Monday, January 7, 2013

Leonardo da Vinci Costume

I was just going through my blog drafts and saw that I had never published the rest of our Halloween costumes. Here's the second one. One more to come!


My four-year-old wanted to be Leonardo da Vinci for Halloween and he wanted his little sister to be the Mona Lisa. Here's how his costume turned out. It's based on the sculpture of Leonardo da Vinci in Florence, Italy.


The sleeved cape is vintage--it belonged to my grandmother.


The hat is a large felt circle with stretched elastic zig-zagged to it. If fit just perfectly, but I would have liked it bigger since it shrank in the wash.

For the beard and hair I took a length of fleece long enough to go all the way around the cap (and a little extra, just in case). It's about 8 inches wide (the length of the hair/beard). I left one of the long edges intact and cut strips to about 1 1/2 inches from the edge for the hair portion. For the beard I cut a mouth whole about half and inch from the edge and cut the beard hairs up to about another half inch from the mouth hole. The I sewed the wig to the hat from one ear to the other, leaving the front unattached. It fit snugly to his face, but was a bit stretched out by the end of the night (and covered in candy-yuck!). A few more stitches will fix that when it's needed.


I tied a paintbrush into the hair over one ear.


And here's my handsome Leo. The name tag helped with recognition.

Soon to come: Mona Lisa!

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Toddler Shoes Makeover

I have a fairly strict no-characters-on-shoes rule. I got these shoes on clearance a few months ago with the intention of covering them with SOMETHING. Paint? Felt flower? My baby girl really liked the Dora on them (though she's never seen the show), but I never let her wear them outside the house.
I used a couple samples from my extensive supply of vinyl to make the flowers and leaves to cover the obnoxious cartoon on these shoes. I used regular hot glue, but I plan to use E-6000 if the flowers start to come off.


I must admit I was nervous at first that she'd be upset about covering Dora, and I was greatly relieved when she was excited about the flower. SCORE!


There are a few little parts of the design underneath that show around the edge. I could have been more careful and covered them up, but I'm okay with the way they turned out. And so is my daughter, which is what matters. 

Friday, January 4, 2013

Leonardo Tees

I made these Vitruvian Man t-shirts for the kids for Christmas since we studied Leonardo da Vinci in homeschool. He became somewhat of an icon for us.


I used freezer paper stencils (tutorial on MADE) cut out by my SIL & BIL's handy-dandy Silhouette machine (I think I need one of those... Oh, the possibilities!).


I used the same cut twice - once each for the image and reverse of the image. I like the way both of them turned out. This also helps the kids keep track of their shirts.


I made a few sets of these for cousins, too. I tried doing a few with spray paint instead of fabric medium paint, but it turned out so badly I had to start over. I tried fabric spray paint, too, but I was not pleased with the results. I guess I need more practice. For now I'll stick to the traditional method.


If only we had these shirts when we went to the Leonardo Museum a few months ago!
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