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.

Best Halloween Costumes

We love love love Halloween around here. Robbie's birthday is on the 30th so it's the perfect excuse to have a costume party. I would like to share with you some of our best costumes from years past.

Our first big bash was for Robbie's 30th birthday. He dressed up as a pirate and I was a medieval princess. How gorgeous is this dress? The sleeves were my favorite part.

My dress was borrowed from his mom's costume shop at school and was handmade by one of her students. She oversees costume design for all of the school's play productions and has a massive storage room full of costumes. It's so much fun to go there and look through all the stuff which just goes on for rack after rack after rack.  For Robbie's pirate costume he wore his own pants combined with a shirt and accessories borrowed from the costume shop.

I made the pointed hat myself out of a rolled up tube of poster board that I covered in crushed velvet fabric. Then I stuck a yard or so of organza into the little hole at the top of the hat to make the "veil" part. (What do you call that anyway?) I wish I had a tutorial to offer but this was made in the days long before I thought about starting a blog.

 

Yikes....look at that banister. HIDEOUS! This picture was taken before Robbie replaced it with a white banister and wrought iron spindles. Check out this post to see what it looks like now. 

The following year we dressed as a flapper and a gangster. 

We went for store bought costumes that year because we were deeply engrossed in construction of Halloween decorations for the yard. Stay tuned for a post on that later this month! I bought the flapper costume here.

And that wig would be perfect for recycling into a Snow White costume one day. 

Sophie arrived during the next year so for the following Halloween we did family themed costumes. Robbie was Peter Pan, I was Wendy and Sophie was Tinker Bell. 

 Doesn't Sophie make the cutest Tinkerbell ever???

Robbie's mom made his costume, my dress was made by one of her students, and Sophie's costume I believe is no longer made but you can find something similar here. My father in law was Captain Hook, wearing items from the costume shop. (And he would probably object to me putting his picture on here...so I will just skip it!) 

The following year Robbie and I were Gomez and Morticia Addams. I borrowed my dress from a friend and Robbie's suit was store bought. He could not keep that mustache on straight to save his life!

 

The plan was for Sophie to be Wednesday but it's impossible to find a braided wig for a 1 1/2 year old, and I suspect even less likely that she'd wear it. So at the last minute we decided that Sophie would be the Addams Family cat! 

Here she is with the ears:

Later this week I will be featuring Sophie's costume from last year that was a true masterpiece, and entirely handmade by me and her grandmother.

My Halloween costume this year is in progress. I've bought a gray wig, purple sequined fabric, shiny black fabric, wire, stuffing and suction cups. Can anyone guess what I'll be???

Linking to these parties!