Archives for January 2019

Let’s turn this magical Elsa cape into a wearable, detachable costume piece!

This is where we left off after Part 1! Now we’re going to gather the top edge of this cape into a bias tape and ribbon strip.

Luckily for me, I already had some vintage bias tape in the perfect, pale aqua color and the perfect width in my stash! I bought this lovely ribbon at JOANN Fabric and Craft to go on top.

Next, I measured across the back of each of the three Elsa dresses. (Yes, I made this cape to go with Elsa-esque dresses that I found for each of our girls!) In the movie, Frozen, the Elsa cape looks like it starts just in front of each armpit and goes across the back.

So, I took these measurements on each of the three dresses. Annika’s was the smallest measurement, at twelve inches. Emma’s was the largest, at fourteen inches. I cut fifteen inches of bias tape, to include seam allowance, and cut a strip of elastic at twelve inches.

Next, I matched the edge of the bias tape (right sides together) and stitched them to form a large circle. Then, I cut a piece of the ribbon that was long enough to cover the length of the top side. (Plus extra to fold under and enclose the raw edges, of course!)

There are probably several different ways to do these next steps. I did them by hand because I was costuming on the go! We were heading up to our family’s Lake Wenatchee cabin.

I marked the cape and the bias tape into quarters. Then, I gathered each quarter section of the cape to fit within the quarter sections of the bias tape.

Sorry about the lighting! I did the hand-gathering in the car. We were taking a potty stop in Leavenworth when I took these pictures. Life with kids. What can I say?

Once we got the kids to bed, at the cabin, I hand-tacked the cape gathers to the bias tape.

Now, I needed to add the elastic to give the cape its stretch to fit a variety of sizes.

Then, I marked quarter sections on the elastic and the second half of the bias tape. I pinned them together at these points.

I stretched the elastic as I hand-stitched it down the center of the bias tape.

Next, I matched the front and back sides of the bias tape at the quarter marks and pinned them at those points.

Then, I whip-stitched the top and bottom edges of the bias tape together.

Lastly, I sewed three snaps onto the capes and onto the dresses. I sewed the female sides of the snaps to the dresses and the male sides to the cape.

Here is the finished cape!

Here you can see a detail of the elasticized bias tape at the top…

…and the reverse view, with the snaps.

Now you can see the cape on Emma! See how it snaps on and off?

Here she is! Elsa is about to take off across the fjord. (Or, Lake Wenatchee!)

I can’t wait to show you more pictures from this magical photo shoot in my next post!

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we’re still thinking about puff paint, let’s go back a couple years to when I started making this Elsa costume. (You’re going to hear me say things like this a lot.) I was originally going to make it for Eliza, who was a newly-minted two-year-old. Here she is/was!

I could never get a shot of her actually looking at the camera. (Not much has changed in two years!) So, this is as good of a shot of Eliza in the dress as it gets! Anyway, I decided to make a cape to go with this super cute dress that I got at…you guessed it…Goodwill! Emma (aged 4 1/2 at the time) went to JOANN Fabric and Craft with me to get puff paint and cape material.

I held the material against Eliza’s back to test how long the cape should be. Then, I turned to Pinterest for Elsa cape design ideas and stumbled across this template. I used this template as a guide and eyeballed it to scale as I cut the basic shape on the fold of my material…on our living room floor.

I’m happy to see that my photography skills have increased by a lot in the past two years. Most of the photos I’m using for this post make me wince, but they’re all I’ve got! However, I am kind of proud of how I used the lid from my crock pot to grade the curve at the top of the cape. I would totally still do that, today!

Who wants to do a rolled hem on tricky material? Not this lady! So, I cheated. I hung the cape over the bathtub and went around the edge with Fray Check. This stuff is so cool! It’s like a very thin, runny glue. (Be careful, because it is permanent.) Fray Check dries clear and provides a thin, plastic-like coating on raw edges and prevents them from fraying! *Disclaimer* I am an Amazon Services LLC Associates Program member. 

Do you like the kids’ bathtub art?

I totally used up about 2-3 bottles of this glitter paint, FYI. Pace yourself on this next step, because my hands definitely got tired!

If you thought the photos on our living room floor were, bad, brace yourself! I did the painting on our laundry room floor in the basement, with zero natural light. Sorry, you guys! Anyway, I used a yardstick to trace a triangular design on the top of the cape. Then, I outlined it and filled it in with paint.

Painting the snowflakes was the best part of this entire project! Once again, I turned to Pinterest and a Google image search to find some designs I could use. I copied and pasted the images into a Word document, played with the sizing, and printed them.

I know that I said that painting the snowflakes was the most fun part of the project. BUT, peeling the fabric off of the plastic after the paint had dried was also extremely satisfying!

These photos re-create that process.

Here is our gorgeous, painted cape! In my next post, I will show you how I finished this cape into a piece that can be easily snapped onto multiple costumes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids and I had fun re-creating some vignettes from the Peter Pan story. We created these outfits so that they could participate in “Favorite Character Day” at school. Check this post to see how we put these costumes together.

Peter Pan arrives at the Darling Family’s nursery window, hoping to hear one of Wendy’s stories. (Fun fact, we really do call this room “The Nursery”.)

Wendy is peacefully sleeping. (Emma really wanted me to take this shot.)

Peter Pan! What are you doing here?

“Sewing” on Peter Pan’s shadow.

Oh, the cleverness of me!

Wendy, tell me a story.

Come with me to Neverland and be our mother!

Second to the right and straight on till morning.

It’s easier if you fly.

All it takes is faith and trust and a little bit of pixie dust!

Ready?

Set?

Go!

We can fly!

We will briefly take a break from our Elsa costume project to fly to Neverland! Wednesday night, Jeff reminded me that yesterday was “Favorite Character Day” at school. (Emma and Elliott are home schooled, but attend some classes in a public school program a few hours a week.)

These are the costuming 911 moments that I live for. I love to save the day and send the kids to an event feeling confident and looking “fly”. It’s all about keeping a few (or a lot) of awesome, versatile pieces in the family costume collection.

Flashback to Halloween 2013 when we were only a family of four. We dressed as characters from Peter Pan. I have a tiny head, so I knew that the hat I made would fit Elliott.

You can see how I “cheated” and left the edges of this hat serged but unhemmed. Arrest me!

Elliott already had the perfect, green tunic. It was part of his Robin Hood Halloween costume from last year. I added a skin-tone turtleneck, a belt, and sweatpants. Bingo! Instant Peter Pan costume.

Emma’s Wendy costume was much simpler. I found this sweet, pale lavender dress on Ebay, a few months ago.

I know, I know! Wendy’s nightgown is supposed to be more like a robin-egg’s blue. Elliott pointed that out to me. He suggested that I dye the dress, bless him. It was one of my proudest moments as a mother. The fiber content of this dress wasn’t super dye-friendly. Plus, I didn’t have the correct color of dye on hand. Kids get really literal about costumes. I don’t blame them one bit.

Fortunately, Emma was the one wearing the dress. She thought that the color was close enough. Whew! All I had to do is find a ribbon in my stash for her ponytail.

And they were off to Neverland! The fresh snow added some extra magic to our mini photo shoot. Stay tuned for more Peter Pan pics in my next post!

 

 

 

 

 

This is the part where we bust out the puff paint! Oh my, this project gave me major 90s flashbacks to the days when we all made those tacky sweatshirts with the homemade, iron-on appliques traced around with puff paint. Do you remember those? Ah, the memories.

But this is going to be totally cool. And not tacky…I hope! So, remember how I found that prom dress and that embroidered boho shirt at Goodwill for Emma’s Elsa costume in Part 1? Well, I thought the shirt could use some additional sparkle and Elsa details.

I turned to our book collection for pictorial inspiration and found our Frozen (Little Golden Book). It was easier to have physical images to look at instead of having to continually refer to my phone for pictures of Elsa.

Next, I gathered supplies! First of all, I got the puff paint for this project at JOANN Fabric and Craft.

Then, I assembled everything else. I knew that I needed to stuff the sleeves with something firm while I painted on a design. So, I used a Tailor’s Seam Roll for one sleeve and a water bottle of a similar size for the other sleeve. I popped plastic bags over each and secured them with rubber bands. This would prevent the shirt from sticking to these forms in case any paint soaked through.

Before placing the forms inside the sleeves, I first marked the center line down the top of each one with my Dritz See-Thru Dressmaker’s Ruler and my favorite, purple Dritz Disappearing Ink Marking Pen. Yes, I pretty much use this handy little pen in every project! *Disclaimer* I am an Amazon Associate. Any purchases made through my affiliate links gives me a small commission. I am careful to only promote products that I personally use and enjoy!

I slid my forms into the sleeves after I made the sleeve center lines.

I wanted to make a pointed design on the bicep of each sleeve. So, I measured 3 1/2 inches down the center line of each sleeve, from the shoulder seam, and made a mark. Then, I measured down 3 1/2 inches down the side of each armhole and made marks at those points. I joined the armhole marks to the center mark by drawing connecting lines along my measuring tape.

Finally time to paint! I decided to do little dots of paint instead of a solid line. The sleeve material is crinkly and stretchy, and I thought trying to do a solid line might interfere with the flexibility of the fabric and might not look like a clean line, depending on how the fabric lay on the arm.

I propped up the sleeves on a copy box lid and weighted the ends with button jars. Then, I proceeded to experiment with where I wanted to place two snowflake designs on each of the sleeves. I made the upper one slightly larger than the lower one.

Next, I traced over the embroidery at the hem of each sleeve with dots of glitter paint. I did the top halves of the cuffs, first.

After letting the sleeves sit for an hour or two, I gently turned over the ends of the sleeves and painted the embroidery on the underneath portions of the cuffs.

Then, I also painted the embroidery on the front of the neckline and extended it across the back once the front had dried. I placed a plastic shopping bag inside the shirt to make sure the front and back didn’t stick together with paint!

Ta-da! Here’s a look at the finished shirt. It’s also a sneak-peek of the Lake Wenatchee photo shoot I did with our girls, this past weekend. More photos to come!