Lily's Birthday Tutu

Lily turns 6 on June 27th. The theme she wants for her party is Tinker Bell. I had seen this super cute Birthday tutu and shirt on Etsy....but it was $90. Yeah...I'm not going to spend that much on a tutu. So, I decided that I would make one myself. Lily picked out pink & green (her favorite color & the color of Tinker Bell's dress) glittery tulle, and ribbon. She also got some cute pink birthday cake ribbon. Instead of using ribbon or elastic for the waistband, I used a pink head band. :0)

For the shirt, we got iron on glittery butterflies, pink & green paint, and pink glitter:

Lily LOVES her accessories, so she picked out these pink wings & birthday headband.

The first thing I did was make sure the tutu was going to be the length I wanted it on Lily. (Please excuse Emma's crackers on the ground.) :0)

Then I put the headband on a roll of paper towels, and started tying on the tulle.
(Notice my little photo bomber there in the background trying to eat the tulle?) ;0)

My niece Rachel told me that it would be fuller if I used a slip knot, and she was probably right, because this didn't seem too full. Here it is with a whole roll of pink tulle:

And with a whole roll of green tulle added on.

It wasn't anywhere near as full as I wanted it, but Rachel had told me about the slip knot thing after I was already done, and I was NOT redoing that! I was covered in glitter & my fingers were tired. :0(
So, I just decided to add more tulle. :0)

Since I wasn't crazy about jumping into the glittery mess again, I decided to work on her shirt. First I printed out a 6 that I liked and put it in the shirt so I could use it to trace.

I outlined it in green:

And filled it in with pink when the green was completely dry:

While the pink was still wet, I put the glitter on top:

After about an hour, I shook the excess glitter off & let it finish drying:

Then I ironed 6 butterflies (per Lily's instructions) onto the shirt.

The next thing I worked on was the ribbons. I wanted them to be curly, and I found a way to do it. You wrap them around dowel rods (or kabob skewers, since that's what I had) and use clothespins to hold them in place. I did not have clothespins, so I tired to use paper clips, but those did not work too well, so I ended up using push pins. That did work. I placed them on a baking sheet and baked them in the oven at 225* for 20 minutes.

While those baked, I finished the second tutu. I thought it would be easier to just make a second tutu and tie them together since I was going to use ribbon anyway. Here are the 2 tutu's tied together: 

Much fuller! Then I tied on the birthday cake ribbon:

When the ribbons were done, I took them out of the oven. Guess what? plastic push pins will melt in the oven. I know, crazy, right?? 

Oh well, it still worked. I was so excited that it did!! After they were cool, I took them off of the rods and tied them onto the tutu.

Here is the finished product with all of the ribbons on it:

Lily could not wait to try it on!!

She is so excited to wear this at her party!! =)