Ideas, Anyone?

We are taking a little break during these summer months when everyone is so busy vacationing, and when we get back together in a few weeks we would like to plan out our crafts through Christmas, if possible. If you follow our blog at all and have any suggestions or ideas for projects, let us know! We can't guarantee that we will do them all, but we would love some help deciding. See you soon!

Making a Princess

This is a VERY long post, as we made tutus and all the accessories necessary for a princess. We'll start with the tutus, then move on to crowns and wands!

Toddler Tutus

The amount of Tulle needed will depend on the size of your baby/toddler and how long and/or full you want the tutu to be. You can also buy your tulle in just one color, or as many colors as you would like. To see some examples, click HERE.

• 2 year old: 6 yards for a full, floor-length tutu, 3 yards for a full knee-length tutu
• 1 year old: 3 yards for a full or knee-length tutu, 1 1/2 yards for a very short, traditional tutu.
• Elastic for waist (measure her waist for exact measurement)

Optional Tutu accessories

• Ribbon for tying into Tutu (you can get organdy ribbon in the bridal isle of craft stores for 99 cents a spool)
• Flowers from the dollar store (we will be making accessory flower clips for the tutus, but these can also be used to be stitched straight onto the tutu

Making the Tutus:

• 
• Cut your tulle into 4" wide strips, length depending on how long you want your tutu to be **Remember, we will be knotting the tulle in half over the waist elastic, so cut your tulle twice as long as you want your tutu to be**
  
• Cut your waist elastic to the desired length
• Tie elastic to two chairs, then separate the chairs so the elastic is stretched tight.
• Fold one strip of tulle in half. Hold doubled strip under elastic, then pull free ends over the elastic and down through the loop formed by the folded end. (sorry, that's hard to explain, but the pictures will give you a better idea...).
• continue with all tulle strips until finished
• To close, you can knot or sew your elastic ends together. I wanted mine to be adjustable, so I tied a bell to one end of elastic and made a loop out of the other, that way I can tighten or loosen it depending on how the loop is tied.
• Embellish with bells, flowers, ribbons, beads, etc.

Extra tips:

• If you want a fluffier tutu that doesn't tangle as easily (tulle is not very stiff and the strips can tangle) tie 3 or 4 strips together in each knot. This will keep the fluffiness but keep them straightened out better.
  
• Tulle vs. Netting: If you can afford it, netting might be better than tulle just because the tulle is so lightweight, it takes more to make it puffy and it can tangle, but Tulle is not as itchy as netting.
• I have also seen tutus made of pure ribbon (wired ribbon). Again, if you can afford it, those are beautiful as well.

Wands & Crowns

Here are the things you may need, depending on which style you choose:

• headband
• silk flowers
• dowel (12 inches)
  
• tulle (netting)
• satin ribbon to wrap dowel
• organdy ribbon for streamers
• curling ribbon for streamers
• rhinestones
• wire
• beads
• bells
  
• paint (if you want to paint dowel instead of wrapping)
• glue gun
• terrifically tacky tape
• glitter spray

Making the Wands:

• 
• Run two strips of Tacky Tape the length of your dowel (one on either side). This will keep the ribbon from slipping.
• Hot glue the ribbon to the side of one of the dowel ends.
• Pull the ribbon over the end and begin wrapping dowel with ribbon, continuing to end.
  
• Hot glue ribbon over end of dowel.
• Wand Embellishments: We put large beads on pipe cleaners, shaped them, and glued them to our dowels BEFORE gluing on ribbon (so ribbon will cover up pipe cleaner ends). We then tied ribbon and pieces of tulle, pearls, etc to our creation.

Making the Crowns:

• We bought soft, fabric covered headbands at Walmart (so they would be less irritating to our girls heads) (I believe the were $1.99 for 5), and because the colors matched our tulle color choices, we did not cover them with ribbon. If you want to cover yours with ribbon, we suggest putting tacky tape on your headband, and then using hot glue to wrap it the same as the wand.
• For beaded shapes on your crown, string beads onto a pipe cleaner, create the desired shape, and then hot glue the pipe cleaner to the headband.
  
• Tie strips of tulle to your headband in the same way you did for the tutu (if you did beads with pipe cleaners, this will cover up your pipe cleaners!). Add a dab of hot glue to the knot to keep it in place.
• Embellishments: You can glue on flowers, strands of pearls, or other embellishments as you wish.