1 A MONSTER Tutorial!

I am pretty excited to show off my daughters Halloween costume this year... it is colorful and fun and perfect for a tween!  But first I must thank ConsumerCrafts.com for helping make it possible!  I was given a $50 credit to shop their site for ANYTHING I wanted.  Do you know how hard that was?  They have TONS of amazing craft products and their prices are so reasonable.   Seriously, I was able to pick up six 11x14 canvases for about $16!   Want to see my haul?  Check it out:

Now only one of those products was for my daughters costume... the rest of that stuff will come into play in Friday's post (even though I'm DYING to share now!).    The bright yellow fluff you see in the picture above?  That is 9x12 craft fur and was only $1.77 per sheet.  Compared to the fur by the yard that I was finding everywhere else, this was a steal! Why did I need bright yellow fur?  To create a furry Monster costume of course! I used the sheets to create leg warmers and wrist cuffs to finish off the costume. And it was SUPER EASY to do!   I used 5 pieces of the fur for this project. 

WARNING: cutting this fur is MESSY! If you can do it outside, I recommend it. It really does stick to everything.  Once I cut it, I shook it out and then was good to go.   First you will want to measure your child's calf with pants on since the legwarmer will most likely go over those.Because we are a little limited due to the size of the fur sheet I decided to stick with the height of the fur for the legwarmer, so it is 9" high.  I measured about 8" up my daughters leg and then measured the diameter of her calf - 11".

 Lay out your sheet of fur.   Add an inch to your child's measurement - I ended with 12". Because you are only working with half of the fur (one sheet) needed to create the leg warmer, you need to halve the measurement - I get 6".  

We are now going to fold the fur in half, which means we need to half the measurement again - 3" for mine.  Measure 3" from the fold and then cut a diagonal line so that when you unfold your fur you have sort of a bell shape.  (Mine is about 3" at the top and 4.5" at the bottom). This will give your leg warmer just a little shape to it. Do this again for three other pieces of fur.

Take two pieces and place them fur sides touching,  making sure the fur is going in the same direction!  You are going to sew down the side to create the seam. Do again for the other side seam.

Grab some elastic and measure it to about an inch shorter than the width of your child's calf measurement (remember, my daughters was 11").  Hot glue that about 1.5" down from the top.   I stretched it along one side of the legwarmer and glued it down, pressing firmly until the glue cooled.  Then I stretched it around to the other side and did the same making sure it was nice and secure.

Turn inside out and you have yourself a leg warmer!   Do again with the remaining two pieces and you'll have a pair!   The wrist cuffs are even easier because they are NO-SEW! All you do is measure your child's wrist - 6" for my daughter. Add 3" to that - I ended up with 9" (yay!  that saves me one cut since the fur is 9" wide!) Now measure how high up the arm you want it to go - I chose 4".

Lay your fur flat and then fold in half. Make sure to push your fur up in the opposite direction that you are cutting and cut straight across, otherwise you will end up with a cuff that looks like it had a bad haircut!  The top picture above shows where I made my cuts - once the fabric was folded I measured 4" from the end and cut along the first white dotted line.  Then I measured another 4" and cut along the second dotted line to create my second cuff.  The last piece of fur was extra.

On the underside of the cuff, about a 1/2" from the side, hot glue on a piece of velcro. Now wrap it around your child's wrist to determine where the other piece of the velcro should go and then hot glue that piece into place - it will have to go on the furry side so make sure you press firmly until glue cools.

That's it!  You're done. Don't they just add that special something? The full shebang:

The hat is my sons and came from Crochet by Allie. The leggings were from my daughters closet, as was the tutu (super simple tulle tutu). The shirt is from Justice.   I love making my children's Halloween costumes - not only is it money saving, but the pieces that I did purchase (the fur and shirt) were either a) inexpensive and/or b) reusable!  

Starting today, Consumer Crafts is holding a fun Refer-a-Friend Contest where you can enter to win one of six $250 shopping sprees on their site just for signing up!  PLUS every friend you refer to the contest through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and through email gains you an additional entry into the prize drawing. You can click on the image below to get entered.

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  I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Consumer Crafts and Blueprint Social.  The opinions in this post are 100% mine.

Kim is a Marketing Director by day and Crafter/Blogger/Blog Designer by night. She lives with her husband, three beautiful children, and her dog and cat. You can also visit her design site, seven thirty three – – – creative blog design.  For even more seven thirty three fun, like her on Facebook or follow along via Twitter!