Snow White's Tutu: review & tutorial

When I had a daughter in 2010, I was excited for all things girly! Which is actually pretty shocking because I am so not girly, but imagining my daughter in hairbows and tutus was a dream!  Turns out she's a perfect mix of girly and rough and tumble. :)  I am not one to spend a ton of money on boutique clothes

I've always been one to buy at the end of a season for the next season when it comes to kids clothes in particular.  The same holds true for costumes.  So last year, I was on the hunt for costumes for a potential Halloween option this year as well as dress up clothes.

I was lucky enough to find a lot of princess dresses on clearance last year.  When it came time to choose a costume for this year, I wanted something that both {how crazy is that to say!} my daughters will be able to wear even though one of them will be a newborn.  The lucky thing is even if Lily chooses something different to go trick-or-treating in, we have other events to wear them to.

Here comes Snow White and her apple. 

Lily has been blessed with long legs, so I wanted to add a tutu to her existing costume to make it a little more unique and of course, longer. 

I do not sew. 

I'd love to learn, but I currently do not.

Making a no-sew tutu is easy peasy though, so I was excited to be able to do this courtesy of The HairBow Company ! 

I don't enjoy complicated, so the easier the better. I hope you find my no-sew tutu instructions simple!

Materials:

• ribbon  {for waist}
• tulle {3 rolls if using rolls or roughly 4-6 yards off a bolt for toddler/preschooler}
• scissors
• tape measure/measuring stick

For this tutu I was using 3 colors and I wanted the tutu to be full and big!

~Measure your child's waist using the ribbon. I do this simply by wrapping the ribbon around her waist and marking where my fingers meet with a Sharpie.  Make sure to leave lots at the ends to tie around her waist~ you can shorten it later!
~Tie knots where the marks are.  The space between the knots will be where your tulle gets tied to create your tutu.

Although I used rolls of tulle for this tutu, I provided the instructions if you use a "sheet" of tulle, as well.

I measured out a yard {36 inches} in length of the tulle to start my tutu.  I guessed I'd need roughly 15 pieces of each of the 3 colors to fill the tutu for my daughter.  This also depends on how tight/close you place the tulle together between the knots.  I wanted the tutu to be really full, so ended up using the entire rolls of tulle.

After you have the individual pieces of tulle, fold them in half and loop around your ribbon between the knots.  I patterned yellow, blue, red.  Repeat folding the tulle in half, looping around the ribbon until you reach the other knot. 

 As I said, I like longer, fuller tutus which is why I used the full yard I'd cut.  If you like shorter, cut the tulle in half before then folding in half and looping. I've seen those too and they're really cute!

Continue your pattern, pulling the tulle tight around the ribbon until you reach the other knot.

She LOVES it!  And she's super excited for her new baby sister to be her apple complete with her very own red tutu.

Instructions are if you're using a large "sheet" of tulle fabric:
~Lay your tulle out in a single sheet--one yard increments--and begin folding the tulle up flat. Mine generally is about 3 inches wide, but I just eyeball it, not measure it.
~Next, cut off the ends of the "flat tube" of tulle to make it even.
~Measure about 3-4 inches in along the tube with your tape measure and cut.  Continue cutting in the same size increments until you have the "tube" all cut.
~Open the cut piece of tulle completely and fold it in half and then cut there.

The best part is, the measurements are not crucial. You can choose wider or not depending on how you want your tutu.  Once you commit to a size though, stick with it!

Thank you to The Hairbow Company for providing me with the materials for this tutu and the red hairbow for Snow White.