Tinkerbell Costume

Well I knew months ago that my 2 year old daughter was going to be Tinker Bell for Halloween since she is CRAZY about Tinker Bell and I also new that I didn't want to spend $25-$40 on a store-bought Tinker Bell costume that in my opinion looks NOTHING like Tinker Bell. I'm a crafty person so I knew right away that I was going to make her costume this year and I am determined to do it every year from now on because I did enjoy every frustrating, tearful, and joyous moment of making this costume. I started planning the costume back in Aug. thinking and researching different things I could do to make all the hard work I was going to put into the costume well worth it in the end. I knew that the wings would be the hardest thing to do since i decided the old wire clothes hanger bent into shape with stockings streched over them was WAY overrated and like the store-bought Tinker Bell costume Looked nothing like the real character. So I did some research on youtube and found the perfect way to make wings for only $10! So I sat down with my baby girl and watched Tinker Bell for the Thousandth time and drew out her wings. Next I thought about how I could make my daughter appear more like Tinker Bell and since my poor baby has very little hair I thought, what the heck, I will make her a wig too! so once again watched the Tinker bell movies and drew out each angle of her head and how her hair lay. Then I thought that the best type of fabric to use would be yellow felt since it has that "hairy" texture. Then I thought about how I wanted her dress to be unique and thought about how much I had fell in love with the look of Tulle tutu dresses over the past year and decided why not make one for the costume. Then since she didn't have green shoes I figured green socks over a pair of shoes would be just as good.

Materials: For the wings I took a trip and bought 3 poster boards, gift wrap cellophane, spray glue, silver glitter paint, 16g wire and an exacto knife. For the wig I bought 4 pieces of felt (only used 3 but it is always good to have extra cause i would rather be safe than sorry), 1/2" elastic, 1/2" green ribbon and a bun maker scrunchy. For the dress I bought 3 different shades of green 6"x25yd of tulle rolls, 3/4" elastic, and 2 rolls of 1"x3yd ribbon. And finally for her "shoes" I went through her socks and, since she didn't have green socks to match her dress, got a white pair and dyed them green.

The Making: Well like I said, I drew everything out, then made more trips to the store than i wanted before I started making anything, and started with the wings. I took the poster boards and glued them on top of one another with the spray glue and let them dry overnight. Then I laid my small drawing of Tinker Bell's wings next to the poster boards and started drawing them according to the measurements of my daughter. Then I took the exacto knife and started cutting out the details of the wing. This turned out to be a big pain and after 3 days, sore fingers many frustrated tears and one blade later I realized This might have been a bad idea. But the show must go on, so i took the finished wing and laid it over, traced it to make the other half of the wings and prepared to finish the nightmare. The second half of the wing took me only 4 hours with breaks to rest my fingers since i realized that I didn't have to bear down so hard to cut the details. So naturally I was silently cursing myself for wasting 2 days on the first half of the wing. when the cutting was done I painted each side of the wings with the silver glitter paint to give them that sparkle the real Tinker Bell has in the movies. When the paint was dry I sprayed both sides of each wing and laid them over the cellophane (on a flat surface) then laid celophane over them, pressed down and let them dry over night. I then took the wire and bent it into a shape to fit the wings and make them more controllable while not being seen, then hotglued them to the "veins" of the wing in two places then connected them in the center with another piece of wire. In order to attach them to her while allowing them to be removed when she was in her car seat, I made a bow from the two types of ribbon i had in order to hide the wire I used to attach the wings together, and cut 2 long strips of ribbon glued one end of each to the bottom of the bow and i was able to wrap them around her arms and tied behind her back.

For the Wig I took the bun scrunchy and wrapped strips of yellow felt around and hotglued them till it was covered. then I cut the elastic to fit my daughters head sewed the ends together and measured from where the elastic sat on her head to the crown of her head to see how long the strips of felt should be. Then I looked at the drawing I did of Tinks hair and started cutting strips to match. Then overlapped and hotglued them together, then to the elastic in select places, (so that it was still able to expand to her head) and then to the bottom of the Felt bun and WHALLA! the wig was done!

For the Dress I took the Tulle rolls and measured strips to 36" then measured my daughters chest under her arms with one strip of elastic and just over her belly with another strip and sewed the ends together. Since I wanted the dress to fall just above her knees I folded each strip of tulle in half and tied the center to the elastic alternating colors by 2. when the top strip of elastic was well covered by the tulle I then wrapped ribbon around the elastic and in between the strips of tulle and hotglued the ends together where they met. Then I pulled each strip of tulle 4" down and tied them to the second piece of elastic to give it the dress appearance. when all the strips of tulle were tied to both pieces of elastic I then measured out another piece of ribbon found the center put a dot of hotglue and glued it to the front center of the bottom piece of elastic and let the rest of the ribbon flow free since when she wears the dress the ribbon can be wrapped around and tied in a bow at the back.

For her "shoes" I dyed a pair of white socks green pulled them over her regular shoes then hotglued cotton balls to the top close to the toe. AND THEN I WAS DONE! YEY!!

The Final Test: I finished the whole costume the day before Halloween. I let my daughter model it for the first time for my sister Halloween morning and my daughter was so happy and amazed by her reflection in the mirror and kept saying "Tinker Bell" while pointing to herself and my sister was flabbergasted! She just kept saying how amazing the whole thing was. Then that night came the true test! How would strangers react to it? Well EVERY person that walked by us stopped and rained down complements! It was crazy!!! I had people asking me if and how much I would charge them to make their kids costume next year! Don't get me wrong I love to be told how good a job I did but it took us twice as long to get to and from the candy givers because of it. I enjoyed it and so did my baby girl.

Thank you for reading my rambling and hope you enjoy this costume as much as I did making it and seeing the happy look on my daughters face.