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How to make a Tutu

5 Jan By 250 Comments

 How to make a tutu

I have seen a lot of inquirers on how to make tutus, etc. so I brought over some information from my tulle site to share with y’all!

This is the one I made~ Make sure you scrunch your tulle together really well to have a really full tutu!  I use about 20 yards of tulle in each of mine.

tutuinstructions

To measure your waist, make sure you measure your model and then take off about 2-3 inches of elastic. I know that sounds drastic, but as you put on the tulle and tighten it, it stretches the elastic out and makes it bigger..so if you don’t take down the waist size before, your waist will end up really big and you will be taking it half apart. Trust me, I did it twice.

On elastic size, that’s preference. I find with older girls, the 1 inch is a good size, but for the babies, you may want something less wide like a 3/4th inch elastic. They cost about $1.20 at walmart and are in the crafting section.

To add to these instructions since it isn’t listed in a lot of places, 6 inch tulle works really well, not the big tulle you find on the bolts. I use the big tulle on the bolts because I buy in bulk for other tutu and tulle crafts, so I end up having to cut in a lot of ways to get it to be  not to thick. If you go that route, you generally have to cut the length and width. If you use the smaller 6 inch tulle, its as simply as cutting the length.

Pre-measure your tulle out and have it all ready so you can basically go from start to finish.  A general rule is that it should be about 22-24 inches in length so when you fold it in half, it hangs long enough. If you measure out 24 inches, it will be 12 inches in length. So basically half your length to determine how long the skirt is. I do all the trimming at the end so I don’t worry so much.

Where you did the sewing will be a little hard to close the last few pieces of tulle over the top. I always put an embellishment in that area to cover up any discrepancy.  A little bow or flower works perfect here as you can see on my tutu!

Tutu TIP: Instead of Elastic, you can use big satin ribbon and the just tie in a bow. It’s easy removal…but that’s half the problem…your child, especially if you have a young one, can remove it.

Elastic is a lot more snug.

Some Halloween Ideas for Tutus:

  • Red Tulle with Black Puff Balls glued on Make a LadyBug
  • Orange, Purple, and Black tulle for a witch
  • Yellow, Orange, White for Candy Corn
  • Hot Pink and Lime Green for Strawberry Shortcake
  • White and Light Pink for a “50′s” Look
  • Purple and Light green for a Fairy
  • Yellow and Black for a Bumble Bee

Make sure you add some embellishments like sparkles or pom poms when your done! I like to add flowers to mine!

howtomakeatutu

You can add other Embellishments like Satin Ribbons, Rhinestones, Puff Balls, Flowers, Rose petals, or small premade ribbons that you can find at Micheal’s or Hobby Lobby.

I use hot glue.

 

Other tutu posts of mine I would love for you to check out:

———————————————————-

Other sites that may help you (but my instructions are probably as clear as you are going to find)

*coming soon will be Fairy Tutu instructions

Oh, and if you are really adventurous….

 

I hope that helps you when you make your new tutu for your little one! These instructions and DIY tutorial have helped hundreds of thousands of crafters like you, so thankyou for that!
Trisha

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How to make a Fairy Wand

4 Aug By 34 Comments

How to Make a Fairy Wand (DIY) Tutorial

I have always wanted to Make a Fairy Wand (and you can now check out my how to make a tulle wand tutorial), but not the usual kind of puff ball fairy wand, something different, more creative. Today I decided to get my craft on and started to conjure up what kind of fairy tutu type wand I could make to match one of Charlotte’s new play ballerina dress up dresses.

My initial thought was to make more of a “crystal ball” fairy wand. I had visions of sparkles in water and some really unrealistic things for the time I had scheduled, so I spent some time walking around Micheal’s to find some inspiration. That place sure is fun in the holidays.

This is what I came up…the project took about 30 minutes.

STUFF YOU NEED

What you will need to create this Fairy Wand (or one of your own style) is the following:

  • Dowels (i opted for a larger dowel and cut it in half w/ a hand saw…that didn’t go so well) $.99
  • Ribbon to wrap the dowel $2.99
  • Tulle (I had this at home)
  • Clear plastic Christmas ornament $1.29 (get 2 in case you hot glue mess it up like I did)
  • stuff to put inside the ornament..I used a stream of marabou fluff, other ideas are flowers, glitter, ribbons, bows or rhinestones. My marabou cost $1.99
  • hot glue  (took just 1 stick)
  • I also bought some charms to add on from the bead aisle $5.99

INSTRUCTIONS

After you have your dowel cut to the right length, the first thing you do is wrap your ribbons around your wand. What I did was opt for one large ribbon to do the initial wrap and then a smaller ribbon to go around and cover the remainder of the dowel you could see. Its fairly easy to keep wrapping this around and then starting the 2nd one above and it should fall into perfect place.

I usually dab hot glue on the bottom, middle, and top, so if I move my fingers and it slips, I don’t unravel the entire thing.

Leave some excess ribbon once you reach the top to hang down or, if you prefer, make up some korker curly ribbon and use those to hang down. At this point on my wand, I left both strands of ribbon hang and then cut additional pieces and hot glued on the top so I had several pieces flowing.

Don’t be afraid to get girly here. I am not sure you can overkill on the fru-fru when you are talking about a fairy wand.

Next I set up the “crystal ball”.

Take your Christmas ornament and pull out the piece that hangs from the tree. Its easier to hot glue when its flat. Take the top off and stuff inside with your filler. You can also leave it empty and add flowers or rhinestones on the outside. The trick here is that once you hot glue something on it, it doesn’t peal off very nicely. I discovered that when I put on my fancy Bird of Paradise, decided I didn’t like it, and tried to take off.

What was left was a huge gaping mess, so I had to put it back.

Oh well, it was my first try, right?

Hot glue the top onto the ball so its secure.

After I had the wand and ball done, I gathered some tulle with a ribbon and again let the ribbon have some excess tails. I made two of them, hot glued them together in a cross, and trimmed up the tulle. I also took a piece of the ribbon and wound it through the heart charm, and attached that to the tulle and made a knot.

Then I added the tulle “cross” directly to the top of the wand.

I took some of the larger ribbon and covered the ornament part of the plastic ball and then turned upside down and hot glued the ball onto the tulle.

I’m not going to lie here…while it was really stuck and not going anywhere, the ball attached to the tulle made it slightly wobbly. More so than I liked. In the future, it might be smarter to attach the ball directly to the top of the wand and then add tulle with a small piece of elastic or some other clever way I haven’t discovered yet.

At this point you are pretty much done!

Its all decor from this point out.  I added a bird of paradise ornament I found in the Christmas aisle at Micheal’s, but I am regretting it. Unfortunately hot glue made it where I couldn’t take it off, so make sure you are sure before you stick.

(left: assembly pre-dressed up  , right: all gussied with flowers and birds)

Although a bit gaudy, Charlotte was a fan of the sparkly, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Consider adding satin bows to the front like I did or maybe even bells to the bottom of your ribbons so it makes a “charm” sound when you walk.  I have another wand I am trying out later on tonight or tomorrow, so I will post the results of how that one worked out.

If you liked this article, feel free to share the link, stumble, or twitter.

Maybe someone you know has a fairy in their life that needs some magic.

~Trisha

Other sites that may inspire you make a wand

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How to Make a Fairy Flower Wand

18 Mar By 18 Comments

The other day I made a sweet little fairy wand, a tulle wand, and showed you how to make a tulle pom pom. I had some left over materials, so I decided to make a flower fairy one.

Again, this type of wand (at least the way I made it) is meant for older kids that don’t have the curiosity to pull things apart. Because I chose to make mine with pins that go through the center of the flowers, please take care not to create something that you know for sure your child will pull apart and become a household hazard. Pins are no fun to step on.

Disclosure over.

How to Make A Fairy Flower Wand

Items needed:

  • box of lace pins
  • Styrofoam ball
  • dowel ribbons for the dowel
  • favorite flowers
  • glue/glue gun

1) Start by just taking the back off of each flower and pushing the pin through the middle and into the styrofoam. It took about 2 bundles of flowers for me to complete the entire ball. I made sure I pushed the flowers together because I liked the look of having all the flower petals mushed up, but you can choose to lay them flat.

Another thought is adding a rhinestone to the center of the flower once its pushed into place. That way the pin top is completely covered and it would add some bling to it.

2) Let your kitten help. Its more fun.

3) I then covered my dowel with my chosen ribbons, in this case it was purple and brown. I originally did it all in brown, removed it, did it in stripes and then thought I would add some leaves to the stem. Ultimately I didnt like the look so I tore it all off.

I think its ok to experiment because you can always start over!

4) Lastly I added a loop on the bottom so it was easy for my daughter to carry around with her.

I hope this inspires you to create some fun and fabulous fairy wands in your own home.

Happy Crafting!

~Trisha

Like this post? Consider tweeting or stumbling in order to help others let loose on their inner crafty mom!

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How to make a {Girly} purse

6 Dec By 14 Comments

A few weeks ago I was signed up for a Christmas stocking exchange with another blogger. Part of the rules (which I made myself and started to regret) was that you needed to be creative in your stocking….you could glue it, iron it, sew it, but you had to incorporate some sort of “making” it. As I looked around, I decided that it would be totally cheesing out of me to just get some letters and iron her name on a premade red stocking.

One thing about me is I cannot sew.

I cannot sew worth crap.

So I had to come up with another way that didn’t require some Grade A Grandma Type Sewing.

However, one thing I am is crafty. Creative. A problem solver. Sorta.

What you are about to see below is what I learned doing the stocking. After I figured a few things out, I went back and used the same technique to create a purse for Charlotte. I am going to share how to make a pretty purse, but also show you the pictures of the original stocking that inspired it.

Both things were made the same way and you can create your own items this way in any shape or size.

You will need:

  • Old shipping box
  • glue gun and glue
  • quilt batting
  • 1/2 yard material
  • 1/8th inch ribbon to sew with
  • large needle
  • straight razor
  • felt for the inside of the purse
  • 1 1/2 inch silk ribbon for the strap

The project cost me about $7 total, because I had batting, felt, glue, and ribbon at home.

Directions To create A Purse

(or Stocking)

1) First you need to decide the size of the purse. I measured and cut out the sides of the purse, both should be the same size (or as close as possible, I’m not an overly perfect cutter) and then used the straight razor to cut them out from the box. Be careful you dont cut up your rug, floor, or leg in this process.

(craft kitty gwennie)

2) After I had my two sides, I glue gunned the cardboard and added (double) batting to both of them so they were nice and fluffy.

3) I then laid out the material and left approx 1/2-1 inch on all sides. I put the batting part straight down (as it was the front of the purse) and glued the material to the back.

4) Cut out felt and lay in a square to “finish” the back, which in this case, is the inside of the purse.

5) I went back and measured and cut a bottom in the same length as the sides (but the width I wanted the purse to be, I just eyeballed it) and the strips that went up the side. I did not add batting, just material and felt. This should leave you with 5 pieces of covered cardboard.

6) Here is where the mock sewing comes in. Because you are sewing card board and using ribbon, your going to want to use a large thick needle. I had one the perfect size in my needle pack. I opted for a 1/8th ribbon stitching on the outside. I first took one main side (with batting) and a smaller side (without batting) and started my ribbon stitching through the material and connected to the other sides material. I followed this all the way down and around and back up to the other side. There were points I had to go through the cardboard and not just the material, but overall it was just connecting material to material.

7) Complete all sides and bottom this way. It took me about an hour and my fingers hurt by the time I was done, but the affect was cute.

8 ) Once done stitching, your purse should be pretty solid and stand up on its own!

9) Personally I wanted some more frill, so I added a ruffle around and had some extra, so I put the extra on the front and added a ribbon rosette to denote the front of the purse. I then took some 1 1/2 silk ribbon and hot glued it on the inside (side wall) and cut it at an appropriate length for Charlotte and secured int eh same fashion on the opposite side, leaving a shoulder strap.

My purse was slightly higher on the top than the sides I cut but I dont think Charlotte noticed. That’s the great thing about crafting for a 5 year old.

Finished!

This is the same exact technique I used for this stocking. Because of the batting, I did not iron on the letters or it would have defluffed it.I hot glued them on at the end. I also only used a front and a back and sewed the two sides together directly.

I used a flexible cardboard so I could put stuff inside when I was done.

That’s it! I hope this inspires you to create some stockings or some purses and handbags on your own! If you liked this post, please consider “stumbling”, “Digging” or sharing it with others so they can learn too.

Happy Crafting!

Trisha

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Baby Dog Style and Free Shipping!

19 Nov By 2 Comments

First, I am so sorry its been..well…dead here lately! I had a dr appt earlier this week and then I got major sick from the pain meds and spent quite some time in bed or on the bathroom floor begging God for forgiveness if he just takes the pain away. LOL I am sure you have been there!

I think with the holidays too things just get really “off”, but for 2011 I am going to come out with a list of what to expect each day of the week and that will include daily deal updates, fashion updates, coupon codes and free shipping with your favorite children’s clothing, and showcasing mom designers {my favorite} every week. Right now we just have to make it through the holidays together so I please bare with me.

I do want to talk to about a lovely designer with some incredibly beautiful pettiskirts, but also focuses on high end luxury pet items too.

So you never put a tutu on your dog? Well, I have put a tutu on my cat, so I totally “get” her.

Small things are cuter with tulle..try it.

Giggle.

Now that we have shared that sweet little dog, lets share the real reason we want you to meet this website.

These:

No, not that gorgeous child, the pettiskirts! I sure love me some pettskirts! Even though Charlotte wont wear them all the time because she has this thing with chiffon on her legs, she loves to put them over some leggings and go out and twirl!

[learn_more caption="Baby Dog Style" state="open"]

The little girl in all of us loves to dress up in a tutu or pettiskirt! Let the little ballerina in you or your child shine through! Our tutus and pettiskirts are for children and adults. We also offer tutus for pets.

Each one is sewn by hand, with great attention to detail. We can modify any design to suit your needs. If you are looking for a custom tulle color combination or wish to have added embellishments…such as bows, please let us know! [/learn_more]

The skirts run between $30-$115 depending on the size (and material) used and you can pay for additional ruffles.

Also, Baby Dog Style is having a BLACK FRIDAY CYBER SALE that includes FREE SHIPPING on any tutu or pettiskirt ordered between November 26-29 (US only).

Happy twirling…and shopping!

~trisha


Thanks to Tara for letting me know about Baby Dog Style! Got a tip on a great designer? Email me! trisha (at) momdot.com or just use my contact form on the top.

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How to make a Tulle Pom Pom Ball

29 Oct By 50 Comments

How to make a tulle pom pom ball for wands…otherwise known as, “how to make a cat toy” in my house.

I made a tulle wand the other day and I was going to give it to my friend Kims daughter, but she is pretty young and if she were to pull the pins out, it could mean a dangerous situation. Not wanting to responsible for my best friends child’s untimely death by lace pin, I decided to get to work on a tulle ball tutorial for all those in the same situation.

Except instead of a tulle wand, I’m going to turn my example into a cat toy for Gwen.

It could also be used for hair puff pony-o’s, cheer-leading pom poms, decorative shirt..um…decorations. Earrings? OK, that’s too far and way too 80′s.

Here is your How To Make a Tulle Ball {So you can still give it to the baby girl/kitten in your life} tutorial:

1) First you have to decide the size of your tulle ball. I took out a glass from my kitchen since I was making this for my kitten, and traced the edges on an old used shipping box I had laying around.

2) After tracing, I used a straight razor and cut the circles, including a smaller circle in the middle so it has an appearance of a doughnut. To be honest, I didn’t take care to make this perfect, so don’t kill yourself over it.

3) Take a string, twine, or whatever you want to use to tie the middle with. I had ribbon laying around, so I used a nice skinny ribbon. They have some really strong materials on the market if you are using your pom pom ball for something that needs to hold up long term.

4) Make a loop as if you are tying it and lay it between your 2 doughnut pieces. Its considered the cream now. Sandwich it up.

Ribbon cream.

(this is a real professional tut isn’t it)

5) Moving on to your tulle. My pom pom was going to be small since it was for a kitten toy, so I took about a yard of tulle and started wrapping. Just put your piece through the middle hole and then wrap around through the hole and back out again, round and round till its filled up.

6) Take a pair of crafting scissors and cut the outside of the tulle now around the entire thing. Take care not to cut your middle string if its sticking out somewhere.

Trust me, I cut mine.

7) Once the tulle is cut, you will have two distinct sides. You separate a little bit and you should see your string/ribbon/twine in the middle. This is where you tie that sucker up TIGHT in a knot.

8 ) Then pull off your cardboard sides and you will be left with a puffy ball.

9) Just trim your tulle ball up so the tulle is even and mush it around so your string is covered

10) Now you can attach it to whatever you want. Rules on attachment are going to depend on the craft you are making. In my house….well, it was just a cat toy.

So take it and throw!

Happy Kitten:

Btw, if you do want to make a cat toy, getting some crinkle paper or ribbon and wrapping around would also make it a ton of fun for a cat!

I’m going to test it out some other ideas and I’ll post an update when I have it.

~Trisha

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How to make a hairbow holder

25 Oct By 43 Comments

As you may or may not know about me, I can make a mean tutu hair bow holder.

But I am not here to showcase those but instead teach you how to make a hairbow holder that will help you encase your beautiful hairbows, headbands, and pony-o’s in one beautiful display. I have thought a lot about how I could hang Charlottes ponytail holders (also know as Pony-O’s) so here is what I came up with yesterday.

How To make a Hair Bow Holder ( tutorial and do it yourself project):

You will need:

  • a Canvas the size of the holder you are making ( i used a 8.5/11.5)
  • Hot glue or staple gun
  • 1 inch grosgrain ribbon
  • enough material to cover canvas, a half a yard should be more than enough
  • any decorative pieces you want to girly up the holder
  • velcro
  • 3/8ths satin ribbon

The first thing you do for your hair bow holder is to cut your material and put your canvas on top of it. I chose to use hot glue because its what I had on hand, but you can secure with staples as well if you have a staple gun. I folded the edges so they were even and hot glued down.

Continuing all the way around, I did the top and the bottom and then secured the sides much like you would a Christmas package.

The next step is to prepare your ribbons.

If you want just a hair bow holder, you can do a very easy design where you stripe all your ribbons down in a row and secure. Make sure they are long enough to go to the back side and hot glue or staple down.

I wanted to do a headband holder and a pony-o holder so I had more of an “all around” hair bow holder. I am not sure about you, but our house isn’t just caked in bows, its caked in ALL of it.

I first put on my hair bow holder ribbon and then centered the rest around that. I decided to make a headband ribbon, which is a design I use for my hair-bow holders. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this process so Ill have to demo this way. By taking a long piece of grosgrain and putting a dab of hot glue every 1.5 inches and laying the other half down to secure it. This essentially leaves you with a ribbon with “holes” in it more or less that you can drop a headband into it.

Now to prep the pony-o holder, I took a satin ribbon and doubled the length I wanted it to be and cut. So if I wanted a 2 inch down, I cut a 4 inch ribbon. I sliced up 2 pieces of velcro and glued onto the ribbon so when the ends connected, the Velcro stuck together.

I tied a bow and placed on the top to give it a finished look.

After that, its just about doing a layout on your canvas and putting together. I went through several design layouts before I found one that worked for me. Originally I put my headband holder on the bottom and the pony-o holder on the top, but decided I need more space to hang the pony’s, so I took off and redid.

Just get creative with the hairbow ribbons that you have and think about the space you need so you don’t crowd them. There really isn’t a point to taking them out of the drawer so they don’t get smashed if you just smash them up again.

TIP: While I didn’t finish the back (I left the canvas open), you can always cut felt the same size and hot glue or staple down so its a nice smooth back.

I know I have been doing a lot of crafting blogs lately, but crafting your own fashion doesn’t get any better! I find that it all relates because what I cant find to fit Charlotte exactly, I just make. I hope they are helping someone fru-fru up the little girl in their life!

Don’t forget to check out these other crafting posts on momdot:

And my friend Koris page where you can find AMAZING princess hairstyles like this one she did!

(picture used with permission)

As always, leave your pictures or links if you create something or the tutorial helps you out!

~Trisha

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How to make a Tulle Wand

24 Oct By 40 Comments

After doing the post on how to make a fairy wand, I had extra materials that I had bought in preparation and decided to make a tulle wand. Here is a how to make a tulle wand tutorial and a few do it yourself directions that will hopefully inspire you to create for Christmas or even Halloween if you are still looking for an outfit completer for your princess (or fairy!).

To Make this Tulle Wand you will need:

  • Styrofoam Ball (they come in lots of shapes, I have just used a ball) (2 for $4 at Hobby Lobby)
  • Straight pins (I used bridal and lace ones) ($1.89 at Micheal’s)
  • Dowel (I used the other half of the one from my fairy wand) ($.99)
  • Ribbons for the dowel (I got these 50% off at Hobby Lobby yesterday, $1 a roll)
  • Butterfly or other decor ($1.99 at Hobby Lobby)
  • Tulle (I had this at home)

The first thing I did was cut my tulle into squares. I actually have tulle from the bolts, so its pretty long. I cut off about a 2 foot piece and cut length wise and stacked them on each other. Then I gathered and cut about every other 1.5 inches so it cut the tulle in long strips. Then I stacked the strips and cut again in 1.5 inches so basically what was left at the end was little squares. I didn’t pay too much attention to keep them even and if they are all jagged, its not a problem at all.

Its more about getting them closer to the same size over the exact shape.

I wanted to do my tulle ball in 2 colors, so I cut several preparation piles of tulle squares in two colors. Once you have your squares you can gather several squares at once (I thought 3 squares worked well) and I twisted the bottoms together which form more of a solid piece of tulle to stick your pin in.

Once gathered, stick pin and push into your tulle ball.

Continue until the entire ball is covered. It took me a few hours watching TV actually to fill it up how I wanted it.

Originally I had pushed in my dowel to create the spot for the wand, but that was pointless. At the end I couldnt even find the spot and had to make a new hole, so dont bother making a hole ahead of time.

(gwen helped me)

Once your tulle ball is done, its time to work on the wand.

I covered mine in hot pink ribbon, dabbing hot glue along the way every few inches to make sure it didnt runravel on me. Then I did a second color to cover the rest of the dowel.

After the dowel was covered, I added some Korker ribbon strings I had prepared before I started.

If you don’t know how to make korker ribbon (which is curly ribbon), all you do is heat your over to 275 and wrap your ribbon around your dowel, secure, lightly spritz with water over the dowel/ribbon, and bake for 10 minutes in the oven. Once you take it out, its curly. A lot of people put hairspray or other chemicals to make the ribbon stiff, but I generally don’t bother.

I added my ribbon to the top of the dowel and then removed some of the tulle to push a hole into the Styrofoam. Once I had the dowel inside the tulle ball, I pulled it out and put some hot glue on the dowel and put back in to secure.

Now from this point on its pure decoration.

I decided to take another strip of smaller hot pink ribbon and wrap around the dowel because it felt unfinished. I then added a small bow decorative bow in matching ribbon on the bottom. I also put a flower on the very bottom of the wand to give it more of a finished look.

Almost done, I pushed in a butterfly, which Charlotte really liked.

Because this wand has stick pins in it (although you cannot see them and they are unlikely to come out) its not really for a child that would be pulling the tulle out.

I would say more like 5 and up, but please judge your child and how likely they are to pull it all apart before you make this kind of wand. You can also check out my How to Make a Fairy Wand post for a hot glued version.

I think it turned out quite pretty! It is also super lightweight because its made with Styrofoam.

What do you think?

~Trisha

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