Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Maleficent Costume - and horn mini-tutorial


If you follow me on Instagram then you have probably seen some sneak peeks of this. AND you probably know how thankful I am that I have one of the ONLY little girls I know that did not ask to be Elsa! (thankgodness). In a "frozen-everything" type of household,  I was waiting, waiting, afraid to ask the question "what do you want to be for Halloween". But I finally got up the courage to ask, cringed while I waited for the answer.......and by some unusual higher power I got a truly great answer...

MALEFICENT!!!!
 (I think it had something to do with the fact we just say the movie a few days earlier rather than a growing tired of frozen.....but I'll take it!)

Yay! something I would not dread working on! Something without all that dreaded tulle,glitter, crystals and nightmarish fabric! 
So this was the Inspiration pic we found


 And here is the final result
 (Most of my kids clothes week has been spent on this beauty)





Nearly all the supplies cam from fabric.com. I started by making a extra long turtleneck dress for underneath, using a self drafted pattern and black cotton jersey

The cape was made from a stretch velvet and lined with a purple stretch satin. I used a super heavyweight interfacing for the collar and lined the sleeves and hem with a faux fur. The cape is also self drafted.







The headpiece was the labor of love, and I realize now that I made the horns a little on the big size (since I made this when she was at school, so no way to test the scale, and once it was made there was no changn' it)
I had planned on making a full tutorial - but forgot to take a lot of pictures, so here is sort of a mini-tut of what I did:


I started out with two blocks of floral foam from the dollar store

I started carving away with a chisel, really roughly at first and then using xacto knife made it much smoother. I just free handed it (that is why both horns don't match :) ) ***Warning - this is incredibly messy, I would say do this step outside or have a vacuum near by to clean up as you go***



Once I was happy with the horns I took some stretch faux leather (also from fabric.com) and cut it into strips and starting wrapping away. I started off with a pin to hold it is place and wrapped tightly around the each horn, using a gluegun every few inches to keep in all together.






I made the base of the hat by modifying  this pattern  from tye dye diva. Really the only change was cutting the front  with a pointed middle rather then straight across.
I made two smallish star shaped cuts on either side of the hat and pushed the horn through.



(I stopped taking pictures for the final part sorry!) I hand sewed the horn to the hat, slowly connecting the material near the bottom of the horn with the hat. I finished it off my gluing a few strips around the base of the horns to hide the stitching (which is impossible to look neat when sewing faux leather!) I also added a liner to the top section of the hat to cover the exposed bottom of the horns, otherwise the foam kept leaving bits in her hair.
I added a snap to the bottom chin strap and Done!



This is one of the first costumes that I have made FULLY - I usually end up buying most of it :0
I am pretty happy with how it turned out...and I think she likes it! .....actually HER favorite part is the red lipstick...but that is a 6 year old :)


What are you making for Halloween? 

~Christine 





18 comments:

  1. it looks fabulous! She will definitely stand out in a sea of Elsas :)

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  2. i really love it! My daughter loves maleficent too, maybe next year..

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  3. Christine, this is amazing! All the work was so worth it! Bravo!

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  4. Hi Christine, the costume is beautiful! Hooray for no Frozen! I was wondering if you put something in the edges of the cape collar to keep them stiff? If so, what is it? Thank you!

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    1. yes - I used a super heavy fusible interfacing (I am not sure the weight, but I bought it originally to make fabric boxes) it is one the heaviest that pellon makes, like a thick cardboard - hope that helps

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    2. That is wonderful, thank you! I have a Knight costume that could use a little "support" :) Happy Halloween!

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  5. Awesome!! You can tell she feels the part in it!! What a great costume idea, I love that the horns are extra large...they make it!

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  6. Brilliant! This is a very clever idea. I like the way you sorted out the horns.

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  7. We just saw "Maleficent" a couple of weeks ago and I was VERY skeptical about it. I'm a die-hard "Sleeping Beauty" fan...but by the end of the movie, when the song played....it made SO much more sense.

    For some odd reason, Maleficent had always been my favorite villain, too.
    Kudos on an OUTSTANDING job of design and sewing!

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  8. Wow - that's a work of art! I'm super impressed!

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  9. I love that headpiece. I think it turned out great! I was actually surprised on Halloween that there weren't more Elsas around. My daughters were the Incredibles. Violette and Dash.

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  10. Amazing... Just Art with a big A. I like the idea of floral foam... Very clever.
    I was very proud of what I did for my daughters... before I visited your website; now, I feel miserable...!
    You did a very nice work... Bravo!

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  11. This is so cool! I wish I had seen it before haloween ! Cute : )

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