Total Time weekend projects Ages 13 to 17
We were inspired by the fairies in Sleeping Beauty!
Prep Time: 10-12 hours for each fairy
by gweasley79 from Clearfield, UT
What you'll need
- Colored dress (Can be bought or made. We made ours using a pattern for a hoop-covered dress from a historical costume pattern, with a few adjustments. Choose color of fairy desired.)
- Matching cape (Can be bought or made. If making, use 3 yards of fabric.)
- Child-sized witch hat
- 1 yard fabric (match to dress)
- 2 yards georgette or gauze fabric (match to dress)
- Clear straw
- Pipe cleaners
- Child-sized fairy wings
- Glitter
- Hoop skirt (if it will fit under dress, optional)
- 6 yards bleached muslin (optional for hoop skirt)
- 25 feet pex pipe 1/4 inch (optional for hoop skirt)
- 1 foot pex pipe 1/2 inch (optional for hoop skirt)
Notes:
These costumes are 100% assembled at home, and as you can see from the instruction provided. Much love and care (and a considerable amount of time) was put into the development and design of these costumes. Fortunately, most of that time won't be needed to re-create these costumes. We spent a good deal of time watching and freeze-framing the Sleeping Beauty movie to capture the best detail in our costumes, and it paid off. We attend a number of Halloween parties for children and were much admired by the kids.
How to make it
- These costumes are actually easier than expected. They can be pieced together from purchased accessories (Dress, cape, hat etc.) or they can be completely constructed by someone with moderate sewing abilities. We sewed our costumes almost completely, so I will be providing the instruction as though they will be sewed again.
- We made simple dresses, and put matching georgette fabric in the fronts. We made a slit all the way down the front and filled the area with pleated georgette, stitched to the top and edges of the slit. A dress pattern with a hoop slip pattern can be found in the historical sections of costume pattern books at most fabric stores.
- We made hoop slips out of bleached muslin fabric and flexible Pex tubing from the hardware store. The pattern called for mail ordered hoops, but we created our own because we wanted to be able to remove them for easy cleaning of the slip. These slips are not actually required, and simply a dress of the right color would suffice, and for added fullness to the dress, a net slip would work well.
- To make the hoops, cut sections of 1/4 inch Pex pipe, to the circumference of the hoop in your skirt. Cut 4 inch long section of 1/2 inch pex pipe, to create a bushing. Thread the 1/4 in. pipe into the slip and insert both ends into the 1/2 inch pipe section, to create a full circle.
- We made capes out of matching fabric, cape patterns can be easily found in fabric and craft stores, these are basic, knee length capes. The capes we used required an additional 3 yards of fabric.
- Our hats are child-sized witch hats, covered with fabric and the matching georgette. We cut out a witch hat from another pattern, and pieced it over the witch hats we bought. The Georgette is wrapped around the hat and hot glued on to the brim and a few inches down from the top of the finished hat the ends are left hanging so they can be tucked into the cape.
- Wings were purchased at a costume shop, removed from their attachment device and stitched directly to the back of the cape.
- Our wands are clear straws, hot glued at each end and filled with pipe cleaners and glitter. We put some streamers coming out of them for effect.
- Twist together 2 pipe cleaners; these can be the same color or complements (we use the color of the dress and silver). Hot glue one end of the straw, and insert the twisted pipe cleaners while the glue is still tacky. Use a funnel made of paper to put glitter into the straw. Trim pipe cleaners to match the top of the straw. Seal the top of the straw with more hot glue. If desired, streamers can be stuck into the still tacky glue at this point. The streamer will help the wand to look like it is a well-used instrument.
