You guys know how much I love making costumes and this year's projects were no different. Emma is in love with this crazy getup. Let's dive right in to her rainbow costume.
Here was our mock-up: a white cloud skirt topped by a separate rainbow tunic and a sun crown. Pink tights and a white leotard complete the costume.
She fell off the stool directly after this photo was taken. No harm done though - this kid is tough!
You'll notice that she has two crowns: her fancy, formal glittery burning sun crown and the soft, yet comfortable everyday crown. The formal one is a bit to unreliable for trick or treating so we made a second version that will likely stay attached to her noggin.
Ahem. Problem illustrated.
Materials
Rainbow Tunic & Cloud Skirt
Felt: 1 yard for tunic (red, in this case),
Felt:1/2 yard each of rainbow colors (Sometime fabric stores sell individual sheets, which can be pieced together)
Felt:1/2 yard white for clouds
Velcro (for closing sides)Tissue paper (optional) for tracing the rainbow pattern
Hot Glue Gun
Elastic for Skirt
White Tulle (3+ yards)Sewing machine
Crown Materials
Fire Crown: Stiff glitter cardstock, plastic headband, hot glue, wire or wood supports
Comfy Crown*: Thick gold fabric, hot glue, wire
*Find the firmest, thickest material you can. Mine was from the clearance section and was similar to a vinyl tablecloth material with a felt backing. Even so, it required wire (glued between two layers) to keep the prongs upright.
Using an existing shirt, trace a pattern onto the felt tunic. Because felt doesn't stretch, make it a generous measurement. Fold felt in two and cut out, leaving you with front and back tunics. Use a strip of extra felt as a side and glue together, leaving one side open (to be velcroed at a later stage). Sew tops of shoulders together.
Trace your pattern onto the tissue paper. After laying the paper down on the felt, trace only the outside of the pattern, so that each color is a solid half circle, instead of a thin curved band.
Assemble your felt in the correct order to make sure you have enough. Cut out the pattern and glue each layer together. Trim excess.
Note: You'll see that my light pink is too short. Fortunately, plan on big fluffy white clouds to cover any gaps in your felt. I ended up trimming the whole bottom by a few inches because Emma thought the rainbow was too tall.
Draw a cloud onto the white felt. For added stability, glue two layers together to stiffen. I only had extra red felt so our clouds have a red backing. Sew velcro onto the tunic to secure the sides.
CLOUD SKIRT
Measure your child's waist and buy a generous amount of elastic. Joann's fabric sells a Dritz metallic elastic that I used on this project. Any extra can be used to make wrist cuffs.
Pleats are tricky and I don't have a great way to go about explaining them - I'd recommend heading over to this site for a quick tutorial. Additionally, you could skip the elastic and sewing altogether and go with this tutu version.
Because she'll always wear this skirt over a leotard, I didn't bother to line the waistband. You'd definitely want to do this if your child was going to wear it against his/her skin. Additionally, I used two thicknesses of tulle/netting, but no liner. Again, you'd want to do this if your child was going to wear it without tights/leggings/leotard.
CROWNS
Here is the template for the first crown: I made it out of stiff glittery cardstock with a heavy dose of hot glue and chopsticks(!) on the back to give it structure. It's glued to a plastic headband. I blew up the template and printed it across two sheets of paper. From there trace onto the glitter cardstock and cut out with scissors or an xacto knife.
A few notes: The back of my crown looks rough. I used wooden skewers to give it strength and it looks messy. In the end, I got tired of fiddling with it, sprayed the entire thing silver with spray paint, and called it good enough. A thicker paper (or multiple sheets) might solve the tendency of the prongs to curl.
The comfy crown template can be found here. I traced mine onto gold fabric, adding a few extra crown prongs. I found that it worked to cut out two of the exact same crown shape and then glue together to provide a version that was able to stay upright.
Once the templates are cut, add wire for strength and then glue the whole thing together in a gold fabric sandwich. My backing wasn't a perfect match - it's smaller than the front so that you can't really see the backing when the crown is on the head.
