Archives for March 2018

Not even Wicked Witches can live without some cute companionship. So, little Annika was my baby Flying Monkey.

Our Wizard of Oz book was a handy reference when I wondered what color our Flying Monkey should be.

Alright, grey it is! One of the good things about having lots of kids and saving their clothes in an untold number of apple boxes is that, well…I always have lots of clothes to peruse for their costume potential! It’s also nice that we’ve had both boys and girls, because this boosts my options.

We don’t have many grey clothing items for our baby girls, but we do for the boys! I remembered this cute, grey cardigan that went to an outfit I bought when Elliott was a baby.

I dug further into our 9-month Baby Boy box and found a grey, long-sleeve onesie. I decided that Annika could wear it backwards to hid the graphic on its front.

Grey, ruffle leggings and grey socks completed the main part of the monkey costume. Now for the accessories that would add the magic to this ensemble!

I already had this grey beanie hat from the Dollar Tree. I also already had some scraps of grey fleece fabric for the ears.

I cut four monkey ear shapes from the fleece (two for each ear).

I took the four ear shapes and stacked them into sets of two. I stitched around the edges of each set, using the edge of my presser foot as a guide. Then, I sewed the two layers together with a U-shape in their middles, to add some extra ear-detail. As you can see, they are not perfect mirrors of each other. I did this in a huge hurry! Next, I pinched a small pleat in the middle of each ear edge and stitched together to create some dimension to the ears. The final step was quickly tacking the ears to the sides of the beanie cap, by hand, with needle and thread.

Now for the wings! I saw this funky, little bat-wing thing at the Salvation Army thrift store. Then, I walked past it. Then, I walked back and threw it into my cart. It was $1.00. I still have no idea what this thing really is. It might be a dog costume cape! It has a bit of Velcro at the wing tips that may have been designed to fasten at the neck of a costumed canine!

Whatever this thing is, I needed to turn it into wings, so I gave it a skeletal support: Enter a wire coat hanger, a wire cutter and some pliers! I cut the top off the hanger, straightened it, and then re-shaped it to correspond with the wing shape.

I created large hooks at each wing tip. Then, I hand-stitched around the wire near the top of each hook and at each angle point in the wire and in the center of the wings. The wire scoots around quite a bit, but the large hooks keep the wire from slipping all the way out of the stitching.

At this point, all the costume pieces were ready! If I had more time, maybe I would have also made a tail and a vest and a little fez hat to be more faithful to the design of movie monkey costumes. However, I never have more time, and I am pleased that these simple pieces were able to achieve the overall look I was going for!

Here’s our baby monkey!

One great thing about re-purposing clothes as costumes is that it’s easy to design the layers around how warm or freezing it happens to be on Halloween!

So, you may have noticed that I already had everything I needed to make these costumes except for the wings! So, the moral of the story is that you should probably be like me and keep everything you own that has costume-making potential. I mean, I have to justify my possession of at least a dozen apple boxes full of fabric, somehow. Add those to all the aforementioned boxes of children’s clothing, and, well…Our basement is like Smaug’s lair. Except it’s full of fabric, clothes and sewing materials, not jewels. I guess that makes me the dragon guardian, but I’m the friendly kind that likes to share. Whenever I go down there, the chorus to Madonna’s “Material Girl” takes on a whole new meaning. Oh, boy, I need help!

In real life, this particular Scarecrow has ample brains! So much so, that it is a challenge to find hats that fit him! Speaking of hats, the hat that Jeff wore was a loaner from my mother-in-law.

Theatre pro that he his, Jeff handled his own makeup, using his own Ben Nye Theatrical Makeup Kit. He simply gave himself black, pointed eyebrows, painted his nose red, and drew brown lines across his cheeks. You could probably achieve a similar effect with eye shadow and an eyeliner pencil. Gentlemen, if you are raising your own eyebrows at the idea of makeup, you have no idea how studly it is when you can apply it on your own! Trust me. I was so relieved and impressed, because I was already busy dressing the kids in their costumes and slapping green makeup on my own face!

I made his cowl from the backing to a comforter. I bought it, years ago, when I was costuming “A Christmas Carol” for Leavenworth Summer Theater. I had a very tight budget, so I took apart a thrift store comforter in order to use the top, fancy, brocaded fabric for Mrs. Fezziwig’s gown. Buying equivalent, brand new fabric would have easily cost $20/yard. I threw away the polyester batting in the middle. (It gave me a sneeze attack, so I advise wearing a face-mask if you attempt this!) I washed the remaining materials in hot water, with non-chlorinated bleach, and plenty of vinegar.

I saved the backing material, and it was the perfect color for Scarecrow’s cowl! As you can see, nothing about this cowl is perfect. Both the circle and the hole for the face are wonky. However, this is the beauty of last-minute, low-budget costuming. I normally would have spent lots of time measuring everything and getting it “just so”. However, I had to go with my gut and just do it! I put about as much thought into it as the fictional farmer who made the Scarecrow for his fictional field in the “Wizard of OZ”. And, you know what? It still worked!

That comforter was really the gift that keeps on giving! The edges were trimmed with this flanged cord trim. This cord would be around $10/yard brand new. I got the entire comforter for $10, and it yielded yards upon yards of trim! We cut lengths of it to tie around Jeff’s hat, neck, and waist.

I stumbled upon this green, peasant shirt, several years ago, at the Goodwill Seattle Outlet A.K.A. “Goodwill-By-The-Pound”. This place has to be seen to be believed, and shopping there is not for the faint of heart! Bring some rubber gloves (and possibly a face mask) to their massive warehouse and dig through mounds of items that didn’t sell at their retail locations. Almost everything is priced by the pound, and the prices are rock-bottom. This helpful site provides good tips for shopping at Goodwill Outlet stores and a location guide by state. (Fun fact: Hip-hop artist and Seattle native, Macklemore, is filmed in the Seattle outlet store in his music video “Thrift Shop“. *Disclaimer: Unfortunately, there is a lot of swearing in this song, and I can’t find a censored version of the music video!* I just about fell out of my chair the first time I saw the video. I felt like a celebrity by proxy. “I’VE BEEN THERE!” Jeff created a censored version of the song for me as a birthday present. As a die-hard thrift store shopper, I regard it as my anthem.)

Well, that was quite the rabbit trail! Anyway, this green shirt has been a very versatile piece in our family costume collection, as it lends itself to all sorts of time periods and fantasy characters.

Jeff wore these brown, corduroy pants and scuffed, black shoes to complete his rag-tag outfit.

These pants may no longer be in style (Jeff wore them in college), but they have heaps of costume potential! In fact, Jeff has worn them as part of his Halloween costume for the past three years! Fun fact: I am pregnant in each of these photos.

What is it about these pants? Well, they’re a fabulous neutral, and they have awesome texture. I mean, check out that chunky, wide wale! (Wale: The ridges of vertically cut pile.) My work in theatre has taught me how important texture is. The distance between the audience and the actors can create a need for high-impact materials with well-defined features. Surface texture is an integral part of creating exciting costumes with elements that “read” across the physical distance. This is partly why I try to steer clear of store-bought costumes. In order to be affordable, they are typically made from very cheap, flat, two-dimensional materials. I like to costume using real clothing because I always find a wider range of fabrics in thrift store clothing than I ever would at a craft store. (Not to mention that thrifting is usually way more time and cost-effective!)

As ever, I can think of further details I could have added to this costume, such as patches and straw. However, I am overall quite pleased with how this Scarecrow costume came together! It’s definitely recognizable, and that was my main objective.

While I didn’t actually make Eliza’s costume, I still found a DIY improvement I could make.

First, I needed to find some ruby slippers.

However, there were no ruby slippers to be found at my favorite thrift store haunts. Dropping a house on a Wicked Witch to obtain a pair was also “out”. So, I visited my favorite, thrift store/garage sale/flea market joint. AND it’s open 24-hours every day: eBay. That’s where I found this darling pair.

You can, too. Just type “red sparkle shoes“, “red glitter shoes“, “ruby slippers“, or even “Dorothy shoes” into the eBay search bar. Then, you can narrow your search by selecting the proper category and you can also organize your search result by factors such as price.

These shoes fit Eliza perfectly! However, some of the glitter began to wear off, a bit, after she wore them a few times.

So, I bought this pack of glitter glue from the Dollar Tree. It comes with silver, gold, and red glitter glue.

This was a fun little project that Emma and Elliott could do along with me!

They blobbed a bit of glitter glue on the worn spots and spread it around with a toothpick.

We had to go back and do a second coat in a few places.

This is by no means the most durable fix. However, it was fast, fun, and super cheap!

Hallmark Itty Bittys Dorothy Doll.

Once Emma’s Glinda dress was well under way, I turned my attention to the Glinda crown. This was going to be easy! After all, I had a pattern, right? Well…

This is when I discovered that the pattern made a four-pointed crown. This was disappointing for a couple of reasons:

1. The crown Glinda wears in the movie has more than four points, so this design looks, well, dumb.

2. The human eye is attracted to arrangements of odd numbers, so four points looks awkward.

I decided to add more points to the crown. I taped the pattern paper to the window. (Yes, I had to work around the “art installment” that was already up there.)

Then, I modified my own point shape (I had to make them a little skinnier than the originals in order to fit.) and created a new pattern over the existing shape. (My new pattern was designed “on the fold” so I only had to trace three and a half new points!)

I traced around the edge of a small, plastic lid to “grade” the new curves between my new points.

I am planning on making my pattern available to you as a PDF in the near future.

I bought the stiffest sew-in interfacing I could find at JoAnn. It was pretty much like very sturdy felt. If I could go back in time, I would have ironed the interfacing before I used it. It still had a bend in it from being wrapped around the bolt. However, I was pressed for time (you’re going to hear me say that a lot), so I skipped that step. I thought that I could get away with it because the crown was going to be curved, anyway. Not quite. The result was a slightly misshaped crown. I will experiment with re-shaping it and write about that experience in a future blog post.

I cut two crown shapes; one out of interfacing and one out of the thrifted, pink, sparkle fabric leftover from making the sleeves for the Glinda dress. Then, I applied Fray Check to the edges of the fabric layer to prevent it from, well, fraying. Fray Check is an amazing product! It is a quick-drying, glue-like substance with a thin consistency. It bonds to fabric and seals raw edges of material. You have to be careful with it, though! It is permanent and can spoil your project, carpet, or clothes if you drip it on the wrong places! You will also want to avoid applying it to part of a costume that could chafe against the skin, as the product hardens the edge of the material.

I turned to Pinterest for images that would guide me in embellishing the Glinda crown. I noted the silver, glittering lines radiating from the jeweled center and the curved lines fanning downward from each crown point. I drew these designs on my paper pattern by folding the crown pattern in half. I opened the pattern from its fold drew the line designs on one half. Then, I folded the pattern again and pressed it against a window. The light shining through helped me to trace the design from one side to the other side of the pattern. Then, I traced those lines one more time so that they would appear on the front side of the pattern as a mirror image to the first lines I drew. I hope that this makes sense! Sorry I don’t have pictures for this part.

I opened the pattern again. I lay the pattern on our coffee table. Then, I cut open a clear, plastic bag. I lay that over the paper pattern and then lay the fabric cut-out of the crown on top. The clear plastic acted as a protective barrier between my paper pattern and my fabric (not to mention protecting the table top). Then, I glued silver, holographic sequin trim to the bottom edge of the crown. Then, I carefully traced glitter fabric paint onto the fabric, using the lines I drew on the paper pattern as my guide. It was easy to see the design through the clear plastic bag and the sheer fabric.

I *should* have let the paint dry before moving to the next step, but I didn’t have the luxury of time! I had to move right ahead and glue on rhinestones and sequins, even though the fabric paint was still wet. This resulted in my accidentally dipping parts of my hands into wet paint, from time to time. Fortunately, I was able to fix the smudges.

Wet paint notwithstanding, it was so much fun to create the sparkly design in the center of the crown.
I left this decorated fabric overlay of the crown to dry overnight. It was super satisfying to peel it from the clear plastic bag, the next morning!

I applied glue around the edge of the interfacing cut-out for the crown. Then, I placed the decorated fabric over-lay on top and pressed it onto the glue. At this point, I also traced around the top edge of the crown points with the glitter fabric paint. Glitter puff paint takes a while to dry, due to its thick consistency. We were a few hours away from trick-or-treating, at this point, so I used a blow-dryer on the “cool” setting to help speed up the drying process!

Once the paint dried, I had Emma model the crown for me so I could mark where I needed to fasten it in the back. If I could do things over, I would have changed two things about what I did:

1. I thought I made the crown fit her snugly, but I should have made it even tighter. The crown ended up being slightly too large, so it tended to creep back on her head throughout the evening. (It’s slipping back a little in the photo, above.)

2. I should have sewn the back edges of the crown together to make it easier to adjust its size in the future. However, I was short on time, so I chose to hot glue where I overlapped the back edges of the crown. I could probably still peel them apart for re-sizing if I need to…And I might need to, because I found this amazing, pink prom dress at Goodwill. It was brand new with the tags still attached! The dress is more of a nude-blush than pink, which is actually closer to the color of the Glinda movie costume.

*Something* tells me that I need to turn this dress into a grown-up-sized Glinda costume. What do you think?

Glinda Crown Supply List

• Simplicity Pattern 4139
• Firm Interfacing
• Sheer, Pink, Sparkle Fabric
• Glitter Fabric Paint
• Rhinestones
• Sequin Trim
• Sequins
• Fray Check
• Craft Glue

Complete the Look

• Glinda Dress
• Glinda Wand
• Pink Sparkle Shoes

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Waiting for sequins and glue to dry! [Read more…]