Elsa was a very, very popular figure among the 3-10 crowd this year, so I wasn't at all surprised when my daughter asked to be Elsa for Halloween. I found some really easy DIY ideas on Pinterest. I even found some easy patterns to sew my own. So I figured between these two options, I'd be able to make my daughter's costume with little to no problem.
Then, sometime early in September, we were at a local clothing swap store called Kid-to-Kid and my daughter found this dress:
It was the right color and sparkly and she was convinced that it was really an Elsa dress. I was totally fine with this.
I was able to buy a yard of sparkly sheer snowflake material at Walmart for under $5. The hardest part of attaching the material was pinning it all together. Often when I sew I get impatient and take shortcuts. This time I promised myself that I would just go slow and it would take as long as it needed to. It really only took me about 3 hours total (over 3 days), but it was so worth it because I think it turned out really good! My daughter was ecstatic when she saw her cape! Seriously, she ran through our house for an hour making it 'whoosh' behind her until I finally made her take it off before something happened to it. (It made me really happy though!)
I looked for ideas for Elsa's shoes but couldn't find anything I liked. And I didn't really want to buy any for her. Then I had the idea to transform my daughter's old red sparkly shoes that she had worn out a very long time ago. She hadn't worn them in months but I'd never gotten around to throwing them away. I found a can of sparkly blue spray paint for $5 and this is what happened:
By the end of the week after Halloween, the blue paint had almost completely worn off, but it lasted for as long as it needed to!
I don't know if you remember the year my daughter was a cowgirl (which is still my very favorite costume.) This year was a close second!