Yes You Can Costumes

Making the Extraordinary from the Ordinary

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

It is said that practicing empathy is akin to walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. And what better way to open our children’s hearts and expand their world than with tangible experiences? If we engage their five senses, we might (literally) be one step closer to raising a new generation that can imagine life from a different point of view!

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

But, what do you do if your family lives in a relatively small, land-locked town, or money is tight? Multicultural resources, events, and experiences may seem out of reach. I can relate! My hope is that this post will give you sensory-rich ideas that can bring the wider world closer to home.

International Cuisine (Smell and Taste)

International Cooking

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

International Shopping

  • Support a minority-owned business. We took a shopping trip to a local carnicería (butcher’s shop) where we bought polvorones (cookies) and some little pieces of painted pottery. The triceratops out in front was a bonus. We’re definitely going back!
Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids
This was 2019, pre-covid. It was another time!

Song and Dance (Sight and Sound)

Virtual Participation

  • Dance Party! We have enjoyed watching and following along with videos of traditional dances (you can find some of our favorites on my YouTube playlist).
Following along with Kids dance rehearsal in Accra, Ghana July 2013 Recorded by HITOMI TONO’KA

Local Events

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

Next Town Over

  • Museum/Festival. When we visit another city, we try to include a cultural experience.
Jeff, Emma, Elliott, and my sister participating in Scandinavian folk dancing during “Breakfast with Pippi” at the National Nordic Museum, 2016.

Traditional Clothing (Touch)

  • Costume Collecting. Well, what could be more tactile than wearing textiles from other cultures? Most of the garments, below, came from our local thrift stores. I’ve found fall to be the best time to look for them. It’s a thrill to find authentic folk-wear tucked in the racks of Halloween costumes. They stand out, since many are made from natural fibers. (Not to mention their superior quality, texture, and embellishments!)
Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids
  • Traditions Trunk One day, it occurred to me to give my international clothing collection to the kids! They are old enough to treat them well and learn about their cultural significance. (i.e. not kept in the same, haphazard way as the contents of their dress-up box!)
Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids
The grand reveal. Surprise, surprise, it’s costumes!
  • Textile Travel So, for the kids’ first experience, I curated specific outfits for each of them. It took some time, but I did some online sleuthing to trace where each piece is from and what they are called. Please message me if I have identified any of these costume pieces incorrectly, or if you would like to tell me more about them and their significance in your culture. Our goal is to learn about and honor your traditions!

Emma is wearing a sarong kebaya from Singapore. It consists of the traditional, batik kebaya blouse and sarong skirt. There are many different styles of kebaya worn throughout Indonesia. This is a wonderful YouTube Video tutorial on how to identify and wear the pieces of the Kebaya Encim primarily worn by Peranakans (Indonesians, Malaysians, and Singaporeans of Chinese descent). You can purchase this exact outfit here.

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

Before Emma could wear the sarong kebaya, I had to sew on a skirt hook and raise the hem. See how I used a pair of her leggings to gauge the hemline? It’s my favorite way to do simple alterations when the kids aren’t available for fittings!

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

In order to complete her look, I made Emma a floral comb to wear in her hair. I found a wonderful, PDF magazine issue about many aspects of Peranakan culture, featuring the significance of flowers.

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

Elliott is wearing what I *believe* is an older style of shirt (camisa) and pants (pantalones) from Oaxaca, Mexico. There is a vast richness and variety among the clothing of its indigenous peoples! The pockets on the tunic resemble those found on guayaberas. White outfits, or Juan Diego Trajes De Indito, are worn by little boys to observe the Fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Additionally, Elliott wears a serape and a very old sombrero that Jeff’s great-grandparents bought in Mexico.

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids

Eliza is wearing a dirndl, the traditional dress of women and girls in Bavaria, Austria, and parts of Switzerland and the Italian Alps. Her outfit consists of a bodice (mieder) attached to a skirt (rock). Underneath is a blouse (bluse), and on top is her apron (schürze). Since Eliza is a child, her apron bow (schleife) is tied in the back. Traditionally, a woman could signal her marital/relationship status by the side on which she tied her apron.

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids - Bavaria Austria

Oliver is wearing a sleeveless zarchapan from Uzbekistan. It is a robe (chapan) covered in elaborate, gold embroidery. A tubeteika (skull-cap), tops his look. Traditionally, he would also wear a kuylak (shirt) and ishton (trousers). Lacking these pieces, he is wearing a modern tuxedo shirt and pants, instead.

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids - Uzbekistan

Annika is wearing a Japanese kimono. Its pastel colors indicate that it is intended for spring wear. I cheated and used a gold cummerbund instead of an obi belt. (Even if I owned a real obi, I would need training and practice on how to tie even a simple style!) Lastly, I made Annika a floral hair ornament (hana kanzashi) similar to how I made Emma’s. Japanese people have a passionate love and reverence for flowers and their symbolism in their culture. Annika’s resemble yellow jasmine, which stand for friendliness and grace.

Multicultural Costumes and Cooking with Kids - Japan

After everyone was dressed, we visited a favorite mural of mine. I’ve driven past it multiple times a week, for years! In hindsight, I think it reminded my subconscious of Disney’s “It’s a Small World“.

The kids are often squirrely during pictures, and I wonder if they are having the hoped-for experience! Later, however, they are always excited when we pass by past photo locations. They chatter amongst themselves about how crazy and fun it was. If this is also your experience, take heart! Our kids really *are* taking things in.

I believe Eliza was yodeling. She made it up to me, later, by giving me some jelly beans. Apparently, I had “earned them”.

Just know that there are twenty goofy pictures for every single beautiful one of these sweet, little faces.

Even though these costumes cost less than five dollars each, I recognize that collecting them may be out of reach for many. (It was for my family, when I was growing up!) However, my mom was still able to foster my love for people around the world with simple things we had in our house. In this circa 1998 photo, we had “transformed” our downstairs room into India. The occasion was an international-themed party. We didn’t have real saris to wear, but we *did* have bedsheets!

We served our guests an Indian chicken and basmati rice dish, which made our entire home smell amazing. In the background, sitar music played on a CD from the library. My senses swept me away, and I could *almost* imagine myself in India.

It gives me great joy to carry on what my mom began. Here, Emma is wearing a shirt that I believe is from the Indian State of Gujurat.

One of our more recent international dance parties.

In her compelling 1895 poem, “Judge Softly“, suffragist and poet Mary T. Lathrap exhorted her readers to come alongside a sufferer and “Take the time to walk a mile in his moccasins”. I hope you will pause a moment to read the entire poem. Its powerful words go straight to the heart and are completely relevant for today.

There are many paths to practicing empathy. Costumes and cuisine are nice, but curiosity and compassion are really all you need to build global awareness and appreciation. Yes You Can!

Upcycle a Shirt into a Costume Vest

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Need a simple costume vest in a jiffy? Look no further than that old, button-down shirt at the back of your child’s closet! Is it the wrong color? Dunk it in some RIT dye, like I did for Elliott and Oliver’s Kelly Green leprechaun vests. So, let’s upcycle some shirts into costume vests!

The beauty of converting a shirt into a vest is that you don’t need to add buttons, or really much of anything else! You mainly just remove elements that you don’t need. 

Supplies

Fitting

First, I nabbed my little leprechaun for a fitting. I determined which buttons I would keep as the top and bottom ones of the vest. I pinned the hem and spread the collar. The fold line of the opened collar would be the future line on which I would cut to begin to remove the collar. I also marked where I wanted the shoulders to land. You can see me gauging whether or not to take the side seams in. I ultimately decided not to, but you could to achieve a trimmer fit.

DIY Easy Vest

Pinning/Sleeve Removal

Next, I folded the shirt perfectly in half on my work surface. I matched the armscye seams with pins, and then marked the new shoulder grade down to the armpit with more pins.

The pins holding everything in place allowed me to cut through both sleeves at once to achieve the (basically) exact, mirror-image armhole shape on each side.

Now, to alter the collar! I removed the safety pins and marked the grade of the new vest neckline from the shoulder to the button placket with quilting pins.

Collar Removal

Next, I used a ruler to guide the straight cut I made from the shoulder to the center front.

Here, you can see the cut-open collar. See? It’s starting to look like a vest!

It’s a bit awkward to cut through all the layers, like the button placket. However, covering the newly cut neckline in bias tape soon fixes that problem. It is very satisfying to encase all the internal weirdness with a cohesive strip of material!

Next, I finished removing the collar entirely with just a few scissor snips along the collar band. I saved the collar, along with the sleeves, to make matching, Irish princess accessories for the girls!

Bias Tape

Regretfully, I was in such a hurry to finish the vests, (when am I not, though) that I don’t have pictures of me sewing on the double-fold bias tape around the neckline. However, it is pretty intuitive, and there are lots of great YouTube videos that can show you how, like this one!

Hem

The above series of photos showed how I quickly tacked up the hem of the shirt with a few back and forth stitches in strategic areas. Then, I ran over the hem with an iron to make a crisp, finished look. (Did I mention that I was in a hurry?) Below, I show more hem and bias tape details. By far the trickiest part of handling bias tape is how to tuck and fold the ends to created a clean, mitered edge.

Armholes

I finished the armholes of the vest by serging around them and then folding that edge inward and stitching around it one time. The result was rather puckered armholes This is probably mostly because it is difficult to hem a curved edge. Encasing the armholes in bias tape would have produced a cleaner, more polished look, but, c’est la vie! Fortunately, this shortcoming isn’t as noticeable when the vests are worn.

DIY Upcycle Shirt to Vest

And, there you have it, folks: Yes You Can make cute vests from button-down shirts!

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Marzipan Reed Flutes – Costume Pieces

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How do you turn a pile of clothes on a bed into costumes with scrumptious colors, layers and textures?

Our master bed is often my visual “storyboard” for potential outfit layouts.

To start this story, we’re going to have to travel back *gulp* thirteen years, to my senior year of college. I took a textiles class to fulfill the art credit I needed to graduate. I was drawn to the textiles course because…obviously. Also, I had a hankering to try my hand at weaving ever since I inherited some linen woven by my great-great-great Grandmother, Kajsa (Kye-suh) Sjöquist. I believe it was even made from flax grown on the family farm in Småland, Sweden.

Kajsa and Karl, and her beautiful weaving, lace, and drawn-thread embroidery. My Great Aunt Kay got to visit their home in Blomstermåla and church in Kråksmåla.

Setting up the loom was intense! My professor had a huge hand in helping me. If I messed up the placement of even one, vertical warp thread, the finished piece would have a flaw in its pattern through its entire length. *Yikes!* Speaking of patterns, I selected designs for all of my projects from the Manual of Swedish Handweaving. It was a library book that I had pored over as a teen. (Nerd alert!) I remembered it and asked my mom to check it out and mail it to me from Washington to Oklahoma. Yes, this is quite the saga!

Me at the loom: Featuring my stress acne and early attempts at taking selfies.

Of course, the actual scarf I used as part of Emma’s Marzipan Elf costume is the only piece I didn’t take photos of while it was on the loom. *Sigh* It was the third and final project I had to complete for the class. I made it from scraps of leftover yarn in my professor’s stash, and scrambled to finish it in time before graduating!

The scarf was barely long enough to wear, so I left the fringe longer on one side to extend its length as much as possible.

Moving along! Most of Emma’s costume pieces were either from her or my closets. Here are a few of the thrifted items.

*Pro Tip* Always snap up cool boots and thermal underlayers at the thrift store. They rarely turn up on the cheap when you need them for something specific!

And…Here are all of Emma’s costume pieces! Her hat (as well as most of the others) were hand-me-downs from friends. I know how to knit and crochet, but haven’t in years. I look forward to dusting off those skills when teaching our kids!

So, you’re probably sick of hearing about scarves, by now. I still hope you will indulge me one more time: The scarf on the right was made for me by my dear college roommate. I still wear it to this day. The scarf is so soft and I love the color! This scarf became the shoulder sash of Elliott’s costume.

The brown, velvet blazer was also part of my college wardrobe, and the green shirt is mine, as well! Everything else was hand-me-downs, or thrifted. Here are all of Elliott’s costume pieces.

Eliza’s purple cardigan began as a sad, stained sweater that I dyed for her Pilgrim costume, a few years ago.

I love the green, embroidered blouse that was layered under Eliza’s hand-me-down sundress. Too bad it’s not my size!

In case you didn’t already know; red is Eliza’s favorite color. So, naturally, she wore the red hat!

Oliver kept toasty warm in a thrifted thermal top and vintage, wool sweater. (I made sure he wore a turtleneck in between so he wouldn’t feel itchy!)

So many of our friends have generously given us their kids’ outgrown clothes, over the years. They know that I use all sorts of things to make costumes . . . And I do! Oliver got to wear two, cute, hand-me-down pieces: The hat and the shoulder scarf! His boots were from Zulily.

Most of Annika’s costume pieces came from the YWCA Thrift Store. How cute is the corduroy, double-breasted jacket and the ribbon-laced boots?

The rest of Annika’s costume pieces were her own clothes.

AND . . . If you don’t believe me . . . Here is our family’s 2020 Christmas Card! Can you see how many articles of clothing they also wore as Marzipan Elves? I can count three, not including their boots, which were cropped out of these photos.

However, you can sure see the footwear in these shots that didn’t quite make the Christmas card . . .

Oh, Annika. She used to flip out whenever a camera was around. These days, she practices her nonconformity through another medium: Clowning.

Future album cover/Annika descending Mt. Sinai

And, there you have it! Thank you for going on a time travel adventure with me. Maybe it’s overkill to share how deep the origins of my inspiration go. However, if you’re still reading, I hope that means that you understand.

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Marzipan Behind the Scenes Bloopers – Homemade Nutcracker

Hello, friends! I’m going to try to take pretty pictures and still keep things real on this blog. So, in that spirit, I am going to give you the scoop: Taking group shots of these little rascals is HARD.

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Annika, stop chewing the scenery.

So hard, in fact that I considered scrapping this photo shoot midway through. However, I would have missed out on some beautiful moments . . . And the gift of these bloopers that will make us laugh for years to come!

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Elliott wasn’t feeling it at the start of the photo shoot.

I like the side-eye Eliza is giving me in the first image, and Annika’s fierce, cookie-biting face in the second.

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I wanted the kids to be lined up from youngest to oldest, but Annika had other ideas . . . Then, I had to tell the older ones to just let her in wherever. They were trying to be good and tell Annika where she was *supposed* to go, but that was only causing a new kerfuffle.

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Easily the most exhausting part of photographing a group of young ones is to convince all of them to be as flexible as *you*, the photographer, have to be!

Oliver knows how to smile ’til it hurts…

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At this point, I was thinking, “Perhaps it really is unreasonable to expect everyone to look simultaneously thrilled to be here”.

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Eliza saw me editing this next series of photos and laughed so hard that she “let loose” . . . If you know what I mean. Right next to me. At the computer desk.

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You’ve been warned: Laugh responsibly.

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Eliza is like, “BEEBS. Staaahhhp!!!”

. . . Annika doesn’t look at all mischievous, here . . .

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. . . Oliver was over it, and Eliza must have decided, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!”

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Eliza was disgruntled when I asked her to only use the recorder as a prop, as God intended.

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I mean, let’s be real: A recorder does not usually render beautiful music when in the hands of a small child.

However, I’ll give Eliza the last word in this homage to her amazing, recorder-inspired facial expressions.

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I allowed Eliza some free rein, then ask her to do a few “normal” faces. This is when she sternly told me “Next time, I get to pick how to be in the pictures”.

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The photo on the right is Eliza setting me straight on who is really in charge of this operation.

. . . Aaannnddd, last but not least, this is what is really happening behind the scenes: Jeff is there with his steady patience and amazing child-wrangling skills. He is the master of coaxing unwilling smiles and keeping everyone upbeat. (Including me!)

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Speaking of Jeff, I may be the one making the costumes, but his calm support makes all of this possible. His presence turned something stressful into something enjoyable. And, you know what? I got lovely shots, after all.

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Marzipan Reed Flutes – Homemade Nutcracker

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My little woodland elves and I finished making their mitts and pins! It was time to dress up and celebrate outside, at the height of autumn. I will also take this opportunity to introduce you to some of our most beloved trees; both living and deceased. R.I.P.

Our birch tree is always lovely, but it is positively stunning in the fall!

The Japanese maple in our front planter makes a natural shelter that our kids duck inside and fondly call their “house”.

I made it even more homey with an arch made of a thrifted, silk sunflower garland and a beaded garland I found on Facebook Marketplace. I wound them onto two shepherd’s crooks and secured them with baggie ties.

Various pumpkins and squash from our own garden and some from family and friends decorated the bases of the arches. (I stole them from our own front porch display!)

Not everyone was a huge fan of the marzipan cookies we made for this homage to The Nutcracker Suite. Emma and Annika compensated by trying to eat all of them!

Oliver ran off from the group photo session and jumped on the swing. Sometimes, photographing small children is more like being a wildlife photographer than an artist. You have to just work with whatever the creatures ae doing in their natural habitat!

Our three, little, lady elves model their handmade mitts.

Considering our family’s large, musical instrument menagerie, it is rather surprising that we don’t own any flutes! Jeff’s clarinet is a reed instrument, but it didn’t suit the vibe I was going for. So, I chose a recorder as our token woodwind instrument for this photo shoot. (After all, the alternate name for the “Marzipan” piece in The Nutcracker is “Dance of the Reed Flutes”.

Everybody, grab on! I was going for an age-order lineup, but I decided to be happy that they were in a line, at all.

I’m pretty sure that Annika was plotting mischief in this photo.

After a bit, I took our operation to the backyard. This is what the back garden looks like in November! It’s a bit mouldery and spooky.

One, lonely pumpkin and skeletal, sunflower “scarecrows”.

However, there is always beauty to be found, if I look for it hard enough! We moved my little sunflower and squash arrangement by some wild grass.

Green is Emma’s favorite color. It suits her, don’t you agree?

Our munchkins with their “reed flute” and marzipan.

Annika took full advantage of this opportunity to eat as many cookies as she could!

This rainbow assortment of hand-made hats are all hand-me-downs from friends or the thrift store (Eliza’s).

Little Ollie Elf!

Action shots seemed like the way to go with our busy, little guy!

Elliott, the Elf Prince. He was perched on the remains of our giant fir tree that fell over on New Year’s Day, 2020. (We probably should have taken that as an omen.)

Remains of pokeweed in the foreground. It’s pretty, but obnoxious. I need to deal with it, this year, and I’m not looking forward to it!

Eliza was the Miss Congeniality winner of this event. She is a funny mixture of sweetness and seriousness, but she morphs into a goofball whenever I turn on the camera.

She is definitely our whimsical, fairy child.

It was fun to include the pumpkins that she and Oliver painted at preschool. This purple one, decorated by Oliver, just happened to match the color palette I chose for this project!

Mitt models . . .

At some point, we will need to remove this enormous log. In the meanwhile, the kids enjoy climbing on it.

Those large, silvery-sage green rosette plants are Great Mulleins that I transplanted from family property at Lake Chelan. Their frosty, fuzzy leaves looked enchanted next to my green girl!

The layers and textures of the costume pieces we put together turned out just as I had hoped.

Autumn always makes me think of cozy colors, layers, and textures. Perhaps like the layers of the colorful, falling leaves.

And . . . JUMP!!!

Our dogwood trees are also well beloved by our children. They are gorgeous in any season: Flowering in spring, apple green leaves in summer, red leaves and berries in the fall, and shapely, bare branches in winter.

That’s what I like about them, anyway. If you ask the kids, they will tell you that the dogwoods are special because they are perfect climbing trees! We have one with white blooms in the backyard, and one with pink flowers in the front yard.

Annika was not about to be left behind! She managed to scramble to the first fork in the tree.

The cold was finally getting to us. See her pink, little nose?

We went inside to get warm right after these pictures were taken. I hope that these cozy, cheery colors, and woolen accessories warmed your heart as well!

In an upcoming post, I’ll show you how I put together the entire outfits for our Woodland Marzipan Elves. Almost every article of clothing was already in the kids’ wardrobes!

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