She's a Hoot!!

I know last night I posted a couple pics, but I had to share more with you from my little owl. She was just the cutest little owl ever...and SO sweet! Leading up to yesterday evening Karis refused to keep a hat on her head. Period. She would either immediately rip it off her head, or she would cry as I was trying to secure it on, then rip it off. This past Saturday I took her to a children's Halloween party at the library, and we went without the hat. She got several looks wondering what she was, one lady even said, "is that a turkey?" So, I knew that the hat was going to be integral in understanding the costume. But, last night she wore it for over an hour, no complaints and loved it! Makes her mama happy!!

 

In an effort to give credit where credit is due, my BFF, Heather, pinned a pic on Pinterest many, many months ago of a little girl dressed as an owl. She said she pinned it for me, as an idea for Karis' Halloween costume. I absolutely loved the idea. I wasn't sure at that point whether or not, I would go with that or not...but as it turns out, I couldn't get the idea out of my head. I spent a lot of time deliberating other costumes, but none sounded better to me.

 

I knew I wanted Karis' outfit to be different than the one Heather found on Pinterest. That one looked like it was basically a cape with feathers on it. I drew out several different plans and spent a lot of time deciding on what would be the best construction.

 

For the front portion of her costume I settled on a tunic style top that was front-only. I attached elastic at the shoulders that criss-crossed across the back and another piece of elastic that secured across the back. I wanted to ensure that it stayed close to her body and didn't get pushed all over the place. It worked perfectly.

 

I considered creating the wings like a cape, but decided I wanted actual wings and to create a rear with tail feathers.

 

I took one of Karis' jackets as a basis for length and basically just started cutting a piece of felt to the shape and size I wanted for a wing. I then duplicated that for the other side.

 

I did almost the same for the back. I knew the basic shape I wanted...I wanted it to taper in at the bottom, then jut out. I also wanted it to be longer than the front. So, I just started cutting again on some felt and came up with the shape.

 

For the feathers, I just cut a piece of felt and ended up liking the shape, so I duplicated it. Again. And Again. And Again. Honestly, this was the longest part of the whole process. It certainly wasn't difficult, just took some time to cut all those feathers.

 

I started with the tunic front on placing the feathers. Basically I just started laying them out in a color arrangement that I liked...then I would sew the top of the feathers down across the top. Easy, peasy straight stitching, line by line.

 

I kept that process going for the wings and the back.

 

I handstitched the stuff on the head. It's just fun to do that and I love the look of a hand-embroidered blanket stitch.

 

This was an incredibly easy costume to make...and so cheap! The entire costume was less than $8. It would have been less than $5, but I ended up buying a fleece hat to work with rather than the original felt one I was doing.

 

Plus, our little girly was incredibly cute!