DIY Minnie Mouse Costume

My cute daughter wanted to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween this year. I looked online and found a few costumes that weren't as cute as we were hoping for and way too expensive. She wanted to dress up as the vintage Minnie Mouse so with a long-sleeved black shirt we were on our way.

I made a pair of Minnie Mouse Gloves, you can see the quick tutorial here

I also made a darling Minnie Mouse Bow that stands up so nicely when clipped in her hair. For a step by step detailed tutorial click here

And here I'll show you the finishing touches to this winning Halloween costume!

 This skirt was made from this perfect fabric from JoAnn's. This is a simple circle skirt AKA Poodle skirt that I adapted from this pattern over at Merricksart.com. I'm so glad I ran into my friend Tami at the fabric store because she told me to try this idea!

I bought some black 2 inch wide elastic band, measured my daughter using the handy dandy formula of waist/Pi 3.14/2= the half circle you need to measure and cut out of the folded fabric.

Then I stretched the elastic as I sewed along with a straight stitch. It took me less than five minutes to do this part and you can tell if you scrutinize my stitching, so don't cuz this is a Halloween costume, right? :)

I lucked out in that I was able to make this out of 45 inch fabric because we only needed it to be 17 inches long to the knee. I added a nice one inch hem and pressed that.

Of course we need some cute yellow shoes, we borrowed these from my sister-in-law who has tiny feet. :)

 For the tail, I just pinned on a tail from a cat costume. It is a wired tail so we could adjust it as needed.

What about ears? My daughter didn't want to wear the fake ears that often are somewhat floppy and in her words "childish" soooo, she thought of a great idea. I pulled my daughter's hair up into high pigtail buns. At least that's what I'm calling it. I just did two high ponytails and didn't pull the hair all the way through on the third go round with the elastic.

With the hair standing up and nicely shaped like ears I used washable black hair spray and sprayed her entire head. Then I clipped the bow in her hair.
This is how it looked before.

And here is the complete Halloween costume with face paint, sprayed hair, gloves AND her baby brother as Pluto.

For more great craft ideas, check out the novel that features our site Diamond Rings Are Deadly Things

Minnie Mouse Bow with Rounded Edges, Easy DIY Costume

My daughter wanted to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween and we needed the perfect Minnie bow. I've posted the complete tutorial for the bow here. I also created a quick tutorial on how to make your own Minnie Mouse Gloves and this post to see how we put the costume together with a super simple skirt.

There are tons of patterns online for making cute hair bows but I couldn't find any that were like the large bow with rounded edges that Minnie wears, so I adapted a pattern to create just the look we wanted.
 

To make most bows like this, you just cut a square of fabric, but to get this larger size you want one side of your square bigger than the other. See the difference between the two bows below? I'm going to show you how to make the top one with a fuller, rounded edge.

I cut a piece of fabric 8 1/2 inches by 8 inches from this darling cotton fabric I found at JoAnn's Fabric.

Fold your square in half so that you will stitch the shorter sides together. Sew right sides together, turn out and press so seam is in the middle. See photo below.
Here's the part that is slightly different than your typical bow. Normally you'd just fold in the outer edge and stitch like the top piece in the photo below.

Instead you need to fold the edges in carefully so that your outer edge is rounded instead of straight. There's no real science to this--think curve. Just fold in a little more at the corners and a little less in the middle, making a nice scallop shape. It helps to press this with your iron and use a few pins to keep it in place.

Stitch along the outer edge with matching thread.

Now accordion fold the middle of the bow and pinch it together with your fingers.

You can hand stitch this, but I'm all for quick so I just put it under the presser foot and zigzagged across.

Now you need a piece of fabric that is 2x3 inches. I don't have step by step photos here. Just fold the 2x3 piece in half lengthwise and stitch right sides together.  Turn right side out and stitch the loop together to create the middle band for the bow.

Once that is complete, you can slide it onto your bow and adjust for tightness

Hot glue the hair clasp

Enjoy this delightful little bow. My Minnie Mouse sure was happy with how it turned out!

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