Unique Handmade Fancy Dress Costumes, Teamed with Secondhand Bargains.
I love a fancy dress costume and any opportunity to make one for my daughter is a win in my books! You can have so much fun with fancy dress costumes for children, whether you make them or buy them, or something in between. I love finding secondhand bargains and then making extra accessories and finishing touches to make the costume unique and personalised.
Pirate
First up was a pirate costume. I used a cute little red and white gingham waistcoat that my mum had made for me when I was a toddler. I found some great skull and crossbones badges from my local haberdashery store (Fabricland, Kingston) which I sewed onto the waistcoat. I added Velcro to the shoulder of the waistcoat so that I could Velcro on and off a parrot, which I got from John Lewis. I bought a pirate hat off Facebook marketplace and made a sword, an eye patch and a bottle of pirates rum. I found a great little parrot at John Lewis and added Velcro to its feet so that we could put it on and off the waistcoat.
Fairy Crown and Wand
I was then tasked by Lily to make a fairy crown and wand. Some of the materials I used for this were from my local Squirrel Community Scrap Scheme, whIch supports the reuse of resources for community benefit. Essentially, these schemes accept donations of scrap or unwanted materials from businesses and offer them for free or at a very low cost to the community. There are scrap schemes located across the UK and you can find your local one on the reuseful website. The crown was made with a headband, a length of beaded trimming, some additional ‘pearls’ and handmade ribbon flowers. The wand was made by sewing two stars round the edges, sewing on lots of beads and sequins, stuffing the star with toy stuffing and mounting it on a length of doweling (which was being used as a support cane in one of my plants!) and a variety of ribbons wrapped round the doweling.
Halloween
Then came Halloween… I thought I’d make a few different outfits for Lily, so that she could choose on the day, 2 year olds can be quite fussy and I really wasn’t sure what she’d want to wear, so I thought I’d hedge my bets!
I started by making a witches outfit, which consisted of little black tutu, which I made from two Lacy cobweb tablecloths from Poundland. I cut each one in half and ran a seam along the four cut edges and threaded them on to a black ribbon to create a waist band. I also purchased a witches hat from Poundland, made a witches cloak and cut the sleeves off an old jumper of mine (that I shrunk in the wash) and I added some sparkly puff sleeves to make a witches top.
Next up was a cats tail and ears, which could also be teamed with a black leotard I purchased off Vinted. I made the tail with some black stretch velvet from the Squirrel Community Scrap Scheme and stuffed it with all the wool off cuts from making pom-poms. I then attached the tail to an elastic waistband and added some poppers to make it fully adjustable. I cheated a little for the ears: I purchased a set of cat ears on a headband from Poundland to give me a solid base to start from – I didn’t want the ears to be flopping all over the place! I then covered the ears with the same stretch velvet that I used for the tail.
Superhero Cape
I had a lot of fun using my Cricut machine to cut out stars and large letters to make Lily and her friend a superhero cape each.
I made the capes out of felt which really made things easy, as it doesn’t fray, so doesn’t need hemming. And then I used bondaweb to stick the stars and letters to the cape using an iron.
Mermaid
For Lily’s third birthday she had a mermaid party and of course a mermaid outfit was required! I purchased her a secondhand dress off Facebook Marketplace and i made her a mermaid crown and trident.
The crown started off as a simple princess crown that I bought at Flying Tiger for just £1.50 and then I added milliners netting which I found at my local scrap store, the pink netting from a little bag of chocolate Easter eggs, some salt dough sea life decorations that Lily and I had made, some gems and some shells from Hobbycraft.
The trident started out as a devils fork from Party Delights and I painted it with some leftover household paint and then embellished it with Gems and shells.
I used a glue gun for making both of these items – it’s so handy and the results are really hardwearing, just make sure you do it when the little ones are out of sight as it does get really hot.
Another great place to source materials to make costumes is Contrado, who will send you a bundle of off-cuts just for the price of the postage. If you live in reach of London, there are lots of lovely fabric and haberdashery shops on Berwick Street. You can also find a good selection of fabrics online at Dalston Mill Fabrics.
If you don’t have time or aren’t inclined to make a costume, there are some great shops and websites selling costumes, check out my Blog post on Where to Buy Fancy Dress Costumes for Children Where to Buy Fancy Dress Costumes for Children.
You can also pick up lots of secondhand childrens fancy dress costumes on Facebook Marketplace and Vinted. I love to do this and then team the outfits with bits I’ve made myself to make a complete outfit, with a little bit of a personal touch.
