Welcome back to day 2 of our Halloween costume series. This year we are doing costumes from beloved illustrated children’s books. This one might be a bit more obscure, but I believe that everyone should know it. It warms my heart. It’s called Chrysanthemum, and it was introduced to me by my neighbor friends who know how much I love flowers. It’s the story of a mouse who loves her name, Chrysanthemum, but soon comes to detest it after being fun of on her first day of school. She soon learns to embrace the individuality of her name and being. On a personal note, it makes me want to name all my children names of flowers. Petunia! Hydrangea! Foxglove! 🙂
For this combination costume, we dressed the mother as a chrysanthemum, and daughter as the title character.
See the costume tutorials below!
To make the Chrysanthemum head piece
Materials: crepe paper (I used gold here and twig), cardboard, scissors, glue gun, floral 18 gauge wire, safety pins, petal template
Step 1: Make a head piece form (follow the instructions here). Add additional cardboard pieces around the form. The more you have, the easier it will be to add on the petals.
Step 2: Cut out the petals templates and cut them out. I used one roll of the twig color and one roll of the gold.
Step 3: Add a strip of glue onto the middle of the petal and quickly attach the wire. You’ll want the wire to start at the bottom of the petal so you can adjust it once it’s glued on the form.
Step 4: Once the petals are all wired, start by working from the top of the form down. Put the smallest shaped petals in the middle and work your way down so that the largest petals are on the bottom and going down.
Step 5: Add a few smaller petals at the base of the flower.
Step 6: Shape the petals so that they round up and the smaller flowers at the base to round down a bit.
TO MAKE THE LEAF COLLAR
Materials: green crepe paper (moss green), green dress, safety pins, leaf template
Step 1: Cut out the leaf template and copy it to the crepe paper and cut out 13 leaves.
Step 2: Curl the edges of the crepe paper a bit so that they round up.
Step 3: Safety pin each leaf to the dress from the inside.
Voila!
TO MAKE THE MOUSE EARS
Materials: plain headband, grey felt, pink felt, pink felt, mouse ears template HERE
Step 1: Cut a piece of grey felt and wrap it around the plain headband and glue.
Step 2: Cut out the mouse ear templates and cut them out of the grey and the pink colors.
Step 3: Glue the mouse ears to the headband.
Step 4: Make a bow out of pink felt and glue it to the middle of the headband.
TO COMPLETE THE MOUSE COSTUME
Wear a pink dress (we used this cute dress from Old Navy. Only $20!), these purple tights, pink shoes
Photography by Lindsay Graviet | Crafting by Brittany Jepsen and Ashley Isenhour | Illustrations by Brittany Jepsen based on the book Chrysanthemum
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