Our family has been invited to several Halloween gatherings this year.  The first is this weekend - a whole week before the 31st!  This is Friday and the girls costumes are not quite finished.  But the girls are very excited about dressing up for  these events.  One decided to be a witch this year - not an ugly witch but a VERY sparkly one she insisted with a dancing skirt. Of course, her little sister wanted a dancing skirt too.   The skirts turned out to be quick and easy so I will give you my instructions below.   And, although the costumes are not finished they modeled them last night.  Here is what they look like:

To make an easy tulle skirt or Tutu you will need:

20" no roll elastic ( we had 1" in the sewing room and it worked just fine.)  (20" worked for us but you may want to measure the child's waist.)

4 yards tulle (used 3 yards of the main color and 1 yard accent color)  More if you want the skirt to be fuller or the child has a larger waist.

Here is what you do for the long witch skirt:

1.  Fold the tulle length-wise so you have 4 layers.  Lay flat on your cutting mat so there are no wrinkles. (I had to cut the large lengths in half to make this manageable.)  Cut into 3 inch wide strips.

2.  Pin the elastic into a circle and place around a box or basket (or even a narrow back chair). 

3.  Leave the strips folded in half.  Pull the long ends through the elastic and pull through the loop.  Adjust as needed.  For our skirt we did 3 black then one pink and repeated this all the way around.

4.  Try the skirt on the child and adjust the fit.  Sew the elastic closed.

For a short tutu style Just cut your strips in half.  You will have more strips so the skirt will stand out instead of hang down.

To complete the VERY sparkly witch costume we simply adhered hot fix crystals onto the front of a black top and all over the witch hat.  Since our hat was from another costume and had a gold and purple edge we covered that up with a feather boa from the dollar store. 

Now Anna wanted to be a girly mouse but wanted a "dancing" skirt too.  So we made the same skirt in red and white (I cut about 8" off the width of the tulle before folding.) We made this one fit at the rib cage and will attach the ribbon so it looks like the picture.  The ears are just double layer felt circles with ribbon and a button.  We  put slits in the under layer and slid hair clips through.

Here is Emma's trick or treat bag. 

We used a piece of old flour sack towel that wouldn't fray, leftover tulle and some sparkle felt.  She embroidered the cat outline on a piece of felt without any stabilizer, cut it out, traced it on appliqué adhesive.  We used black thread so she could see where she was sewing.  No lining since she is only 5 and it is just a bag for one night.  We had fun making it together focusing on cutting, tracing, measuring and sewing a straight line. 

Here is the cat outline appliqué in case you want need one for Halloween.

In case you missed it here is the baby's outfit:

   You can get the spider and a ghost download in the Itsy Bitsy Spider blog.

And there is a free flower design in this halloween blog.

And here is another blog with some costume ideas.

If you are still looking for Halloween designs here are some fun ones:

All Hallows Eve

Sweet Halloween

Hallowen Swirls

Have a safe and happy time this Halloween

DB