It was pretty obvious that my 3 year old was going to ask to be Elsa for Halloween. I was going to buy her a dress, but they were a little pricey and the material looked itchy. And if your 3 year old is like mine, she HATES itchy things. I didn’t want her to not wear it.
So I decided to make my own.
I thought it would be smart to use a t-shirt so I didn’t have to sew sleeves – I’m an amateur seamstress. Turns out I wasn’t the only smart one. I began to look on Pinterest for other Elsa dress ideas. I actually came across a blog post from What’s Up Fagans? with a collection of Elsa dress tutorials. I scanned through them a pulled what I liked and made up my own.
So here’s an Easy Elsa Dress Tutorial.
Like I said, I’m an amateur so I needed it to be easy. 🙂
What you need:
white t-shirt
shiny blue fabric (dress)
transparent sparkly fabric (cape)
1/4 inch elastic band
blue jewels
fabric glue
I just bought a white t-shirt from a thrift store. It had some graphics at the bottom, but I was going to cover those with the dress. I also bleached it to get the little stains out.
Cut out the material in the lengths you need.
1. Dress – I measured my daughter around the chest and back and she is 22 inches. Double that. Then measure from the underarms to the floor. My daughter measured 29 inches. Then I added 2 extra inches for sewing.
So the dress material was 44 inches x 31 inches.
Hem one of the long sides of the dress (Iron 1/2 inch over then sew). Then sew the side seam by sewing right sides together of the shorter sides.
2. Cape – You have your daughter’s measurement from underarm to floor and the chest measurement. So the cape was 22 x 31 inches.
Hem all 4 sides of the cape. The material I chose frayed at the ends really bad so I double hemmed it by folding it over 1/2 inch and then 1/2 inch again and sewed.
Now attach the cape to the dress by sewing right sides together. Make sure the side hem of the dress is where you want it before you sew.
Turn the dress inside out. Then fold the entire dress over 1 inch (including the side with the cape). Leave an inch where you don’t sew so you can feed the elastic through.
Put a safety pin on each end of the elastic so you don’t lose it. Feed the elastic through the hem at the top of the dress and pull so the bunches are even around the dress.
Remove the safety pins and sew the elastic together. Sew up the 1 inch hole you left for the elastic.
Now place the dress around the t-shirt and pin. You will have had to flip the cape over the top of the dress so it’s on the right side of the dress now. Make sure the dress is even around the t-shirt.
Using a zigzag stitch, sew the dress to the t-shirt where the 1 inch hem is so you don’t sew on the elastic. Be careful not to let the shirt get folded where you are sewing! (I know from experience, it isn’t pretty).
Then glue on your blue jewels using fabric glue and allow it to dry over night. Make sure to put cardboard between the shirt layers so the glue doesn’t go through and glue the shirt together.
And there you have it! A super cute and super easy Elsa dress! My daughter loves it and wears it almost every day. Here’s some pictures from our little photo shoot.
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Garner says
Nice Post