Due to my new home’s renovation in progress, this year I don’t have time to make any Halloween costume for my kids. I am glad to discover Anshu of Blooms And Bugs’ Ladybug Tutu Halloween Costume. You will need to prepare the following to sew one for your lovely kid. If you are running out of time to sew a complicated costume, this could be great help as it only requires 2-3 hours.

Materials for Ladybug Tutu:

Mini Ruffle Fabric
Quarter inch elastic
6 inch Tulle Red
Red elastic
Elastic thread
Fake red flowers

I hope you enjoy your Halloween preparation as much as you do, I will rejoin you for more Halloween crafts next year.

Pop over to Anshu’s blog for detail tutorial.

TIP: Adapt this method and change the color theme to white to sew a white angel costume for Christmas.

But, before I am allowed to go, I took one of the ghosts from the ghost lights and toss it in a glass jar. He has been naughty lately and not following the rules. This time he ain’t going with me, I hope he learned a good lesson and behave well when I am back.

Along with the ghost lights decoration, I found a bunch of mini mandarin oranges holiday lights in my store room which I have been decorating for my Chinese New year since years. Now, they become part of my Halloween light decorations. All I have to do is to draw the oranges with permanent marker, easy and quick!!!

Here is the round-up of Halloween crafts of 2009-2011:

1. Pom-Pom Jack ‘O Lantern
2. Pom-Pom Black Widow Spider
3. Sock Skeleton Couples
4. Skeleton Costume
5. Pumpkin Costume
6. Pumpkin Treat Basket
7. Ghost Lights
8. Mummy Holder
9. Candy Corn Memo Holder

Not enough Halloween crafts to inspire you? Here are some more from others which I think you might be interested.

That’s all for now… till then…. BOO!!!

Halloween Egg Carton Bats and Leaf Ghosts by Happy Clippings.

Pipe Cleaner Yarn Spiders by Make And Takes.

Pipe Cleaner Spider Ring by Crafts By Amanda.

DIY Spider Sacks by Modern Parents Messy Kids.

Orange Jack O’ Lantern by Momtastic.

Flexi Mummies by Family Chic.

Black Grape Vine Pumpkin With Lights by Jen Goode’s 100 Directions.

Halloween Candles by Fresh Home Ideas.

Ghost Jug Lights by Family Fun Crafts.

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Halloween: Pumpkin Tutu Costume {Tutorial}

Picture 1 of 4 (Click arrow for more pictures)

1. 10 yards of orange tulle or can-can netting, cut about 6″ wide (left) and keep the balance (right) if it has more than 3″ wide.
2. 1″ wide elastic band, about 3″- 4″ shorter than the intended wearer chest, sew ends together. The elastic will expand after being fully tied up with tulle strips.
3. 12″ x 12″ black felt or faux black velvet
4. Green Satin Ribbon of about 15 yards (1 roll)
5. some 1/4″ orange ribbon for decoration (optional)
6. some maple leaves for decoration (optional)
Cut tulle to about 1 yard length or shorter for younger toddler.
Fold the 1 yard tulle into shorter length, cut away the selvage. Cut about 6″ wide/strip, you can use scissor to cut but roller cutter make things faster. The strips don’t have to be very straight and precised since one can hardly notice the unevenness when put together . If you have more than 3″ left at the end, don’t waste them, you can tie them in between those 6″ strips, again, no one will notice the different strip width.
Fold your tulle strip into half, place it in front of the elastic band with the ends facing upward.
Bring the ends down and behind the elastic band, insert into the loop and come out to the front.
Pull and tighten the tulle in place as shown in the picture.
Repeat the steps until you get all the tulles tie on the elastic band. Slot the smaller left-over strips in between if you have.

Start crossing the green satin ribbon on the elastic band about 1 yard from the end. You might want to secure the first round with safety pin if you find that the ribbon is slippery.
Continue rolling and winding the ribbons on the band and fully cover-up the orange tulle. Cross the ribbon again when you’ve completed a round. Sew a few stitches to both the start and finish crossing to further secure the ribbon windings if needed.
Cut ribbon at 1 yard away.

Sketch your favorite pumpkin face (Google search “pumpkin face” and you will find tons of them) and cut them out from the black felt or faux velvet.
Spread the tulle strips at the face area as wide as possible to prevent face from being plaited between the folds.
Pin the face onto the pumpkin tutu, catch a few layers of tulle and sew around with black thread.

Lastly, embellish some orange ribbons and maple leaves on it to give more autumn look.
~~~DONE~~~
Off to “Trick And Treating” with brother who is wearing his skeleton costume and with their favorite sock skeletons that mama sewed!!!!

Crinoline when worn under a skirt, makes it look domed and inflated, especially for gown of special occasion. You can get crinoline easily in some countries but they normally came in white or black. Now, you can make it yourself, if you need a specific color to match your beautiful gown.

Crinoline mainly came in 2 types, hoop or full fabric/tulle. The one I am making is hoop with tulle, so it is a mixture of both. The reason behind this combination is that I want the crinoline look soft yet is able to hold the skirt of the gown in a good shape, yet easy to stow away when not in use. If you look closely at hoop crinoline being worn, you will see the “skeleton” of the hoop if the gown was made of soft and thin fabric. Full fabric/tulle is a good choice but it would be difficult when comes to storage as it is very bulky and isn’t like the hoop type where we can simply take out the resilient plastic strip of the “bone”.

See, the gown is happy and smiling after being given a “lift” by the crinoline!

Material you will need:
(this is for little girl’s measurement, you would need more for an adult.)
1. 3 meter of tulle, I bought the stiff tulle as it expends better
2. 2 meter fabric to make into an A-shape skirt
3. Elastic band for the A-shape skirt
4. 12 meter Resilient plastic strip (some call it corset bone or fish bone)
5. 1 roll of cotton bias-tape (about 10 meter)

Divide the tulle into 3 equally parts by it’s width. Cut. You have 3 strips of 3 meters x 1/3 width of tulle.
Cut one of the strips into half the length, become 2×1.5 meter.
Sew the 1.5 meter to one of the 3 meter tulle to make it 4.5 meters.
Now you have 3 strips of 1.5m, 3m and 4.5m.
Sew the ends together to make into ring. The long side of the measurement become the width and the short side become the height.
Fold the height into half.
Divide the width into 4 equal parts and mark their position by sewing red threads on them.

Use the biggest spacing of straight stitch, sew 2 lines 10mm below the fold side of the 3m tulle.
Pull the thread to create gathers until the width of the gathered tulle is 1.5m. Pin the red thread markings to the 1.5m tulle (only the bottom layer). Spread the gather evenly and secure it with pin. Sew a normal spacing stitch to hold it.
Repeat the same to the 4.5m width tulle. You might increase the marking to 8 to achieve a more even spreading in the gathers.
Lastly, gather the top of the first tulle to the desired width of the A-shape skirt.

This is an A-shape skirt with elastic waist band and the resilient plastic strip is beside it.
Sew 4 rows of biased tape at the wrong side of the skirt so that you could put in the plastic strip into it.
The spacing between each strip is about 150mm. You can increase the spacing for adult crinoline, anything between 150mm to 250mm is fine.
Remember to leave the ends of the biased tape open so that you can slot the strip into it.

The wrong side of the skirt showing the biased tape.

Attach the tulle onto the right-side of the A-shape skirt.

Slot the resilient plastic strip into the biased tape. The plastic strip will expand the A-shape skirt to its fullest.
TIP: If your gown is heavy on the skirt side, you may want to add another strip of plastic to the last 2 rows of the biased tape, this is to further strengthen the “expansion”.