when my oldest daughter was 2, she was starting to form opinions about her wardrobe & seemed pretty excited about the thought of dressing up as a character. she hadn't quite discovered princesses yet so it was easy to convince her that toy story costumes would be perfect!
i am going to apologize in advance for the photo quality. these were taken on my iphone, in terrible lighting & no amount of editing was going to make them look good (not that i'm huge into photo editing anyway). so i just left them as is.
have i mentioned that i LOVE halloween? (check out some of my costumes here). now that i have kids, i have an excuse to trick or treat again. nothing against store-bought costumes (they are much better than the plastic masks & smocks i got to chose from when i was a kid), i just really enjoy the process of putting together costumes myself. and of course there has to be some sort of theme.
here's what i used for my daughter's costume for jessie:
- 1 yard of cow-print fabric (i found at jo-ann fabrics)
- long sleeve white tee-shirt
- jeans (jeans & tee-shirt i found at target in the toddler boys department)
- yellow cotton fabric (a remnant from jo-ann fabrics, about 1/2 a yard)
- iron-on adhesive (aka heat n bond)
- gray felt (2 different shades)
- red puffy paint
- string
- light brown felt
- dark brown felt
- hot glue gun & glue
- red cowboy hat (found at a halloween supply store)
for the shirt, first i applied the heat n bond to the back of the yellow cotton fabric according to the directions on the package. then, i traced the shape i wanted the final size to be onto the paper backing of the heat n bond, using the shirt as a guide.
i did his to both sides of the shirt & cut each piece to the shapes i wanted. i applied the yellow fabric to the front & back of the shirt, placing the ironing board inside the shirt so it didn't end up glued together!
i made the cuffs from 2 strips of yellow fabric & attached to each sleeve using the heat n bond.
i cut 2 circles from the darker gray felt & 2 slightly smaller circles from the lighter gray felt & glued them to the front of the shirt, using hot glue.
i penciled in the red embroidery detail on the front of the shirt & the cuffs & carefully traced over it with red puffy paint. i used the darker gray felt & string for the back pull-string detail.
next, the pants... i placed the jeans on the cow-print fabric & traced the leg shape with an extra flare added below the knee.
i did this for each side, then i attached (using heat n bond) the cow fabric to the jeans, just on the top part of the jean legs to the knee, leaving the lower half free.
i added the belt using curved strips of dark brown felt & the belt buckle was light brown felt with the hand drawn detail in sharpie, both hot-glued to the jeans.
here is the final look:
for my husband's woody costume, he wore his own jean & plaid button-down, then i also needed:
- 2 yards of the cow-print fabric (also used for jessie)
- sheriff's badge
- brown cowboy hat
- red bandana
- brown felt (just a small piece is needed for the belt buckle, with hand-drawn detail in sharpie)
i used one of my husband's button-down shirts as a guide & cut the cow-print fabric into a the vest shape i wanted.
then i pinned the top around the shoulders & sides under the arm holes while it was inside out & stitched it by hand (quick, nothing fancy since it was hidden anyway), which made it pretty close to the correct shape.
here is a blurry photo of the final look, but you get the idea:
here is jessie visiting daddy at work:
here is a view of the back of the costume:
and here's the whole toy story family!
ok, so i kind of cheated with my costume. at this point i was about 6 weeks pregnant with baby #2, right at the start of my constant nausea/total exhaustion trimester (not to be confused with my constant back-ache/total exhaustion trimester). i used a kids buzz lightyear full body costume (i'm 5 feet tall, adult costumes don't fit me). the fit was a little snug so i cut it below the belt detail, turning it into a shirt. i wore it with white sweatpants & buzz lightyear gloves, which covered up the fact that the sleeves were too short, then i drew a spiral on my chin with brown eyeliner & called it a day.
well, my daughter loved our costumes. she was happy so that's all i really care about!
how about you? store bought or home-made or, like me, a combination of both?
happy trick-or-treating!
