The Easiest DIY Unicorn Costume

I can't stress this enough... Halloween costumes around here are usually VERY LOW EFFORT. They are usually last-minute, too. Now, this is not entirely my fault. I have been asking my children for weeks what they would like to dress up as. I either get an "I don't knooooooow" answer or ever-changing, impossible answers. Some of them also think that they are "too old" for costumes, but I bet that some of them change their minds on October 30 around 9pm. I also refuse to spend a lot of money on costumes. Have you seen the price tags on some of them! Ouch! I can't do it. My youngest daughter LOVES unicorns. She saw a cute unicorn costume last year at Target for $30 and it was white. We also don't do white costumes. We live in the country and the kids sneak in their candy. It is just a bad idea. She had a gray shirt and leggings, so she was a gray unicorn. I just made a headband and tail to complete the costume. She was still thrilled!

If you want to be a cheap slacker mom like me, here is how I did it...

First, I made a headband for the ears and horn. I started with a wide, glittery headband from the dollar bins near the check-out at Joann. The horn is made of a pencil wrapped in scraps of felt I had leftover from other costumes. I sewed a triangle of fancy metallic fabric to slip over the top, stuffed more, folded the ends under, and hot glued it in place. (Minus the pencil, which might be dangerous even if we haven't had any problems, the closest tutorial and pattern I can find is HERE.) I also used elastic hair ties to divide the horn on angles.

The ears are made from felt.  I cut pink ears a little smaller for the inside and the gray extends straight down for a few inches to wrap around. I also pinched the center of the ears and glued it together near the base to give them a little more dimension.

Next came the tail. I sewed some wide elastic together in a loop the same size as her waist. If you are a no-sew kinda gal you could hot glue it, too. Or, you could use ribbon and tie it on. Whatever works for you. I had some strips of tulle in various colors left over from the ninja turtle costumes. I added some pink and lilac, too. The strips are 6" wide and varying lengths. (Just double the length you want!) Then, all I did was hold them all together and loop them over the elastic. Just like latch hooking. 80s skills comin' in handy! Woohoo!

For one last detail, I used hair chalks from Five Below ($3) to make streaks in her hair/mane that coordinated with the tail colors.

She wears her unicorn headband pretty often, so that was another nice feature about going this route. One of her many ideas for Halloween is a gray cat. I wonder if I could get away with another headband and tail... Sweet!

You may also like these easy costume ideas:

Fleece Peacock with Tutu

Felt Deer Mask

Girls' Ninja Turtle Tutus

Mermaid Tail Tutorial

Notre Dame Dreams

I am so excited to be a part of Project Run and Play! You can vote HERE. When we found out the themes for this season, I knew the first challenge would be the hardest for me. We don't travel, so I don't even think about places I would like to visit one day. My Plan A was something safe and simple, but I knew that I wasn't really pushing my sewing skills or my creativity. Eventually, I changed my mind and started over. I stepped totally out of my comfort zone and tried something original, knowing that no matter the outcome of the competition, I put forth my best effort.

The challenge said, "Show us where you would like to travel to, with this destination-inspired outfit for your child." Since I was finally being honest with myself, the first thing that had popped into my mind when I thought about travel, if I allow myself to dream, is that I would love to visit Europe to see the beautiful architecture. My brother has been travelling recently and I am a little jealous of his tourist photos. I studied cathedrals for an art history paper in college and I especially love the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

The daughter I chose to model loves to dress up, so there is nothing too fancy for her. She wears a fabulous outfit and coordinating headband nearly every day. Trust me. There are a lot of arguments over fashion in our house.

I started by making a circle skirt inspired by the rose window of the Notre Dame cathedral. After cutting my skirt piece, I designed a template and then stitched 60 pieces onto the fabric. I wanted a raw edge applique and I didn't want to make the skirt too stiff by using an iron-on adhesive. I tried quilt basting spray and glue stick, but resorted to just holding the pieces down with straight pins because the worked the best. It took FOR.EV.ER. I also made a lining with a gathered tulle layer at the hem. It reminds me of the light radiating from the windows.

For the bodice of the dress, I wanted to mimic some of the architectural details. I added piping to the front inspired by the arc of the flying buttresses that support the cathedral walls.

In the back, I made a Gothic, pointed arch cut-out and added soft, ruffle elastic, criss-crossing straps inside that mirror the beams in the vaulted ceilings. It closes with coordinating gray buttons, and I even hand-stitched the buttonholes because the fabric was thick and I had broken almost all of my needles earlier.

Since the applique took so long, I missed the warm spell we had a few weeks ago and it was again freezing outside when it was time to take pictures. To try to keep my little girl warm, I made a reversible cape out of a gray velour remnant and some metallic finish blue lace.

Finally, because she loves to have matching headbands, I made a blue satin flower to coordinate with the dress. Originally I was going to make something much more elaborate, but I thought there was enough going on with the dress already, so simple was best.

My daughter loves the outfit and she was such a trooper taking these pictures on such a cold day!

A big thank you goes out to Rita for letting us take pictures with your gargoyles and stone wall! Thank you to Bruce for letting me use your tourist pictures. Thank you to all of the friends and family who let me bounce ideas off of them and ramble on about sewing things that they don't understand. The past few weeks were especially stressful and busy, so I felt like I was scrambling to finish, but I have a lot of support and it really means a lot to me. 

You can vote for your favorite design over at Project Run and Play.

Hello Kitty Ears

I am back-tracking a little bit here, since I finally got all of my Christmas pictures off of the camera card. :) Right before Christmas, we celebrated Isabelle's 7th birthday and she wanted Hello Kitty again.  Just for fun, I made a dozen or so of these Hello Kitty ear headbands.

They were super easy and cute! I got the idea on Pinterest and you can see more Hello Kitty party cuteness HERE. I got 6-packs of headbands at the Dollar Tree and used a coupon on the felt at Michael's, so they were cheap, too.

Isabelle even made the adults wear them. Doesn't Aunt Loni look cute?

To make things a little different, I went with cookies and cupcakes instead of the Hello Kitty cake like I made a few years ago (seen HERE).  I bent a metal cookie cutter in the shape of Hello Kitty's head and made cut-out sugar cookies.  I made lots of them for her to take into school, so these are the not-as-cute leftovers. If I had had more time, I would have made them all glazed over in white icing first, but the rest of the decorating is icing and melted chocolate for the eyes. It made them in the last-minute-right-before-Christmas-good-enough stage.

It made for a Happy Birthday for Isabelle, so that is what matters! :)