Halfway Homemade Halloween

"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust."

-J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

This year was the first Halloween my girls got to Trick or Treat, and were they ever excited. They "practiced" all last week, which involved me standing on the other side of the Dutch door in the Living room and pretending to be surprised each time Michaela Byrd yelled, "Teat peas!" (If you don't speak toddler, that translates to "Treat, please!")

When Natalie, my 3 1/2 year old, begged daily to watch Disney's Peter Pan as well as the "real people" version with Cathy Rigby, I knew we had to go with the classic Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily characters for Halloween.

The only trouble was that costumes like this:

image: disneystore.com

ran upwards of $40.00 and there was no way I was going to spend that much on something that would very likely be covered in chocolate and sticky fingerprints by night's end. It was the same with the infant/toddler-sized Indian costumes I found online.

I knew it was time to break out my Do It Yourself skills.

Here's how my little Tiger Lily turned out (Michaela Byrd):

And this is Tinkerbell:

I lucked out because we had a little Indian costume in our dress-up trunk. I got it at a yard sale last summer for something like fifty cents. The problem was that it was made for a preschooler, and Michaela Byrd is a (tiny) toddler.

I measured how far up I needed to trim the dress and just chopped right through the felt with a rotary cutter.

Then I hand cut some new fringe. I did the same for each little sleeve.

A perfect new length. Shows off her cute little boots we found at Payless. Those were the most expensive part of her costume.

Don't forget the accessories!

Her headband is made from two strips of soft white felt, sewn together at the ends. I hot glued some brightly colored feathers to the back and decorated the outside with some leftover rick-rack from the personalized Trick or Treat bags that I made last week. (Side note: if you have a preschooler who has to dress like an Indian or Pilgrim for a Thanksgiving party, this would be such a fun craft for Thanksgiving!)

My friend L came to the rescue and lent us a Tinkerbell costume that belongs to her oldest. It was too big for Natalie, so I made a little "belt" that you can see in that first photo. I used velcro for the closure, and hot glued some white flowers to it in order to make it more appealing to my persnickety preschooler.

As you can see, I had two very happy Trick or Treaters. They didn't seem to mind that I spent next to nothing on their costumes.

Our neighbors didn't seem to mind either, because they came home with their little homemade Trick or Treat bags bulging with candy. T snuck some last night (okay, I did too) and they never even noticed.

I'd call that success! J.M. Barrie would be so proud!

Visit Kimba today for more DIY inspiration, and don't forget to check out The CSI Project.