Peacock Princess: A Homemade Halloween Costume Story

I am NOT Martha Stewart.  I'm not Bobby Flay.  I am just me. I think a lot of times, because I am a stay at home mom, I am supposed to have a go to trade.  Like, I'm supposed to be the domesticated queen of all crafts.  Don't get me wrong, I  can cook, and I enjoy it.  But, I don't spend hours upon hours coming up with new recipes.  This just isn't possible for me.

Also, I'm not super crafty.  I can't just look at the mess at my desk and say, "You know what?  All I need are some toilet paper rolls, double sided tape, and some spray paint and this will look fantastic!" Probably NEVER going to say those things.

I see a lot of other awesome women that can do these things and I'm thankful for them!  And Target.  And Michael's, and Hobby Lobby and Jo Ann Fabrics and the Dollar Store.  These places all make my life easier.  (THANK YOU!) 

This year, I wanted to try and make a costume for my kids.  We bought a costume for my son last year, which was a total waste of money.  We put it on him and he cried.  Cried is the calm word for what happened.  Hysterical, theatrical melt down.  Even at the age of two (by days) he knew he wanted nothing to do with his costume.  When he finally thought no one was looking, he stripped it off and threw it in the garbage can.  (My husband and I laughed and laughed.)

This year, I wanted it to be easy. My son has a t-shirt he'll be wearing. He is Charlie Brown. He loves Charlie Brown. He also has a Snoopy. He's all set. I didn't make this, but it is homemade.  We ordered it off of Etsy from SweetPeaAlaMode. (I love Etsy!)  

Go to her shop and check it out! She has all kinds of super cool t-shirts! She even custom designed my shirt to have the chevron stripe on the back! She made it super fast, and it was shipped and received within a week! AWESOME! My son LOVES it! The nice thing with his costume, is, it's a shirt.  He wears it all the time. Win-Win in my book!

My daughter's costumer I found when I was on pinterest (I may be an addict....do you follow me? You should!).  The Train to Crazy featured this how to peacock costume tutorial!  PERFECT!

I'm not sure why I tend to make things harder on myself, but I do.  Does anyone else do this?  I took what should have been an easy project and totally turned it into a two week ordeal.  Hopefully this is my lesson learned....

Step #1.  Use felt and cut out the feather eyes.  I have lots of felt.  I "eyeballed" what I thought everything should look like and just went to town.  Nothing is the same. By the way, felt is a must have if you have kids and stay home with them. (They should give you a mommy kit at the hospital that includes this stuff. Like my pun?)

Step #2.  After I cut them all out, I pieced them together and pinned them on the ribbon how I wanted them to hang.  (So far, so good right? Stay with me.)

Step #3.  Hot glue the "eyes" together.  

Step #4.  Now, here is where it gets tricky.  My intention was to dye a white tutu skirt I scored at Salvation Army for $0.99.  After getting it home and googling this, I discovered you have to be a Chemist, with a lab, to dye polyester.  Bummer!  

My next step in salvaging the white tutu, was to sew fabric and tulle onto it.  This turned out to be a horrible idea, because after all the pinning and arranging, nothing looked right.  My daughter would have been a half bred albino/Asian peacock monster.  Not the look I was going for.  I threw away the re-using tutu idea, and decided to make it from scratch.  

Went to Michael's five times and Jo Ann Fabric about the same (with my coupons, of course!), and bought the elastic, tulle, gold thread and polyester fabric to make the tutu.

I measured out 8 1/2 inches for my daughter's waist in elastic, and I didn't measure, but just cut a ton of fabric so that it would bunch together and would stretch with the elastic.  There are tons of video's on YouTube on how to sew.  I watched about six of them.  

This is actually the 2nd tutu, my first was an utter failure!  Straight sewing and remembering to turn the fabric inside out was key in that learning lesson.  Well played tutu, well played.

Step #27.  I skipped a lot of the in between stuff, like scratching the first tutu band because of how I sewed ONTO the elastic by accident, and then how I forgot to turn the fabric inside out, and so on and so forth. Just know that a lot of man hours went into these past 23 steps that you don't see!  (Also, a lot of swearing.....and perhaps a cocktail, to take the edge off of almost being defeated by a Halloween Costume for a 1 1/2 year old).

I cut the tulle strips into about 14 inches length wise and again just eyeballed strips.  I tried to tie them into a knot around the tutu waist band, but I didn't like how it sat.  So, I sewed them on.

 This is my finished product.  You can't really tell, but I have glitter tulle mixed in with regular tulle.  And the "feather eyes" have gold thread on them to give them some more sparkle.

This tutu is my pride and joy! It is also a glitter bomb. But, every girl deserves a little sparkle, so I don't mind. (Sorry honey!!)

I have a teal shirt that she'll wear with it and brown little boots. Just need a head band and she's all set.  Oye!  Do I make that one myself too?!?!?!  I think I need help!