DIY costume - $10 Poseidon!

In less than two weeks both my children will competing in the All Canadian Grand Finals pageant. For the age divisions relevant to my kids they will be competing in formal wear, beach wear and costume, along with photo entries.
I have been working non stop to try and get done the outfits and costumes needed for my kids to compete at their best.  Of course, I feel its totally obvious, that I would never buy their costumes ready made from a costume shop nor could I afford the stunning hand made costumes available on artisan websites.  So I have been stumbling through trying to make something for my sweet kids.

Here is our $10 "beach wear" for Walter.....
May I present POSEIDON - King of the Sea!

Walter as Poseidon

Here is what we used:

2 m of blue fabric.
I bought what was on sale (75% off) and my cost came out to $4 for both meters

1 m of wide gold sequin elastic trim $4.75/m less my 50% membership discount worked out to less than $2.40

One broom handle from the dollar store $1

White t-shirt - on hand

high density pink foam insulation  - on hand (although to be honest I have no idea where this stuff came from or why on earth we have sheets of it in our basement.....)

craft paint (I used black) on hand

gold spray paint - on hand

kings crown - on loan from out dress up bin

grey beard (because Walter is little this is able to double as a beard and a "wig") $3 from a local party supply store

fabric paint - on hand

Bringing our total costume cost to just over $10

Here is how to do it:

Main Costume:
1. Hem all raw edges of your blue fabric

2. Take a small section (4 inches wide) of the sequin elastic and with right sides together stitch the cut ends together forming a narrow tube. Turn right side out.

3. Fold your blue fabric in half twice, length wise.  Then find the mid point of your fabric. Slide your narrow sequin tube onto the fabric and up to the mid point.

4. Using the costumee (is that a thing?  The person/child for whom the costume is for....) as a model drape the fabric with wrong sides out and over one shoulder. Pin sides together starting from the middle of the rib cage until 6 inches above the bottom hem.

5. Stitch along your pin lines on either side.  Tun right side out.

6. Measure your costumee's waist (I'm just going to go with it as though "costumee" is a legit word). Subtract two inches. This is going to be the length of your gold sequin belt. Stitch using a 1/2 inch seam allowance. Because this is elastic is will simply slide over the child so there is no need for a closure such as a clasp or zipper.

7. Make your wristlets  is the very same fashion as step six.

8. I googled an image of a trident and printed it in the size i needed.  Using the image as a pattern I cut black felt and hot glued it to the belt front.

9. Using fabric paint I made "waves" along the bottom front hem of the blue toga.

Trident:
1. Unscrew the plastic tip from your broom handle and spray paint your handle gold.

2. Have That Guy (or some other person with a modicum of artistic ability) draw the three prong trident top right onto the pink foam. You can cut out the image with an Xacto knife. You may want to sand the sdges slightly if they did not  come out smoothly.

3. Paint your pink foam with craft paint. You need to do this step.  Yes, I do know that in the next step I will tell you to paint over the craft paint - you still need to do it.  Pink foam dissolves if sprayed directly with spray paint.  Guess how I know that....

4. Spray paint your foam gold.

5. When dry push the broom handle right into the pink foam and the base of the trident.

Beard/ wig/ crown
1. Try your beard on your costumee. Adjust the elastic at the back of the head until it fits snugly. I choose to hand stitch my elastic smaller and cut off the excess.  However, it would work just as well to tie a knot tightly in the elastic at the back of the head,

way too long of a beard for a four year old

2. While the costumee is wearing the beard mark (with fabric marker or chalk) how long you want the beard to be and therefore where you should cut.

3. Take the beard off the child. Cut off the excess beard hair.  Keep the excess!!! Be sure to keep it as neat as possible. This will be your wig.

4. Using a length of duct tape adhere your beard hair to the inside of your kings crown.


And that's pretty much it! Enjoy, gentle readers!

Stay tuned on Thursday to see Walters Costume Wear- an Astronaut out of his old snowsuit! Along with a run down of how you, too, can make a spacesuit from a snowsuit.