Last year she went as Dorothy and I did make her costume for this from a pattern I bought from Hancock Fabric. After I decided She would be Dorothy I found out my sister was dressing my nephew as the Tin Man! They were so cute together!
This year I had to do a theme! (I love themes!) The kids are still young enough to not really care what they are dressed up as so I am going to take full advantage of this for as long as possible!
This year Georgia and Evan went as Wonder Woman and Clark Kent. Such cuties they were!
I made the Wonder Woman costume and I put together the Clark Kent costume from a few things we already had. I did order the Super Man onesie because I couldn't find a solid blue onesie at Walmart or a Super Man onesie at Walmart, thank you, Amazon. I also ordered the glasses from Amazon.
Now for the making of Wonder Woman!
To start you will need to gather your materials:
- 4 yrds of 44" blue material for her skirt (I only used about half of that though, the amount you need will depend on how long you want your skirt...I will explain in a minute)
- 4 1/2 yrds of gold cord for the waist of the skirt and the Golden Lasso
- 2-3 sheets of white felt for stars
- wooden stars to trace (if you are comfortable doing them freehand more power to you! I wanted mine more uniform and I stink at freehand)
- marker for tracing
- Spray adhesive (I like to keep this on hand because I use it for a lot of projects)
- Glitter (a little girls best friend)
- Glue Gun
- Iron
- Sewing Machine or a needle and thread will work
- cutting mat and rotary cutter
- scissors
- 3 sequined stretchy headbands
- 1 red shirt
- Iron-on, printable shirt transfers
- 1 alligator clip
- 1 small blue bag for collecting candy
- 1 invisible jet (you can get these anywhere!)
The first things first. Measurements! Determine how long you want the skirt to be and then double that number and add 4 inches. Georgia's skirt needed to be about 8 inches long, so: 8x2=16, 16+4=20. Since my material was 44 inches wide I just went ahead and cut the material in half and used 22 inch strips, that adjustment made her skirt 9 inches long (1/2 an inch added to the skirt for each inch that was added to the length) It sounds confusing but trust me! Just go by the formula and you will be fine! Once you decide on the length, cut the width of the material to that length.
Fold the material in half on the length twice
The folds don't have to be perfect, they are just so the cut you are about to make is shorter and easier.
Now if you've got a cutting mat and rotary cutter you can use that to make this go a little quicker but if you don't then you can easily do this with a ruler and scissors. Lay the material out on your cutting mat long ways and use your cutter to make 2 inch cuts.
Once you finish you should have 2 inch wide strips that are a little more than twice the length of your skirt. Your cuts don't have to be the straightest cuts ever, no one will notice if they are a bit crooked or one is a tad thinner than another.
Next you will need to make another measurement. Make a knot at one end of your gold rope about 12-18 inches from one end then measure around the waist of the one who will wear the skirt and make another knot where the rope and the first knot touch. One end of the rope should be much longer than the other end. The longer end will be used to loop around for the lasso.
The next step is optional but it does make tying the fabric strips much easier and quicker. Tie each end of the gold rope, to one chair and separate the chairs until the rope is taut.
Please disregard the cat hair in the chair...
Now, fold one fabric strip in half,
Place the loop under the rope,
Reach through the loop and over the rope to grab hold of the ends of the fabric,
Pull the fabric through the loop,
Pull tight and slide to one end against the knot.
Repeat this step until all the space in between your two knots is covered with fabric. The closer you push your fabric together the more fabric you can fit on the rope and the more full your skirt will be.
The skirt is now wearable but we will go ahead and add some detail. I used a wooden star to trace stars on white felt with a marker and then cut them out. I cut out 9 bigger stars and 6 little stars (8 large for the skirt, 1 large for her headband and 6 little ones for her trick or treat bag but you can do as many or as few as you like).
Once they were cut out, tape them all to cardboard on a covered surface. Spray the stars with your adhesive and then sprinkle with glitter. There is no drying time on these. Once I shook off the glitter I was able to handle them immediately.
Use your glue gun to adhere the stars to the dress and to the bag, 3 stars on each side of the bag.
I got this little bag in a set of 3 for $1 at Walmart.
Use your glue gun one more time to glue an alligator clip to the back of the last star.
Now it can be attached to one of the headbands.
For the wrist cuffs, turn one of the other headbands inside out and measure your little girls wrist and place a pin. Use the other end and do the same thing on the other side.
Stitch where you placed the pins.
If you can't tell, I did not lower the presser foot on my machine and I did not use the foot pedal because my machine did not want to work with the sequins. Instead I used the hand wheel and sewed it "manually".
Once both seams are made, cut them apart and flip right side out.
The third head band I used for a belt around her waist. If the headband doesn't fit around her waist you can use gold ribbon tied around the waist and then tuck the strands into the back of the skirt.
I used Avery printable iron-on sheets along with a wonder woman logo I found on Google to make her shirt. These Dark Fabric Transfers were the easiest transfers I have ever used! Just follow the directions that come with the transfers.
The costume is ready!
Happy saving the world, Super Heros!
