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How to make a tutu for your Barbie

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While I have how to make a tutu instructions for a little girl (or adult!) and how to make a tutu for your kitten, I was thinking this weekend that it would be cute for Charlotte’s barbie collection to have a tutu collection!

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These size tulle rolls are easiest to make tulle crafts like this tutu for your barbie. They wrap so easy! If you buy tulle off the bolts at the craft stores, they have to be cut every which way for a tulle ball and that makes the craft frustrating.

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I have never made a tutu this small and yes, having to work with elastic this tiny has its downs, so your fingers must be nimble.

Time: Took me about an hour from start to finish because of how much I had to concentrate on getting my fingers under the elastic.

Gather up:

  • 1 Barbie
  • 1/8th inch elastic (approx $1.29)
  • thread
  • needle
  • tulle
  • something to wrap your elastic around. Spray bottle, shot class, etc.

1) First I took out the elastic and wrapped it around barbies waist to measure the initial length. When you make a tutu and wrap the tulle, the elastic will stretch as the tulle goes on..so in a normal tutu you would deduct a few inches from the waistline to account for that. However since this elastic doesn’t have room to spare on this tiny of a length, I decided to deduct at the end and went ahead and sewed the two ends to each other based on the original measurement.

2) You will need to find an object to wrap your elastic around so you can put the tulle on it. I was able to use a spray bottle.

 

3) You will have to decide if you want a long or short tutu. Take your measurement length and double it. Cut your tulle. You will be making a slip knot under the elastic so you actually fold your tulle together.

(this is why you double it..so if you want a skirt 4 inches long, you will need to cut in strips of 8 inches).

As you can see in this photo, originally the elastic only fit on the cap of the bottle, but as I was adding tulle, it stretched out and I was able to move it down over the bottle itself.

The first and second picture shows the slip knot. You fold the tulle in half and slip the loop under the elastic. Then with the hanging pieces, you  slip under the loop and pull tight. This creates a knot.

You can make tiny knots or larger ones. However the smaller the knot, the more your elastic will stretch out and make for a bigger waist at the end.

I have demonstrated both here.

4) Continue all the way around, only leaving elastic showing if step #5 applies to you.

5) Once I got close, I took the skirt off the bottle and trimmed the excess elastic (basically making the skirt smaller) and resewed the ends and then added the last few pieces of tulle to cover where I had sewn and finish the skirt.

6) Trim the ends of your skirt so its even (I actually do this as I create it, but its fine to do at the end).

You can also hot glue rhinestones, flowers, ribbons and more to really customize a look.

7) Let your model walk the cat walk!

I am sure Ken (and your little girl) will appreciate your hard work!

~Trisha

*SALE* 9 GLITTER Tulle Rolls each one 6*SALE* 9 GLITTER Tulle Rolls each one 6 DO NOT FORGET TO GET YOUR TULLE!!

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21 thoughts on “How to make a tutu for your Barbie”

  1. I would like to try this. How wide did you cut the tulle?

    Also thought a ponytail holder, made for a todler might be just the right size elastic circle.

    What do you think??

    Roz

  2. I would like to try this. How wide did you cut the tulle? Also thought a small elastic

    (for toddler ponytails), already a circle might work. What do youthink??

    Roz

  3. I am going to give this a try! I was thinking maybe a crochet hook would be helpful rather than trying to get my fingers to be that nimble.

  4. I don’t know why but our barbies always end up naked, probably because the smaller kids in the house mean to change them and lose the clothes because of a distraction of some sort. We are doing this ASAP. Thanks

  5. OMG that is way too adorable! I think I’ll have some work to do LOL since there is like 20+ barbies just waiting to have a new tutu LOL

  6. My daughter has one barbie- somewhere in the back of the closet in the bottom of a Rubbermaid container. Since I bought tulle on sunday to make my daughter a new tutu I might as well make a matching one for a barbie- – I just need to dig it out:)

    I bought brown, black, teal, bright green and purple tulle. Decisions decisions!! Black and teal sound like a nice color combo… right?

    • Yes, but there are actually better ways w/ ribbon and stuff to make a hair tie. This one is really small around the waist for charlottes thick hair, but i can do a tutorial on different hair things w/ tulle and ribbon. Im good at those!

  11. How about I buy them from you? seriously….give me any ingredient and I can make something marvelous…give me a needle and all I do is put holes in my fingers.

    *sigh* I love girls stuff.

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