The Ultimate Cinderella Costume

Flashback to last Halloween: Sophie as Cinderella 

I mentioned in a previous post that the Sullivan's Island Dress was my masterpiece but I think I'm going to have to reconsider that comment. THIS dress takes the cake. 

I'm not going to lie....making this almost drove me over a cliff. It could not have possibly turned out more beautiful but the process of making it was extremely stressful.  

It was a joint project between me and my dear, sweet mother-in-law Marie, with me taking the lead and Marie (who is a master seamstress) coming to bail me out whenever I hit a roadblock. Which was often. 

There were tears shed. And yes, as much as I hate to admit it, there were probably a couple bad words said. It was hard to make. HARD. I didn't think I would ever see the end of it. 

But finally, after days of hard work, we ended up with this.

Yes, I know she's wearing tennis shoes instead of glass slippers. Try to reason with a 2 year old!

We used the Butterick B4320 pattern for our basis but just winged a couple parts of it that we wanted to modify, including making some adjustments to the size to fit a 2T, attaching the crinoline to the dress, and making the hem long enough to be let out as she grows.

And speaking of hem, can you see a hem line? No stitches visible! The hem is sewn to the  crinoline rather than the dress itself.

The side "flaps" (what do you call those things anyway?) proved to be the hardest part. 

The directions included with the dress pattern made absolutely no sense. My mother-in-law couldn't even figure it out and she's an expert at reading patterns. 

Thankfully I found Ashley's Cinderella Dress tutorial at Make it and Love it which has great instructions for making those side flaps. I also used the Make It and Love It's headband tutorial. I wish she'd let me put her hair up in a bun like Cinderella but no such luck.

We were in a race against time to finish it before leaving on our trip to Disney World in mid-October last year. (Oh...how I wish we could go back this year!) We literally were scrambling to finish it the night before we left. 

But every bit of the drama was worth it when I saw Sophie wearing it when she met Cinderella and Prince Charming. I had to fight back tears. Seeing my little princess in her pretty dress standing next to Cinderella made every bit of the hard work worth it. This picture is worth 10,000 words!

When we finally got to the front of the line, Cinderella walked up and took Sophie's hand. Of course she told Sophie how pretty the dress was. (We also got numerous complements from other people at Disney.)

We were very lucky that evening to meet Prince Charming as well. I hear he doesn't make appearances very often. He even danced with her! 

Yeah, I really should've brought some Kleenex with me that night! Talk about being choked up.

Rapunzel, Snow White and their princes were also meeting and greeting that night and they oooh and ahhh'd over her dress too.

The guy playing Snow White's prince was the same guy who played Ariel's Prince Eric when we were in Disney World in May 2012 and he actually remembered Sophie. She must've made a lasting impression when she wrapped her arms around Ariel and wouldn't let go. Seriously, I thought we were going to have to get a crow bar! Here's a picture from that day. 

Anyway, the Cinderella dress was a major hit. Gorgeous in every way and totally worth all the endless hours I spent slaving over the sewing machine. 

Now it's time to work on our costumes for this year. For mine I've bought shiny black fabric, purple sequined fabric, wire, a gray wig, and suction cups. Can anyone guess what I'll be???

Linking to these parties.