Beautiful, Bold, Butterflies!

My sweet Lucy was a butterfly for Halloween.  Her costume was a combination of rehashing, up-cycling and repurposing.

• Rehashed- The Idea
• Up-cycled- The Butterfly Wings
• Repurposed- The Dress

Rehashed: The Idea

This is Lucy’s second year as a butterfly.  Here is last year’s sweet butterfly!

Up-cycled: The Butterfly Wings

The wings are the only carryover from last year’s butterfly costume.  I up-cycled them from a plain pair of wings from the dollar store.  I love the way they turned out!

To reenforce the wing edges and create a black border, strips of black felt were folded over the edges and glued in place.

Fine black glitter adds the other wing details.  To add the glitter it involved a few steps.  It was a bit laborious, but I cut cardstock stencil pattern shapes and taped them on the wings (where the purple sections are).  With a foam craft brush, I dabbed glue on the spaces between the stencil pattern pieces and on the felt wing edges.  The glue was applied in small areas and sprinkled with black glitter.  After allowing the glue to dry, I moved the cardstock pieces to the back side of the wings, and applied the glue and glitter, the same as the front side.

That way the detail peeks around Lucy from the front and is in a full-out, show-off from the back!

The black glitter catches the light, and boy does it shimmer and shine!

As a side note… almost 2, is a delightful age. 🙂  Her eyes are always wide open, trying to take in everything around her.  She has been toting around her Halloween bucket the last little while.  She likes it because it holds stuff.

She has no idea it was created to hold candy, because as far as she is concerned, books are a great fit for the bucket.

Yes, books are delicious!

Repurposed-The Dress

The butterfly dress is made from a girl’s skirt.  I absolutely loved the color, design and look of the skirt!  To size the skirt into a dress, I folded and sewed a tuck in the back of the elastic waistband.

For the dress straps I sewed a long tube of lavender knit fabric.  I turned the tube right-side-out and cut it into two straps.  I sewed the straps to the front and crossed the straps in the back.  The knit is a little stretchy, so it’s not too hard to slip off over her head.

I love the top mesh layer of the skirt.  The texture and pattern is perfect for a little butterfly!

The dress is layered on top of a simple black dress that has a wide ruffle on the bottom edge.  It added just the right length and fulness to the skirt!  She’s our beautiful butterfly!

This week, I created simple butterfly wings for dolls.  They are a crafty version made of craft foam, paper and paint.  If you would like to try them out, the instructions are over at Doll Diaries.

And just like my sweet Lucy, the dolls wear their wings with a repurposed dress made from a girl’s skirt!

It is the year of the beautiful, bold, butterflies!

Anna