The homemade costume is still a thing!
I don’t know when I started making Natalie’s costumes, but it has certainly but I believe it was when she wanted to be Jelly, from Ben Clanton’s book series Narwhal & Jelly. I am committed to sharing step by steps in the future. The closest I have to a step by step documented is the Fawkes, the Phoenix, costume. The original reason I started creating them, was because she wanted unique costumes that we couldn’t find and then it became a thing she looked forward too. See some of the years below.
Costumes I didn’t make:
Costumes I did make:
The process:
Selection - It’s exclusively her choice, however I have influenced if she wanted to be something I was truley worried I couldn’t achieve well, i.e. Hungarian Horntail Dragon from Harry Potter.
The research - I try to see if anyone has DIY’d it before and/or if there are any patterns or resources to help me. For Rey and Sobble this was very important!
The execution - I have usually procrastinated, but I found starting the project in early October helps me be less stressed and I get better results. i.e. Fawkes and Sobble.
The reveal - Usually I have her try it on along the way without giving away too much with the whole reveal on the day before or day of Halloween.
Process for Fawkes:
Here’s a quick and dirty summary review of the Fawkes costume, one of the easiest, yet one of the favorites!
Materials:
orange mask from craft store or a white one can be painted
red, orange, and yellow feathers
yellow felt
cardstock
red, orange, and yellow tulle
elastic band
red and orange striped hanna anderssen pajamas
cheap angel wings from amazon with feathers removed.
2 strings of 10ft of fairy lights
Steps:
Mask - formed a beak on the orange mask with yellow felt and cardstock. Attached feathers to the side going from red to yellow and I mimic this effect in the other elements.
Skirt - cut elastic to size for her waist, sewed it closed. Utilizing a slipknot method, I took 2ft long, 1” wide strips of red tulle to form the front 3/4 of the skirt and utlizing longer orange and yellow tulle pieces. Glued fairly lights to 6 strips of the tail feathers and encircled the skirt with the remainder. Attaching well enough with hot glue to hold everything in place. Hid the batter pack in the back of the skirt and affixed it with hot glue and tied it down to the elastic with extra tulle.
Wings - attached the battery back to the center between the wings, zig zagged the fairy lights on the service of the wings attaching with hot glue on the metal wire parts. covered with feathers. the battery pack was covered with feathers leveraging the curvature of the feathers for coverage.
Pajamas - we did long john pajama we already had and that’s it.
Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect - it’s a one-day wear costume and they’ll be walking in the dark. She loved this and got so many compliments.
