Hoo Hoo

I grew up wearing homemade costumes. I have actually only purchased 2 costumes in my life. I bought one while I was in beauty school and I didn't have access to a sewing machine and once about 4 years ago. I didn't care much for my store bought costumes. For one thing they were a little short for my comfort level(am I the only person that doesn't feel like Halloween is a chance to dress like a skank? That is a whole other post...) and second they are so expensive yet cheaply made. Last year I had planned on making Mia a Halloween costume, but my mother-in-law bought her a costume and I didn't feel that I needed to make one at that point. This year I was super excited. This will probably be the last Halloween that I get to decide what Mia is. I have a firm belief that you should let a child choose their costume as soon as they are able. I went through a bunch of ideas and came to the decision of an owl. I had seen a few owl costumes floating around Pinterest and combined them to make my own.
This is what it looked like:


Would you like to know how to make one? Well, you are in luck because I did a mediocre tutorial.

First off you want to make a "base". I just traced around a dress that fits and made it out of muslin.
Then I made myself a pattern for the size feathers I wanted. If I were to do this over again I would have made my feathers bigger. So, I recommend going bigger than you think you should.
Then I cut up a bunch of different fabrics to make the feathers. This was a great way to use up old scraps I had in my fabric bin. I used mostly quilting fabric and a few pieces of felt.
Then I started pinning. I did one row at a time. This was a little tricky trying to keep them all lined up straight around the dress.
 Once you have your feathers pinned in place sew that row on.

 Continue pinning and sewing up the dress until you are done.
Then I used bias tape to finish the top. Just pin the bias tape around the neck line and sew on. Here is a great tutorial on how to sew bias tape.
 Then I free handed the wings and just folded the top over the arm hole and sewed it in place. Then repeat on the other side. I made little diagonal slices on the wings to give them a little more depth.
 To make the mask I made a pattern out of construction paper. As you can see by the fold in the middle I folded it in half to make it symmetrical.


 Then I cut out my mask and made the additions as I saw fit. I used felt for everything except the flowered triangle. That was a piece of quilting fabric. I used a triangle of coordinating fabric and just cut out a white large circle and a black smaller circle for the eyes and a triangle for the nose. I adhered these items with a hot glue. I would recommend investing in some felt glue though.Then I attached it to a white headband with a hot glue gun.
 Then I went through the whole thing and cut off loose threads and cleaned up any hot glue strings.
This whole costume cost me less than $10 because I had most of the components already hanging around. My frugal heart grew 3 sizes when I realized how much it cost me to make.
So, there you have it. I hope that makes sense to you. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I will try to answer it to the best of my ability.


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