Happy Owloween!

So I decided that Miss Precocious should be an owl for Halloween...because I saw it on Pinterest.

 "Last Minute Kids' Owl Costume"-This pin originally came from Alpha Mom. 

I am a Chi Omega and of course it is my sincerest (secret) hope that Miss P will be one as well.  So I'm doing all I can to brainwash her instill in her a love of all things owl before she goes to college.  So far this has included an owl-themed birthday party, owl clothing, owl lovies...and most recently, an owl costume for Halloween.

Or Owloween as I'm now calling it.

I saw this cute little do-it-yourself owl costume on Pinterest.  I read the info over at Alpha Mom and I thought I would give it a try.  

The last two costumes we bought were cheaply made and I'm sure they were fabricated from formaldehyde or something even worse.  So I was really excited to make a costume that I knew didn't involve neurological toxins or Asian sweat shops!

These are the materials I chose:

That's a roll of lavender organza, gray knit, pink felt, and a purple bandana.

Yes, a bandana...

And there is no way Miss P would ever keep those cute sunglasses on (the little model from the original post is wearing sunglasses made to look like owl eyes) so I decided to look for an owl hat instead.  I found this one over at The Children's Place.  

Super cute, reusable for the next few winters, and it was only $5 when I bought it!  Fab!

I chose the fabric colors around the color of the hat.  Actually choosing the fabric was the most difficult part of the entire project.

You see, shopping is not easy for me!  I have a disease.  They don't have a medical term for it yet (this is all very serious).  So I'm calling it Retail Anxiety Disorder.  RAD for short.  

I get sweaty and twitchy when I have to make a decision about what items to purchase. I probably looked like this in the middle of Hobby Lobby:

It isn't like this at the grocery store.  There I have a specific list that includes brands, quantities, etc.  

But send me out clothes shopping or, in this case, to find material, and I need four Xanax and a glass of wine! 

That explains why I panicked and bought like...10 yards of fabric (and a bandana).

For someone who is something like 26 inches tall. 

Sigh...

Anyway, the base of the owl body is a plain purple t-shirt from Hobby Lobby.  They have so many colors to choose from!

I would have used a long sleeve shirt but I just couldn't find one that was cheap enough to justify gluing feathers to!

I cut out about 90 feathers.

I ran a strip of hem tape about an inch above the hem of the shirt. 

I chose hem tape because, well honestly I couldn't find my fabric glue. It was one of the things we lost in the move.  (Think very dramatic, like Halle Berry, Things We Lost In The Fire.  Except it's "Fabric Glue-Things We Lost In The Move.")

After I had the hem tape ironed down, I placed the feathers onto the tape in no particular order.

Yeah right!  I am the QUEEN of OCD.  Of course there was an order!  But I tried to make it look like there wasn't.  Can you tell?

I am really glad I accidentally picked a variety of fabrics because when I laid them out next to each other, the texture was really good.

After I got a row of feathers lined up, I just pressed down with all my might using the iron (on the highest dry setting).  Now, I will admit that felt and organza are not the best choices of fabric to pair with hem tape. The felt is too thick and the organza is too thin.  I ended up hot gluing the felt pieces on so they wouldn't fall off.

I made a ring of feathers around the neck.  I may have had to cut the neck a little bit for Miss P's large and precious head to fit through...

And since I had like, oh I don't know, 9 yards of fabric left, I decided to cover her pumpkin tote in feathers too.

I just hot glued those on. Man, I love a hot glue gun!  I can't think of anything else so versatile and useful that only costs $2!!

And here is my little baby hootie testing out her "owl suits" as she calls it.

Hoot Hoot!

So this project was a little time consuming, but it turned out so cute.  I totally love it!  I give it an A++!!  Especially since you could pretty much do this for free using any fabric scraps you might have laying around instead of buying fabric like I did. 

Be extra sweet to any little hooties that come your way and have a Happy Owloween everybody!