Costumes

Tinkerbell Fairy Costume

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell costume

Lily wanted to be Tinkerbell right from the start, so I had a good few months to think over and research ideas for her costume.  I found a cool blog post on wings made for a Cosplay version of adult Tinkerbell (sorry I can’t re-find the link) and she made the wings with cardboard, spray glue, cellophane and mod podge.  By the time I got around to making the wings I wasn’t heading into any major towns before the party so I had to deal with what I could find here.

 

Tinkerbell - Fairy Costume - Cosplay - Halloween - stitchremedy.com

 

The Fairy Wings

 

The wings are made from the same foam as the minion costume.  Lucky we had a big trampoline lol I still have a few pieces of the foam left.  I drew the shape and designs onto one wing and the holes were cut with a scalpel as the craft knife was too big.  There’s a pic on my Instagram of some of the mess I made cutting!  Once the wings were cut out I started to glue wire to the edges of the wings.

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - making Tinkerbells wings

The wire, hot glued onto the edge of each wing.

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - making tinkerbells wings

The extra wire to help support the wing.

I glued an extra piece of wire under the bottom half of the top half of the wing then across the centre piece and left extra at the edge to glue and twist into the centre panel when joining the wings together.

In the centre of the two wings is a little panel made from big popsicle wooden sticks tapped together, then the wire from each wing stretched to the opposite side and hot glued down.  Then another stick glued on top and white fabric glued over to cover it up.

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - wings side on

 

The centre piece needs to be long enough to tuck down the back of the dress.  It’ll be held up by the elastic in the dress lining.

Once the wire was in place we glued a sheet of cellophane over one side of the wing, then shook  a little glitter into the gaps and glued another sheet of cellophane to the other side of each wing.

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - making tinkerbells wings

The extra piece of wire added afterwards.

After trying the wings on we decided the two thin pieces of wire from each wing weren’t enough as they started to sag a little.  So we added a twisted double piece of wire across the centre and each wing for more support.  I also added a piece of thin EVA foam to the back of the centre piece that will be the side that is close to the body.

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - making tinkerbells wings

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - making tinkerbells wings

 

The Green Fairy Dress

 

Luckily I was given some gorgeous satiny greeny blue shiny fabric (Thanks Charlotte!).  So there was no question it was perfect for Tinkerbells dress.

The dress is made with two layers of the green satin, both cut and sewn the same. The front and back both have princess seams.  All seams were pressed flat before continuing.  The hem was cut straight to start with.  Once the two layers were back to back the points along the hem were cut and the hem then bagged out.  The points along the hem were stitched over twice for strength, trimmed and then turned through and pressed.  Then the two layers of green were treated as one outer layer.

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell fairy dress

How the points were trimmed before turning out.

 

The lining was cut from a light white cotton that has a little spandex too.  The lining and outer layers have lines of shirring elastic across the upper back panel for comfort and fit.

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell fairy dress

The shirring elastic in the lining.

 

Then I needed to add support to hold the wings to the body tightly.   So we added the straps off an old bra to the side seams to connect at the back and I have some grip elastic and I added two rows across the front panel to meet the straps at the side seams.  This meant we could put the dress on easily and tighten the elastic using the straps after it was on.  We also ended up sewing a band of elastic to the side seams on the outer of the lining lower, around the waist to help hold the lower end of the wing panel straight.

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell fairy dress

The elastic sewn into the lining of the dress.

The lining was roll hemmed above the level of the points on the outer hem so it won’t be seen.  I added two small pieces of boning into the front princess seams from the top to the lower edge of the elastic in the lining.  This helped hold the front of the dress up and stop the lining from rolling over the top.

The lining and outer layers were stitched together at the top and then top stitched on the lining side.

 

The Fairy Coat

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell's coat

Tinkerbell has a winter outfit too and we decided that seeing as the party was at night and in October (which isn’t too warm here in NZ) we should make something warmer for Lily to wear as the night got cooler.

The coat is patterned from my red wrap dress that I made earlier this year.  With the hood added on.  It’s cut from an old polar fleece blanket (keeping the costs down).  So the grain of the fabric isn’t quite right and the fluff goe in different directions but it still works!

The front edges and sleeves are double turned and the seams are overlocked with multi shades of green thread.  There is a hole in the side seam on the right for the left side tie to go through so it can wrap and tie at the back.

As we don’t have a big craft supply store nearby I struggled with the white fluff for a while.  I settled on trying to brush up some wool and get a fluffy texture like I’d seen in someones wool brushed unicorn tail (on pinterest).  As I was digging out my wool carding brush (my spinning wheel broke years ago but I still have the tools!), I found an old white knitted cardigan.  I brought a few woolen jumpers over the years to pull apart and rewind the wool.  It’s a cheaper option to buying new wool sometimes.  I tried brushing the cardi while it was still knitted together and the wool fluffed up nicely.

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell's coat

The Cardigan before.

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell's coat

Fluffing up the strips of Cardigan.

By cutting the cardigan into strips it was easier to fluff up.  And the weave of the threads matted together more and the strips were hand sewn onto the edges of the coat.

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell's coat

The back of the Fairy Coat.

 

Finishing Touches

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbell

 

My little fairy needed tights to keep her legs a bit warmer so I made a basic pair of elastic waist leggings as long as the fabric would allow lol , which worked out a cute length.

Her little fairy dust pouch around her neck is from off cuts of Ezio’s pants.  Two pieces sewn together with a small casing around the top and ribbon threaded through.  She filled it up with glitter and it got sprinkled everywhere!

Her hair is done up in a ponytail then a big fat fluffy sock is twisted around and the hair pinned around over the sock, to create the big bun look.  Then the ends of the hair brushed forward and sprayed to create the fringe look.  We hould have pulled more hair ends forward I think but it still looked ok 🙂  We also sprayed it all with glitter hair spray.

 

halloween-2016-costumes-cosplay-costume-party-stitchremedy.com - Tinkerbells shoes

The shoes were found at the second hand shop for 50 cents (at their winter sale) and the nail polish was $2 at the local variety store.  It was a matte finish so it didn’t show up the cracks as much as a shinny one would.  2-3 layer of nail polish over the whole shoe, bending them and making it crack in between coats.  Touch ups added and pompoms glued to the toes.

The paint did chip off a lot more once she’d been walking in them all night but they still look mostly green and they looked good for the photos 🙂

 

One gorgeous little fairy who’s white wings glowed under the black light at the party!  The wings came off as soon as it was too cold as we forgot to put a hole in the back of the coat to slot the wings down into the dress.  Everything held up well and the wings have found a new home over the mirror in her bedroom 🙂

The Tinkerbell wings now living above the bedroom mirror :)