With just a few days left before Halloween, I thought I should get this posted before it’s too late! Pretty much right after Darcy’s birthday projects, I jumped in to Halloween and costume mode. For a few weeks she said she wanted to be a unicorn, then last week she changed gears and said she wanted to be a, “WOO! WOO! AN OWL!”
Honestly, crafting an owl costume sounded a lot more fun and exciting than a unicorn. Nothing against unicorn costumes, it just seemed like it was going to be another embellished hoodie costume.
I didn’t wast anytime and jumped right on the owl costume production. Originally, I had one idea in mind, then the ideas just kept coming, and I just. couldn’t. stop. But I did it! I finished Darcy’s owl costume.
What you’re about to see is actually a mish-mash of 3 different ideas I found online.
What do you think? Is it too much? Over the top? Or is it super great, OMG?
Unfortunately, my little model came down with a sickness last night, and is in no mood to try on her costume. She’s way too busy today with sneezing, coughing, fever and napping. I sure hope she gets well by Saturday evening. We were hoping to take her to
Haunt the Zoo at the OKC Zoo tonight. But maybe tomorrow or Sunday will be better for that.
So there are 3 elements to the costume: shirt, wings & mask.
The shirt idea came from a very cute last minute costume idea by Ellen Baker of The Long Thread. She posted this last year on Alpha Mom, and I fell in love with it then. I tried to get Darcy to be an owl last year, but she wasn’t having it.
Ellen’s owl costume tutorial also includes a mask. But since I’m an overachiever and I’m always looking for an excuse to embroider, I decided to make my mask out of felt. I tweaked her original design just a bit, added some inspirational ideas from Lori Marie, and came up with my own design.
I made the mask last night, and I’m still crushing on it. I still need to put a final top stitch on the inner right eye (for any of you attention to detail types), but that shouldn’t take too long. I kind of want to make a larger size for me!
The wings. Oh, the wings. The wings came from an adorable owl costume idea from the Martha Stewart team.
See? Adorable, right? But the instructions are supposed to be suited for a baby. Reading some of the comments on the website, a lot of the people were saying the suggested template enlargement of 375% was way too huge for a baby. So I just decided to “wing” it (har!) and print wings #2 – #4 on to a regular sized sheet of paper. For the base wing, wing #1, I cut it in half and printed each half on to a piece of paper. Using those measurements, the wings are just the right size for Darcy.
The issue I ran in to was a color issue. When I purchased the felt, I bought light pink for the largest wing. But with only 4 wing layers, I just couldn’t get it to look right. I decided it was the light pink that was throwing it off. But I’m stubborn, and didn’t want to purchase more felt in a darker color, so I just added another wing in the chocolate brown. There. Problem solved.
The wings have strips of velcro underneath the shoulder, and they attach to the top of the shirt. I also added some elastic arm bands under the wings to help hold them in place, but I might end up adding more velcro. I think the elastic might end up being too tight or bothering Darcy after too long.
If you decide to use any of these ideas for an owl costume for your kiddo, hopefully my information will be helpful to you.
What are your kiddos dressing up as this year? Are YOU dressing up?
Hugs & Stitches,
Amy