Cupcake Fairy Costume: Part 2: Tutu

The next part of the Cupcake Fairy costume is a tutu.  What could be cuter than a tutu on a little girl? 

I didn't want this tutu to be too poofy because my baby is only 4 months old and we will be holding her all night.  The more "stuff" a baby has on the more difficult it is to hold her.

Materials Needed:

• 1/2 elastic
• tulle (amount depends on how full and how many layers you want it to be)
• ribbon

Measure the waist of one cute baby (or child)!  My little girl is about 17 inches.

Cut a piece of elastic about 1 inch longer than your your baby's waist, in my case I needed about 18 inches.

Then cut tulle to your desired length.  I like the end of the skirt to hit just above the knee.  The width of the tulle should be the same length as the elastic when it is stretched out as far as it will go.

To cut tulle:  roll it up then just cut with fabric scissors.  I cut 4 pieces of tulle, 2 in light pink and 2 in bright pink.

Layer all the pieces of tulle together.  Tulle can be very hard to work with so I pinned it down to a towel (you can also use an ironing board).  Pin down one layer at a time, building on top of each other.

A helper is needed for this next part.  This lucky winner is my sister Tiffany.  One of you should stretch the elastic across to the pinned tulle while the other pins the elastic to the tulle.  Start at the center and pin the elastic to the tulle.  Unpin the tulle from the towel everywhere but the very ends.  Once all the tulle and elastic are pinned, completely unpin the tulle from the towel.

Sew the elastic to the tulle by stretching the elastic while sewing.  Stretching the elastic allows for the waistband to stretch.  If you don't stretch the elastic during sewing, the thread will be to tight and snap when you stretch the band.

Pin the edges of the tulle together with right sides facing.  Sew one inch in.

Do an extra zig-zag stitch over the elastic band to reinforce it.  Then trim the excess material to about a half an inch and sew open the seam.

The next step is to make a bow.  Now the length of ribbon that you need will depend on how big a bow you want.  Loop the ribbon around back and forth until you get two loops and hanging ribbon on each side.  Clamp slightly off center with an alligator clip then adjust the bow loops.

Take a piece of heavy string or yarn and tie a not around the center of the bow.

This is what the right side looks like so far.

Take a smaller piece of ribbon and tie a simple not.

Trim up the knotted ribbon and twist the ends around so the right side of the ribbon is out.

Using a glue gun, dot some glue on the front of the bow and place the knot on top.  Turn it over.

Put some glue on this side of the bow and glue down one side of the ribbon.  Trim it up and glue down the other side and trip that end up.  You don't want the ribbon to show through onto the other side.

Now you have a beautiful bow!  Mine matches the cupcake on the onsie.

Hand stitch the bow to the skirt on whichever side you want.

So cute and a perfect combination with her Cupcake Appliqued Onsie!

Part 3 of the Cupcake Fairy Costume is my favorite... Fairy Wings!  I will be posting about it within the next couple of days.