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Happy Halloween!
It's officially the holiday season, and I am so excited to celebrate! Nothing says DIY like a cool breeze and a runny nose. Vale is still little and really had no idea what she wanted to be for Halloween. After she threw a fit last year and slept through the year before, I made the executive decision that this was the year to start forcing her to get into the holiday spirit like her 3/4 psychotic mama.
I read a bunch of cute tutorials and figured I'd put my own spin on all of the flamingo costumes I found. Because #FLORIDA.
Here is what you'll need:
1. Pink dress
2. Pink tights
3. Pink shoes
4. Plastic cat ear headband: I chose a cat ear headband because I was using it as the base for my flamingo head and needed something to glue it to.
5. 4 meaty pink feather boas, or 6 thin feather boas
6. Pink ribbon
7. Felt (I used pink, white, and black)
8. Googly eyes (totally optional)
Here is how I chose to build the costume:
1. Step One: Create your skirt
The skirt will be the body of your flamingo. This was my favorite tutorial, from the DIY Network, because it was the only one I could find that wouldn't harm the little dress underneath. I scored big on Old Navy, and for under $20 I was able to buy a cute ballerina style light pink dress, matching tights, and jelly shoes which are all reusable.
To make the skirt I laid out a piece of thick hot pink ribbon, cut the feather boas, and tied them to it. It was as simple as that! You can move the boas back and forth depending on how much front/back coverage you want for your child. Vale's costume looks a bit like an apron when I scrunch them all tightly to the front, and more like a skirt when I gently separate them. I chose to tie the skirt high on her body so I used longer strips of the boa, tied them to the ribbon in their center, and then let both sides of the boa hang down on the skirt. They are long enough to cover from under her chest, down to her shins.
Repeat this step until you use up all but one piece of your boas. No need to measure if you make the head the way I did.
2. Step Two: Make your Flamingo's head
This part was also so simple. I made two identical circles out of hot pink felt, about the size of my fists. I made two identical trapezoids out of the white felt, keeping in mind that the largest surface needed to be roughly the size of the circles I just made.
Next, I made the flamingo's beak out of the black felt. These were also identical, and I did sort of a sloppy, curved, triangle.
They looked like this:
I glued the pieces together, overlapping them, and then added googly eyes from Walmart. This was probably the most satisfying part of the whole project. I felt like a mad scientist. Some of the tutorials I read used mini felt circles for eyes, or markered circles. I say add some eye bling, make the people sing. <-- nice.
3. Step Three: Go off the reservation, and make a head-hat
This was the part I sort of invented, and it's pretty funny. I was worried that my kiddo would mess with her costume's head if the body and head were attached, and I wasn't crazy about putting the flamingo's face on a hood because Vale never keeps them on. Also, the DIY network tutorial shows the head draped over a kid's shoulder and I'd have to ruin her little dress to get it to stay.
Instead, I bought a cheap three-pack of sparkly cat -ear headbands from Walmart. I laid one of the flamingo heads on the table, googly eyes down, rested the cat ears on top, and then strung the extra strand of feather boa over it to hide the little bits of cat ear that were sticking out. I dumped, and I mean dumped, hot glue all over that little pile and then stuck the other flamingo head, eye balls facing up, on top of it and held it until three days later.
I may have slightly exaggerated about all of that but anyone who knows me finds that sort of thing normal and cute.
The rest of the feather boa, after you put the headband on your little darlings head, will just get wrapped around her neck like a feather boa normally would. With this method their entire body is pretty much feathered-up and they can take the headband off without destroying the rest of the costume.
See:
How stinking cute is that costume? I mean kid?
They're both pretty cute. So thank you, DIY network, for inspiring me to whip my glue gun out and give myself a few laughs. Can't wait to take the kiddos trick-or-treating in the back of the trailer we decked out with hay bails. Life is so fun with this crew!
Be sure to read my other Halloween post about the DIY Skye from Paw Patrol costume I made. Another completely impractical costume for a toddler, but too much fun not to try.
xoxo