Halloween Costumes! Brave's Merida (and Baby Bear) Costume using free patterns

 I have to admit, when I learned there was a new Disney movie featuring a Scottish princess with red curly hair, I started a not-so-subtle campaign for this year's Halloween costume.  Even before we saw Brave, I'd started planting seeds.  And after we saw it (even though it was pretty scary for a three year old!), Hannah and I sealed the deal: she would be Merida for Halloween.  It was actually Hannah's idea that Lydia be a bear, just like Merida's little brothers.  That sounded cute as could be, so I searched to the ends of Pinterest, and this is what I found.

So here, for you, are several free online patterns and tutorials needed to create a Merida costume, complete with a red hair garland, and a coordinating little sis/(bro) bear.

I started off with the dress, using the pattern found here (rostitchery.com's Magistrate Dress pattern), via ikatbat.com, here.  I added some gold trim, including an inset of gathered gold fabric at the neckline.

Next came outerwear.  Not only does Merida wear a cape in the movie, but I distinctly remember last year, pinning Hannah's butterfly wings to the back of her winter coat because it was so cold.  Although practical, it was not as lovely as I intended when I sewed the costume.  So this year, I wised up and made something warm for her to wear.  I used the free Red Riding Hood Cape pattern found here, at fleecefun.com.  There are instructions for lining the hood, but I lined the entire fleece cape with flannel, both for added warmth and to add a little color.

Finally, what would a Merida costume be without red hair, and lots of it?  I looked at tutorials for full wigs, and even found one that explained how to curl the yarn by heating it in the oven.  I finally decided to make a red version of mmmcrafts.blogspot.com's Rapunzel hair recipe, found  here.  Hannah said, "This isn't like Merida's hair...it's not big enough."  However, she can put it on and off by herself, which I think will be handy when this becomes part of the dress-up box after Halloween.

And because Grandma's are cool like this, Hannah's Grandma got her the official Merida bow and arrows from the Disney Store.  Very cool.  Hannah spent a good fifteen minutes trying to string the bow before she gave up and started throwing them across the yard.

For Lydia's bear costume, I decided to keep it simple - mostly because I wasn't sure whether she would wear it or not.  She wasn't going to until she saw Hannah had a cape too, and then she was ready to go!  The cape is made from the same pattern at fleecefun.com, although I printed the pattern at 75% to make it toddler-sized.  Hers is also fleece, lined with matching flannel. 

The ears are from another pattern at fleecefun.com, and are a part of their Halloween Bear Hat, found here.  I cut slits in the top of the hood, and stitched the ears in before I added the lining. 

So here they are...Princess Merida and her bear sis.

 Ready for some serious archery.

And doing a happy little Halloween dance.

Diagonal Drawer Divider Tutorial

Remember that list of New Year's resolutions I shared?  The impossible one with too much for one person to do?  Well, I've been working on a few of them.  Actually "organizing the closets" turned into a lot more when a friend of mine inspired me to join in on the 52 Weeks to an Organized Home Challenge.  This is an encouraging site that gives a manageable task to complete each week, helping you to tackle the whole house in the course of a year.  A couple of weeks ago, the task was to organize the cabinets and drawers.  I immediately remembered this cool utensil divider I saw on Pinterest.



This comes recommended by This Old House, and is made by MasterBrand.  I was ready to buy the thing...until I found out it costs a whopping $75!  So instead, I showed the picture to Jonathan, who said he would make one for me. 

It cost him less than $5 and took him one evening to make.  (That is, one child free evening while the rest of us were in Arizona.)

I had recently moved all my spoons and other large utensils from a container on the counter to this drawer.  It was a huge mess.  While my drawer still doesn't look quite as magazine-worthy as the one in the showroom, it is improved by about a million.

Here we go!

Materials needed:

- Miter saw (You might not have one of these just hanging around, but it's what makes the angled cuts of wood, so it's pretty important.)

- Wood.  Our drawer is 4" deep, so Jonathan used 1x4's (which are actually 3 1/4" high).   You need enough to make a box on the inside of the drawer, and then the diagonal slats.  For ours, 2 8 foot boards was more than enough.  There are different qualties of boards. Jonathan went with the least expensive, but made sure to seach for boards that were straight.

- Hammer and finishing nails

- Wood glue

- Tape measure

- Clamp (or an extra pair of hands, if your wife is not out of town)

Step One: Make a box.
Measure the inside of the drawer.  You want the box to fits snugly inside of it.  Here's how to do this using minimal math.  To make sure the sides of the box are exactly the same length, cut one board, then use it to mark the cutting line for the second board (picture one).  Then place both boards inside the length of the drawer and measure the width (picture two).  This is the length needed for the second set of boards.

Step Two: Assemble the box.
Use wood glue to bond the corners together, making sure that the long pieces of wood are on the lenght of the box, and the short pieces form the width.  Finish the corners with nails for added sturdiness (picture three).

Make sure the finished box (picture four) fits inside the drawer before proceeding (picture five.)

Step Three: Cut the diagonal inserts.
Decide where the inserts will be placed in the box.  Mark the lengths on the board (picture six).  Using a miter saw, cut the board at a 45 degree angle.  Make sure that the cuts form a trapezoid (picture seven).

Again, if your board are the same length, you can measure second board against the first (picture eight) 

In our drawer insert, Jonathan made one section larger than the other to accommodate my unwieldy wooden spoon collection.  In this case, not all of the insets are the same length (picture nine).

Step Four: Attach the diagonal inserts to the box.
Using a clamp (or a friend), hold the inserts in place while you attach them to the box using finishing nails (picture ten).  Especially if your box fits flush with the edge of the drawer, drive the nails as deeply into the wood as possible, because they will add to the overall width of the box (picture eleven).  This will also keep the inside of the drawer from being scratched.

And there you have it! The perfect home for large utensils at the perfect price.  I asked Jonathan if he was going to finish the wood.  He said I could take apart the newly installed childproof drawer lock and do it myself.  Unfinished it is...

No Slip Dish Towel Tutorial

I've been eyeing some great tutorials on Pinterest about "stay put" or "no slip" dish towels.  The idea is that the towel is attached to the oven door, and they don't fall off...or get pulled off by little hands.  I often find my dish towel in places like the couch, or the girls' bathroom, or under Hannah's bed.  Not handy when I have wet hands! 

This isn't a new idea, but this is a fresher, more modern take on the craft bazaar, crochet top towels.  Here are some really great ideas I've pinned:

The Stay-put Kitchen Towel from Pin. Sew. Press.; The No-Slip Dish Towel from Martha Stewart;

and Stay Put Dish Towel from Sassy Sanctuary.

One of my New Year's goals is to work toward a paperless kitchen.  So I went out and got some new dish towels.  I already have dozens of towels, but most of them pre-date Jonathan, so I decided that it was time for a little update.  I adore flour sack towels (and have two whole sets of hand-embroidered ones that have seen better days), so when I saw a set of brightly colored flour sack towels today at Target, I was so excited.  I love that they are very thin, which makes them dry fast after use.  Or at least they did when we lived somewhere without humidity.  Now, nothing drys fast...

But as soon as I got home and logged into Pinterest, I discovered that none of the tutorials I had been looking at would work for my big, square flour sack towels.  They were meant for smaller, rectangular towels.  So I took some ideas from all of the above sources, and did a mash up.  (Guess who loves Glee?)

Ready for a sewing tutorial?  Here goes...

I started with my towel.  I folded it in half, and lightly pressed the center seam as a pinning guide.

Then I pulled this wonderful stuff out of my stash.  I googled it, and unfortunately, I don't think they make it anymore.  (Please tell me if they do!).  This is mesh elastic, and it was originally purchased by my grandmother, probably in the late 70s or early 80s.  My mom sent it to me last spring.  (Can you see that she paid $.55 for it?)

There are three thin cords of elastic, woven together with a clear, stretchy cord.  You sew through it a couple of times while stretching the elastic, and it makes a sort of smocked look.  I used up a whole bunch of this when I was mass-producing Christmas pageant costumes in December. 

Since you probably don't have 30 year old notions sitting around, you could reproduce this with a thin piece of regular elastic, although it would be more bulky than the mesh elastic.

You can just pull the elastic tight while you are sewing, creating a ruffle.  However, I wanted to make sure that both sides of the towel were gathered equally, so I cut two matching lengths of elastic and pinned them before sewing.

I stitched the elastic 1 1/2 inches from the center on both sides. 

Then I added a 1/4 strip of Velcro just below the elastic on each side.

And here you go!  It was a super easy project, which took about 20 minutes.  The Velcro holds the towel in place just enough to deter removing it from its place, but is easy enough to detach that it can be used for drying dishes as well as hands.

And for the rest of the no-paper? I'll keep you updated when (and if) we put that roll of paper towels away for good.

Pumpkin Shirts

Yesterday morning, the girls and I met friends to play. While the kiddos were swarming over the play equipment, my friend said, "Oh, look at that girl's cute appliqued pumpkin shirt." Little did she know that she sparked some kind of dormant pumpkin mania deep within me, which caused me to stop at the fabric store on the way home and crank out knock-off pumpkin shirts before supper.

I started with white shirts from the thrift store. This is why the shirts are so different from each other. They are also not ideal for a pattern (turtleneck and a pocket), but that's what I found, and they cost me a grand total of $1.30. So...two white shirts.

Next, I found some pumpkin clip art, which I enlarged for the baby shirt and enlarged some more for the toddler shirt. I transferred the outline to fusible web...

...which I attached to orange polka dot fabric. I also drew some stems freehand and cut those from some brown polka dot fabric.

So here are all my pieces, including some extra-large green rickrack for the vines. (Hannah got a real kick when she learned we were buying something called "rickrack." That was funny enough to keep her entertained while we were waiting at the cutting counter.)

I fused the fabric to the shirts, then stitched over the edges. In retrospect, there should have been some stabilizer under these, but good enough is good enough.

For the finishing touch, I added some buttons from my stash.

And voila...here are some cute pumpkin shirts for my little pumpkins to wear. (Too bad I didn't get obsessed with these before we went to the pumpkin patch, huh? That would have been super cute.)

Pottery Barn Ballerina Canopy Tutorial

For the last two months, I keep thinking about that Ballerina (Princess) Canopy I wanted to make for Hannah's room. I even started it weeks ago...only to have it sit in the sewing room collecting dust while I became a professional third-trimester couch potato. So this morning, when Jonathan said he'd watch Hannah all day so that I could do some sewing, this was the first project I picked. And not only did I finish the thing, but I've got a tutorial to share with you.

My original idea was to make this myself because Pottery Barn charges $150 for their canopy. I wanted to make a similarly cute canopy, but not pay so much. I think I succeeded. I made the doll using materials I had on hand, but even if you were to buy fabric, stuffing, thread, and yarn, you'd probably spend about $8. The wooden quilting hoop I used for the canopy's structure cost $4. I spent $.25 for a sheet of craft felt for the bodice and crown. The tulle was really the greatest cost. I waited for a sale, where I bought 34 yards of tulle at $.77 a yard. I ended up using 20 yards, meaning $15.40 of tulle. So total cost for me was less than $20. Not counting this enormously long blog post, I'm guessing I spent fewer than 10 hours on the project.

Let me say first of all that along with being a procrastinator, I am not a perfectionist. My motto is most definitely, "good enough is good enough," which you will discover if you look at these pictures carefully enough. But you know what, it's good enough, and I hope that yours is much more beautiful than mine. (Like maybe if you run out of pink thread, you'd go get some more instead of using glaringly out of place white thread.)

One more disclaimer: some of the pictures were taken in pretty bad light. This is because my "sewing room" is actually a desk crammed into the corner of the laundry room, which is lit by one light bulb. So I have some lovely pictures I took at the dining room table, lit by actual sunlight, and some pictures that look like I was working in a dark room, which I was.

This is the longest, most complex tutorial I've done, so I hope it is understandable. To help with this, I've broken it into five main sections:

1. Doll

2. Hair

3. Pink Dress

4. While Canopy

5. Assembly

1. Doll: I used a generic outline for a doll head/body with arms, which measured about 15 inches. I made this from white muslin, cutting two pieces.

a. Sew the front and back pieces together. Clip curves and turn.

b. Stuff, stuff, stuff. I use regular polyester craft filling. Even when you think you have stuffed it enough, stuff some more.

c. Sew up the bottom. I folded under the bottom seams to make a neat seam.

2. Hair. The original Pottery Barn Ballerina Canopy has super cute, in-style hair. I'm not a yarn hair stylist, so mine looks a little more like Granny from the folk art doll I made Hannah last year (yep...thanks for the inspiration, Granny!) However, I did have some lovely yellow yarn, so that looks nice. (Her bun and crown were added last, so instructions for those are later.)

a. Cut a 10 inch piece of cardboard. Wrap the yarn around it 30 times.

b. Keeping the yarn straight, slide it off the cardboard. Machine stitch along the center of the yarn.

c. Cut the yarn opposite the seam.

d. Using matching yarn, sew the hair to the doll's forehead, about one inch below the top seam. I used a darning needle for this, just because it's easier to thread. (This is a picture of the doll face-up.)

e. Flip the hair to the back of the head. Tuck the loose ends of the hair under (lengths will be uneven), and sew along the nape of the neck, using matching yarn.

If necessary, sew a stitch or two where the ears would be, to keep the hair out of her face. (The Pottery Barn Canopy actually has ears, but I figured that less is more.)

f. This isn't actually hair, but this is when I embroidered the face on. This is probably the thing I was the least happy with, so if you make one of these, I'd love to see a picture of how yours turns out.

3. Pink Dress. To keep things simple (and less expensive), I made the bodice of the dress from felt, rather than sewing a real dress. Since this is going to be hanging from the ceiling, and not actually played with, I figured that looks matter more than durability.

a. Make the bodice the same size as the doll's body, sleeveless, and with a scalloped neckline. Cut the front and back the same.

b. Whip-stitch the shoulders together first, then slide it over the doll's head before whip-stitching the side seams. Leave the bottom open.

c. The skirt is made from tulle. I originally bought 16 yards of tulle, intending to make the skirt a four-layer affair, but at the last minute, I decided to go with two layers. It definitely could have handled all four layers, and if you want a really full look (or if you're using a very light pink), go ahead and use the extra fabric. The truth: I cheaped out. I thought the extra 8 yards were too expensive, and I hoarded them away for a future tutu.

Keeping the tulle folded in half lengthwise, sew a long seam about 1 inch from the center fold. Use a long basting stitch. This forms a tube for gathering the skirt. (This is where the obvious white tread comes in...) Let me tell you: sewing 8 yards of fabric takes FOREVER!!!

d. Gather the skirt by pulling a length of ribbon or cording through the tube you just made. This is made easier by attaching a safety pin to one end of the ribbon. I anchored the other end by tying it to my scissors. I cut two feet of ribbon, which was plenty.

It really doesn't look like that much when it's all gathered together!

e. Adjust the ribbon so that it just fits around the bottom of the doll's body. Tie the ribbon. Spread the gathers evenly around the length of the skirt. Using small hand stitches, attach the skirt, making sure to catch the ribbon in your stitches.

At this point, Hannah kidnapped the doll and danced though the house with her. It was pretty cute...

4. White Canopy. This is the shortest bit to explain, but probably took me the longest. Most of this was spent decided how long to make the canopy. The Pottery Barn Ballerina Canopy is a total of 107 inches long, according to their website. My canopy began about 24 inches from the top. Jonathan and I engaged in much discussion, and finally decided to make the white panels 5 feet long, which makes my canopy hang nicely around the edges of Hannah's toddler bed.

During this discussion, we realized that this would depend on how high your ceilings are. Ours are 8 foot ceilings; if yours are 10 foot, you'd want longer white panels. After I finished the whole thing, we decided not to hang it over Hannah's bed because she'd probably pull it down while she was NOT sleeping (one of her favorite past times). We tried it out over her coloring table, where it was quite far from the floor (like 18 inches). The moral is, really think about how long you need this to be for your space before you start cutting!

a. The hoop that gives the canopy definition is the inside of a 24 inch wooden quilter's hoop. This works well because it is light weight, and relatively inexpensive.

b. It took seven panels of doubled-over tulle to go around my hoop (each panel was left folded along the center fold.) I cut each panel to five feet long (see above.)

c. Using hot glue, attache the tulle, creating pleats that are approximately 6 inches wide. This creates a three-layer ruffle (across, back, and across again).

5. Assembly. After making all the pieces, putting it all together was pretty exciting. I was a little stumped about how to attach the doll to the hoop, and finally decided to raid Jonathan's tackle box and do it with fishing line. This worked really nicely, because it was "invisible," and it tied in really nice knots.

a. Attach the doll to the hoop. Begin by laying the doll with her skirt wrong-side-up on the work surface. Lay the hoop with the canopy wrong-side-up over the top of the skirt.

b. Cut four, three foot lengths of fishing line. Using a sewing needle, attach one length of fishing line to the center of the bottom of the doll's body. Secure with knots.

b. Make the first spoke by measuring 12 inches between the doll's body and the hoop, attach the fishing line to the hoop. Repeat for the other end of the fishing line, opposite from the first spoke. If necessary, use a sewing needle to bring the fishing line through the white tulle at the edge of the hoop.

c. Repeat this process three more times, making eight spokes equal distance from each other.

d. When you turn the doll over, the skirt should fall over the hoop, with the canopy inside of it.

e. Make the doll's bun by winding a ball of yarn, about 1 inch in diameter.

f. Make the crown using a scrap of felt used for the bodice. My crown was 1 inch high and 5 inches long. Attach the crown to the bun using hot glue.

g. Make a loop for hanging the canopy using fishing line. With a sewing needle, attach the fishing line to the top of the doll's head through the hair (do not attach the fishing line to the hair itself - it's not strong enough to hold all the weight.) Tie at the top to create a loop.

h. Hot glue the bun/crown to the hair over the place where the fishing line is attached, at the top and center of the doll's head. Make sure to leave the fishing line free for hanging the canopy.

And there you have it! I was so excited to finally finish this, that I danced a jig. Hannah was estatic that she had this wonderful doll/tent/awesomness for her room.

In spite of the picture of Hannah sitting under the canopy, we didn't actually hang it today. We're still trying to decide where it should go, since we ruled out over the bed. Maybe this is just as well, since ballerina/princess canopies don't really go with Elmo sheets anyway...