might have to just tie them around her ankles for trick-or-treating.

i put a little cream blush on her nose for these photos because i hadn’t picked up any face paint yet, but that’s been remedied for tomorrow. she has informed me that angelina doesn’t have whiskers, though, so no whiskers.

and now, the reason i have to break the kids’ costumes into two blog posts – the sheer number of photos of my sweet little dancing mouse.

oh yeah, one more thing. at ballet, the girls get to pick a color of scarf to dance around with for a certain portion of the class. Em ALWAYS picks pink, but on saturday she picked the green one! i thought maybe her pink obession might finally be coming to an end, but then…it was time to decorate her pumpkin. wanna take a guess what happened?

yep, a pink pumpkin. 🙂

come back tomorrow for little winnie the pooh plus a pretty darn cute photo of the two of them together! happy all hallow’s eve eve!

halloweens past and a preview

October 24, 2011October 31, 201214 Comments

as i finish up this year’s halloween costumes for both kids, i thought i’d share my handmade costumes of pre-blog years gone by. i started sewing in 2009, so that’s the first year i made a costume for Em. i come from a rich heritage of mom-made halloween costumes, though – my sisters and i were bumble bees, pioneers, vampires, cats, mad scientists, and overworked office women (that was mine – i actually thrifted a jumpsuit in middle school, it was incredible with a crazy wig and smudged makeup). mom also helped me sew a two headed monster one year (two thrifted plaid shirts sewn together and matching masks). that was a fantastic costume to rock with a friend.

i think kid halloween costumes are becoming my favorite thing to sew. it’s really fun to figure out what costume matches their interests/personalities at the time and make them come to life.

2009: TINY DOROTHY FROM THE WIZARD OF OZ

i had been sewing about three months at this point, but i knew what i had to do for her costume – DOROTHY. Em was born with a ridiculous amount of hair (like suri cruise hair) and never lost it like everyone said she would, so by 17 months she could easily pull off pigtails, even after multiple haircuts. she was also waaaay into doggies and shoes.

her blue gingham dress had no closures, and she grew out of it the week after halloween. it was a rectangle attached to a gathered rectangle with rectangle straps. i did sew real buttonholes, though (my very first buttonholes)!

you can kind of see it here, but i wove strips of felt to make her a treat bag that looked like dorothy’s basket. it even had a pocket inside for a mini toto that she carried around. i also gathered some fabric and attached it to a onesie for a ruffled collar look.

we went to a halloween fair at a nearby school, and i believe there were four dorothys there, including one of the teachers. Em was by far the tiniest.

2010: DORA THE EXPLORER

last year, in preparation for O’s arrival, we finished the basement in our old house, taking our living space from about 1,300 square feet to 1,800. livin’ large! however, i sew in the basement, so for a few months i was unable to do that and it KILLED ME. i regained my sewing area about a week before halloween, so i was able to pull her costume off just in the nick of time.

she was super into dora the explorer back then, so it was kind of a no-brainer. i used dana’s tutorial to dye her socks yellow and a pair of too-short pants orange (then i hemmed them into capris, because it’s too cold here for shorts). she had on a store-bought shirt, but i made her beaded bracelet that promptly got lost.

and of COURSE i made her backpack and map. this was actually really fun – it was the first backpack i’d made, i designed it myself (after a 3 month sewing hiatus, mind you) and i feel like i nailed it. it’s made of kona cotton, fully lined, and she still uses it to carry things around, a year later. map is often played with, too. backpack’s face and map are made out of felt.

in action with her superhero cousins. she was a happy trick-or-treater.

2011: SEWING FOR TWO PREVIEW – THE YEAR OF THE EARS

both kids are animals this year, and it doesn’t get much cuter than animal ears, if you ask me! you’ve already seen the bottoms of each costume (her tutu and his pants), and here are the very tops. these are my most involved costumes yet, and i’m excited about how they’re turning out. hers is done and she’s thrilled, but i still have something to make for his…so i’d better get back to it. 😉

halloween is so much more fun with kids around! i can’t wait!

kcwc fall 2011: day 6

October 15, 2011October 29, 201319 Comments

here it is, my fifth and final planned project for the fall kids clothes week challenge. this tutu is a major component of Em’s halloween costume, angelina ballerina (that’s the best image on the least annoying site i could find). she was not into modeling for me after her nap today…

…so if you think she’s always happily willing to pose for my photos, trust me that is not the case. even for a pink angelina tutu!

the pattern is from “little things to sew.” i’ve now made 5 out of the 20 projects in that book (that’s the highest completion rate of any of my sewing books – definitely worth the money!). this one was especially user-friendly. i had made a tutu once before, and remember that cutting the many strips of tulle was an irritating nightmare. the method in LTTS has you fold over large pieces of tulle, gather, and sew onto a ribbon waistband that ties in the back. it was frustration-free and turned out great. i also love the suggestion of layering multiple colors of tulle. i started with burgundy at the bottom, then medium pink, then three pieces of light pink. it created a pretty, subtle ombré effect.

i also made a felt rose to clip to the waistband, just like angelina has.

to make the rose, i cut out a circle, then started cutting it in an imperfect spiral until i got to the center. i shaped it into a flower, hot glued it around the back to keep it in place, then glued on the leaves and a small circle with two slits to thread an alligator clip through. i’ve seen the circle flower method floating around the internet, and my mom used it to make some paper flowers recently, too. nice and easy.

i’m kind of glad she wasn’t in a modeling mood today, actually – it’ll leave a little more room for surprise when the rest of the costume is pulled together. 😉

not going to sign off on KCWC just yet, as i have a “bonus project” that may or may not come together before the end. we’ll see! happy final days of the challenge, everybody!

kcwc fall 2011: day 4 & 5

October 14, 2011January 15, 201419 Comments

well, i had a pretty good streak going for a while there. so close to a garment a day! i had these sailboat pants completed on wednesday night except for sewing on the buttons. i even brought the buttons up to my room with the thought of sewing them on before going to sleep. that did not happen. so i finished it yesterday (and started my fifth item) and i’m feeling good.

the pattern is the oliver + s sailboat pants (again), this time made in a really fantastic honey-colored corduroy i got at fabric depot. it’s heavy duty stuff. check this out:

i promise they’re clean! 🙂

the size is 12-18 months, but i cut 18-24 month length. sailboats are meant to be a little short, but i didn’t want that for fall/winter.

i had fun with the details on this one, facing the front and side panels with joel dewberry woodgrain, adding a second row of topstitching to the hem of each pant leg, and using meg’s tutorial for a bunting tag.

i think they look pretty cute paired with his elbow patch sailboat top, too! corduroy and elbow patches, how much more mini-professor can you get?

i have just ONE MORE item on my pre-planned list for KCWC – the dreaded tutu for Em’s halloween costume. it’s actually in process and not that bad so far…famous last words, right?

kcwc fall 2011: day 3

October 12, 2011October 21, 201121 Comments

Em has worn her polka dot pierrot top just about as many times as she possibly could in the week and a half since i made it (between trips through the wash). it has turned out to be a fantastic little compromise item for a dress-loving girlie and her weather-conscious mama, because it’s pretty much the only thing she’ll wear pants with. so i made her another one.

the fabric is a rose-colored kaffe fasset shot cotton (forgot to check for the exact color) that i picked up at bolt when i got the buttons for her hopscotch skirt. can’t go there without buying fabric! the neckline is bound with kona cotton from her quilt binding that matched perfectly. i cut it on the bias again – wow, shot cotton almost acts like a jersey knit when it’s bias cut – very stretchy!

the color is another compromise – she still thinks it’s PINK, but to me it’s a little more sophisticated-feeling and matches her season. i had been curious to see what a pierrot looked like without the ruffle, too, and i like it! i do think this one needs a bit more embellishment, though, hence the H&M flower clip.

SHE…

LOOOOVES….

IT.

she spent the whole time outside smiling and sprinting back and forth along the sidewalk while her brother laughed at her and i tried to capture a few non-blurry photos before dinner. or maybe she was just excited because it wasn’t raining…?