Need a cute, simple costume idea for you or your kiddo? Here’s a fun little hack that my daughter and I came up with for her homecoming week at school. One of the themes for her class was Arbor Day. Hmmmm. What do you do with that one? She and her friends started with the idea of being tree lovers, and we took it from there. We made a quick stop at Goodwill looking for some groovy pants. We came up empty, but spied this long green paisley skirt that had potential. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but by the time we left, we had a sweet idea!
Our Inspiration Piece
This is not such a hot pic, but you get the idea. Isn’t it groovy fabric?
How We Made “Bell Bottoms”
See the great long ruffle on the bottom of this skirt. It is almost 9 inches long. Basically, I cut it off and made two very small “skirts” with it. You could certainly do this with any fabric, but this was already hemmed and ready for us (which saved a lot of time) and…..BONUS….it was only $3.50!!! Many of you who sew know just how to make a simple elastic waist skirt, but for those of you who don’t, this is what I did.
I cut the ruffle off all the way around the bottom of the skirt about 2 inches above the seam.
Then I folded the raw edge down and pressed it nicely so that I had a nice crisp edge that was even all the way across.
Then I folded it down over the seam and pressed it again.
The next step was to sew a line of stitching along the edge to create a casing for the elastic.
Okay. Here is where I did not really take any pictures. I think I got too excited to finish!! I now had a LONG ruffle with a casing. I measured my daughter’s calf with the elastic and then cut two pieces of ruffle approximately twice the length of the elastic pieces so that it would gather nicely.
Then I closed up the raw ends, being careful not to close up the slot for my elastic to go into the casing.
The last step was to insert the elastic and close up the opening with a few stitches.
Quick tip: Use a safety pin on the end of your elastic to easily thread the elastic through your casing.
Here it is! One of the little “skirts!”
My girl in her costume….Isn’t she cute?
All Julia did was slip those little babies over her jeans and popped on her Berks. Easy peasy!!! On a side note, I also made the t-shirt with some scissors and my Cricut….with which I am starting to become very good friends! This should have been a very fast project, but I may or may not have slit my thumb earlier in the day and then may or may not have kept catching my bandaid with my sewing machine!
Do you have some favorite simple costume ideas that you have tried? I would love to hear about them!! And don’t forget to subscribe to my email list. You will receive a post with fun ideas about once a week.
Have a wonderful day, all!! God bless.
