Princess Tiana Costume

It's the week BEFORE Halloween weekend and our costumes c'est finite!  That's just not normal.  I should be sewing and frantically hot gluing at the last minute.  I think this year it helped that the girls had a definite decision on what they wanted to dress as, rather than flip flop every other day to something new.  

This girl completely surprised me with her choice.  She picked Princess Tiana from Disney's The Princess and the Frog movie.  We've only watched pieces of the movie, so I had no idea she liked Princess Tiana.  My guess is that she likes the green dress and the fact that there are frogs involved - she LOVES frogs!  So of course I made her a felt frog bag for trick-or-treating.  BTW, if ever googling for "frog purse" for inspiration, beware.  Yeah, some folks actually make purses out of frogs (<shudder>).

Back to the dress!  I was planning on making this a strapless play dress with velcro back, but that seemed to be more complicated than going all out and making a nice dress with zip back.  So after going back and forth, I decided to modify the Caroline Party Dress pattern to make the costume.  I actually like that there are cap sleeves to the dress rather than it being exactly like Tiana's - more appropriate for a four year old.  

I made the bodice like the pattern instructions first, and then attached the petals to the bodice front.  There was a lot of guess work and manipulation of sewing the petals to get them to stand up and get the look I wanted.  The light green petals are topstitched to the bodice, however the top green petals are not topstitched completely on - instead I hand tacked them on from the back of the petals so that they stand away from the dress a little and add some dimension.

BTW - the light green fabric is a satin backed crepe - not horrible to sew with.  BUT the darker green is the crappy costume satiny stuff with gold glitter flecks.  It's a nightmare to work with.  There were sparkles stuck to my cutting board and it's nearly impossible to iron.  But it's what she wanted so I made it work :)  

The skirt was interesting to construct!!!  I just kinda went for it and started cutting and sewing.  I cut out three petals for the front and overlapped them to meet at one side.  The lining skirt is that lighter green popping through - I hemmed it to look like petals rather than attaching individual petals.  The back skirt was hemmed straight across.

Once the dress was finished I was feeling a little deflated.  It just looked like a fancy Tinkerbell dress - however, the accessories change that!  Tiana has a giant flower on one side of her dress and a flower crown.  The flower was made by sewing a bunch of petals and then hot gluing them to a center bead.  Then I cut petals from satin ribbon and hot glued them and trailing ribbon to the back.  Finally, I took a lighter to the edges of the green ribbon to give it a textured vine-like look.  The flower is a pin so I can wash the dress without ruining it.  

The headband was made similarly to the flower - a little bit of sewing and a whole lot of hot glue.  She demanded some light green gloves so I managed to make some passable ones by tracing her hand.  Not the best ever, but she loves em!

The last accessory that takes the dress to full on princess is the tulle underskirt...

The skirt is made with 3 yards of white shimmer and 3 yards of light green shimmer tulle.  I folded them both in half legnth-wise and overlapped them.  Then I sewed a casing for elastic at the fold and threaded it through.  I wish I had bought more tulle because it wasn't full enough!  However, it was too long, so I was able to make it more full by gathering the bottom into a pick-up style skirt.  Funny how things work out because I love it more this way.

Another happy customer with her new costume and bag!  She and her sis can't wait to trick-or-treat.  I'm just walking on air happy that they love something I made them.  The best feeling!  

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!