A fairy skirt or a ballerina tutu...or a last minute Halloween costume

Making a tulle tutu for my girls has been on my list of projects to do for a long time. I finally felt motivated to work on it last week (and yes, it was an attempt to stop my girls from fighting over the adorable new fairy dress-up costume that the Sweet Bee received for her birthday).

There are 1000's of tutorials available online when it comes to making a tulle skirt, so I won't go into the full details here. But here are the most helpful "how-to" posts I found:

Knotted Tulle Skirt on This Journey
DIY: Satin Wrap a Tutu on Treasures for Tots
Cut Tulle Using a Quick and Easy Method on Treasures for Tots
Baby Chick Costume on Little Birdie Secrets

Big thanks to my sweet sisters-in-law Tiffany and Becky for their personal direction!

Here is the finished product.

A few notes:

• I purchased my tulle by the yard at Wal-mart. I bought 5 yards, and it's quite poofy and fits my nearly 5-year old daughter.
• I cut the tulle into strips 6 inches wide by 28 inches long. The length gets folded in half, so the finished tutu is 14 inches long. I wasn't too picky about making sure the measurements are exact.
• At the advice of several people, I used ribbon for the waistband instead of elastic. Ribbon = no sewing! I measured my daughter's waist then added 2 feet or so to leave some length for tying a bow when it's time to wear it. I used 7/8 inches grosgrain ribbon (the kind that is ribbed). Just double-knot the tulle on the ribbon as you would for the elastic.
• The Ant Bug is currently obsessed with the color pink, so of course that's what the tutu had to be. But I tied on some yellow ribbon for a colorful accent.

Here's the finished product on the smiling model. Now we're all set for Halloween!