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 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

DIY Upcycled Wool Mitts and Pins

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Stop!!! Don’t throw away those nifty wool socks! So, maybe they have a few holes…BUT, that doesn’t mean that your comfy, cozy life with them has to be over.

Anyway, that’s what I told myself when my favorite Costco socks (a Christmas present from my aunt), started to wear through. Of course, I am capable of justifying the saving of anything that has crafting potential. Holey socks are no exception!

Pretty wool mitts with lots of trims and texture seemed like the perfect accessories for my little marzipan elves. These socks also presented the perfect material and the perfect project for teaching my little elves to sew!

Supplies *Includes Affiliate Links*

  • Old socks
  • Buttons
  • Trim
  • Feathers
  • Fabric scraps
  • Needle and thread
  • Scissors
  • Pin backs
  • Craft glue
  • Glue gun (optional)
  • Sewing machine (optional)

“And sew“, as my maternal grandmother would say… (Get it? “Sew” = “So”…Sorry, I’ll stop.) We began by cutting the legs of the socks apart from the insteps/soles of the socks; just above their heels. Emma (9) and I tried on the newly-made mitts. So far, so good!

Now, for the fun part! I have a large stash of thrifted lace, and I also got these bags of trims and feathers through the local “Buy Nothing” group on Facebook. I set aside the package of feathers for pin-making. (More on that, soon!)

Emma selected a pleated, gold ribbon to trim the edge of the mitts nearest her fingers, and a pretty, cream-colored lace for trimming the cuffs. She sat on my lap at the sewing machine. I let her operate the foot pedal, while I helped her to guide the material.

This is where things got really exciting! Emma and I cut rounded “patches” from the leftover heels and insteps of the various socks. Then, she got to rummage through my vintage button collection and hand-sew them into place. It was so fun to see her independent creativity and design sense emerge.

While Emma stitched, I got Elliott (8) in on the action. He selected the socks with the feather motif. We made a few stitches about a three-quarter inch away from the inside edge of the top of each mitt. This created a hole for the thumb. (The addition of a thumb-hole ensures that the mitts will stay in place, over the hands, when worn.)

Elliott approached button sewing with skepticism. I told him that learning a new skill is like experiencing a new food: You don’t know what it’s like until you try it! And, what do you know…Before long, he was hooked!

Is it a good idea to have mounds of flammable crafting materials right next to a candle? Probably not. Ignore that. Instead, observe the artful cutting of rounded shapes from unused sock bits, and the charming button collage patches. Emma made an extra butterfly patch for fun, and then she began to make the patches for her younger siblings’ mitts.

Even Eliza (5) learned to sew on buttons! She has a lot of patience and attention for detail, so she was a natural! As the kids completed their button patches, I sewed them onto the mitts. I used contrasting thread and a combination of straight and star-shaped clusters of stiches to add to the earthy, whimsy of the finished products.

And, that’s it! Look at how far these mitts came: From humble, holey socks, to beautiful, wearable pieces of art! The only “oops” I think I made was in not stretching Emma’s mitts enough as we machine-sewed the gold trim to the top edges. This made the edges of the socks lose their stretch, as the machine stitches locked the knit material in place. The trimmed edges became too rigid and tight to stretch over Emma’s hands far enough to be worn with thumb-holes. So, hers are the only ones without. However, her mitts are still completely wearable as-is!

Next, we turned our attention to making coordinating pins. My plan (and I think we succeeded) was to tie these costume looks together with head-to-toe texture! I had some scraps of tapestry material that seemed like the perfect base material for the pins. The fabric was sturdy, and I liked how its edges raveled a bit. (I don’t like hard edges when I’m going for a natural look.) First, we traced oval shapes with my favorite Dritz Dual Purpose Marking Pen.

Elliott doubted his ability to cut a good oval, but he prevailed!

I wanted each pin to have a flourish to it, so we cut little triangle bits from the sock scraps. We pinned them to overlap, a bit, then ran a gathering stitch along the bottom edge. Next, we pinned this “cockscomb” to the tapestry oval and tightened the gathering thread, a bit. This puckered the points, giving them extra dimension. Then, we stitched them into place.

On the girls’ pins, we gathered scraps of lace and stitched them down before adding the fabric “cockscombs”, buttons, and feathers. I began stitching pin backs onto finished pins.

It was sweet to see the kids find favorite buttons. They were really excited to include them on their personal accessories. Elliott had his heart set on this faux, wooden button. Of course, Annika also got into the sensory fun of playing with buttons!

Once the buttons were stitched, we played with tucking feathers between the layers of fabric and buttons until we liked the final arrangement. Then, we added craft glue to anchor them in place.

This extra large pin was destined to sit on Elliott’s shoulder, like an epaulette.

Some of the pins needed a little extra support, so we cut felt backs for them and glued them, after adding the feathers.

These pins are simple to make, but sewing all of the buttons proved to be time-consuming. I cheated and made a few, last-minute pins with hot glue. We could have made all of them, this way, but the kids wouldn’t have been able to be as hands-on. (Hot glue burns, yo!) Besides, I really wanted this to be an opportunity for them to learn to sew.

Here you can see some of the backs of the finished pins. The larger ones got two pin backs so they wouldn’t flop around, when worn. Some of the last-minute ones were hot glued. I paid extra attention so I wouldn’t accidentally gum up the hinges and clasps with globs of glue. The hand-stitched pin backs were also treating with a bit of craft glue, for durability.

And, here is the gorgeous array of our finished pins! They are studded with woodland button “jewels”, and enhanced with fabric and lace cockades and feathers.

The larger pins were worn on hats, shoulders, and chests. The smaller ones clasped the ends of scarves on less conspicuous areas of the costumes. See how they coordinate with the mitts?

This a sneak-peek of the accessories in action! They were such a fun way to add a distinctive look to the kids’ layers of their own clothes. It just goes to show that you can transform ordinary garments into extraordinary costumes with thoughtful styling and a few, special pieces.

Speaking of styling, my next blog post will show you how I assembled these individual garments into cohesive, costumed looks!

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Marzipan

DIY Suffragette Costumes

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Celebrate women’s history by assembling your own, amazing, suffragette ensemble with carefully curated thrift store finds. Make your voice heard with all the right symbolism in your accessories. Votes for women!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

When you think of “history”, do you see a series of black and white photos in your mind’s eye? I confess that I sometimes do. That is why I love to explore the past in a tangible way. For me, that entails clothes! In past posts, I showed you how to make suffragette picket signs and sashes. Now, it’s time to put together the rest of the outfits…

DIY Suffragette Costumes

…In color! As with any organization, the suffragette movement chose its colors very strategically to convey its message: Equality for women. To my surprise, I learned that the main color used by all American suffrage organizations was yellow! Later, the National Woman’s Party was the only group to adopt purple, white, and yellow (gold): “Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause. White, the emblem of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose; and gold, the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.” The Suffragist, December 6, 1913.

DIY Suffragette Costumes
  • Hats

Well, I happen to really like purple, so I decided that we were members of the National Woman’s Party. Simple as that! And, would you look at what I stumbled upon at the Dollar Tree? Pre-made purple bows on hair clips!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

You know what you can also find at the Dollar Tree? Hats! (In the spring and summer, that is.) I got two matching ones for Eliza and Annika. (One came via the thrift store.) All I had to do was snip off their pink flowers and slide the purple bow clip onto their white, elastic hatbands.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Voilà! I did the same “cheat” on my mom’s hat (center), and Emma’s (tan straw hat on the left). Emma’s hat was borrowed from my husband’s grandmother’s costume collection. This particular hat had a convenient loop of ribbon on its band that made attaching the bow a cinch! Easy-peasy suffragette hats on the cheap!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

My hat took a little bit more work. (Of course!) I snipped off its white and yellow sequined flower. Those stitches had also held the brim up. So, I took needle and thread and re-stitched that part of the brim back to the crown of the hat. I made the last 3-4 stitches large and loose to make a loop for the hair bow to slide through and stay secure.

DIY Suffragette Costumes
  • Props

If photographing kids has taught me any lesson, it’s this: Give them something to hold, aka “props”! (I plan to discuss this further in a future post.) In brief, props serve as toys that the kids can play with, while also helping them to get into character. Physical items can help the costumes and setting to merge into a cohesive story. The props I selected for this photo shoot were bouquets of yellow roses.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

A variety of flowers are associated with the woman’s suffrage movement, with yellow roses and sunflowers being the most popular. I selected these yellow roses from the Dollar Tree, since they would be durable.

DIY Suffragette Costumes
  • Outfit Pieces

Let’s put it all together and make our costume ensembles, shall we? It’s actually really difficult to find historically-appropriate dresses with sleeves. All of these outfits are assembled from blouses and skirts (my mom and me) or sleeveless dresses layered over blouses (the girls). Here is Annika’s little outfit. I’m pretty sure her shoes only cost a dollar. I already had the tights and vintage pinafore. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a blouse in her size or a good under-dress. (The pinafore was sheer with eyelet holes all over. It really needed some kind of layer beneath it.) Then, it occurred to me: I could use a larger-sized girls’ blouse! The sleeves and collar worked with the pinafore, and the shirt’s length also functioned as an under-dress. I’m not gonna lie; I felt pretty clever for coming up with this “cheat”!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Next is Eliza’s outfit! She’s already gotten some mileage out of these shoes, since she also wore them in our 1960s family photo shoot. In fact, I like to make sure that each of our girls has a pair of black and a pair of white dress shoes. This carries us through the year for church, and it also takes care of footwear for lots of costume looks.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Eliza’s blouse is a vintage one that I used to wear! (Wait. Does that make me vintage?) Her darling, eyelet dress is a Hanna Andersson piece I found on eBay.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Emma’s dress was an amazing find. I scooped it up for twenty-five cents at a thrift store sale!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Under her dress, Emma wore another vintage blouse from my childhood wardrobe. (Maybe I am old!) Tights, white shoes, a hat, flowers, and a suffragette sash and picket sign completed her ensemble!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

*This post contains affiliate links.*

Speaking of great thrift store finds…(Okay. I’m always talking about great thrift store finds! This one is really fantastic, though.) Look at this gorgeous blouse with pin tucks and insertion lace! I have been looking for a blouse like this for YEARS. This piece is a treasure that will, henceforth, have me covered for looks from 1890 – 1920. The only flaw was the small, brown stain on its front. Fortunately, a soak in OxiClean took it right out!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

The skirt I paired with the blouse definitely wasn’t the cheapest thing I’ve ever found at a thrift store, but I couldn’t resist its lace panels.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Then, I completed my suffragette look with my modified hat, white knee socks, thrifted belt, vintage shoes, and, (of course) a picket sign and sash.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

My mom’s outfit was also made of separates. Her skirt was a $5 vintage find.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

The rest of my mom’s outfit came from various thrift store excursions, except for her blouse, which I bought on eBay. Her shoes deserve a special mention: vintage ballroom dancing shoes make excellent costume footwear for multiple time periods! They can be found in all sorts of colors and heel heights. Keep your eyes peeled for them!

DIY Suffragette Costumes

If you’ve made it this far, you may be wondering, “What is up with all the white?” Well, lots of women in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods already owned white blouses and skirts as parts of their everyday wardrobes, especially for summer wear. These were clothing articles that were quite accessible and made a big statement when worn during parades, demonstrations, etc.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Additionally, the suffragettes wore white in a deliberate attempt to bolster their feminine image. Opposing propaganda sought to paint a negative image of them as aggressive and masculine. By contrast, men who supported women’s suffrage were depicted as hapless fellows left at home, holding the babies and wearing the skirts. When suffragettes gathered en masse, they were literally sending a strong cultural message of bright hope, purity, and femininity.

DIY Suffragette Costumes

Speaking of gathering, I hope you’re ready to see the pictures from our suffragette parade photo shoot! Grab your sashes, hats, and picket signs and join us in the march. See you there!

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