Tristy Lee- DIY | Home Decor | Art | Project Inspiration
Are you looking for DIY Halloween costume ideas? Lily, my 3-year-old, changes her mind about what she wants to be for Halloween with every new movie where she falls in love. This year it started out with Trolls World Tour. She wanted to be the rocker troll. I was excited because I didn’t think it would be that hard. The new live-action Mulan came out, and a few minutes into the movie, you are introduced to the original character Xian Lang.
The minute Lily saw her graceful fighting skills and her transformation into a falcon, she said, “I want to be the bird lady for Halloween.” Okay, so if you have seen the movie, you will know why I virtually stopped breathing, and throughout the film, she kept telling me how she was going fly like her, wear makeup like her, and she kept showing me how to make her cool moves in front of the TV. So I had to come up with a way to do a DIY Mulan inspired Xian Lang costume.
DIY MULAN- XIAN LANG COSTUME INSPIRATION:
If you have following our blog for a while, you know that I am always game to try something new, and I’m up for a challenge, but I can’t sew to save my life, so this was so out of my depth. That has never stopped me before, and it didn’t matter today. When I start a project where I am not sure how to do it, I think about people who have experience doing similar things and consulting with them. My mom, Joan Atwood, has been sewing all my life and has created many past costumes. She was coming up in a few days to visit with Lily. When she came up, I told her about what Lily wanted to be for Halloween, and they watched the movie together. She worked on the Skeleton Pillar with me the week before, so she knew I had some leftover skeleton spiders, and while we were watching, said we can do the crown out of those. So off to the fabric store we went.
Did I mention that we did this entire project without sewing!!!
HOW-TO CREATE YOUR DIY MULAN INSPIRED XIAN LANG COSTUME: FULL TUTORIAL
DIY KIDS HALLOWEEN COSTUME SUPPLIES:
Skeleton Spiders (2)
Skeleton Birds (2)
Black or Brown Vinyl 1/2 Yard
Lightweight scarf-like material decorative 1/2Yard
Hot Glue Gun and Glue
E6000 Craft Glue
Feathers
Feather Appliques (2)
Fabric decorated bracer | Arm Bands
Elastic 2 in wide black elastic
Ribbon Black
How-to steps for your DIY Kids Costume inspired by Xian Lang
DIY Xian Lang Inspired HEadband:
1. Measure the distance around your child’s head with the elastic to fit around snuggly but not tight.
2. Use the hot glue to adhere the elastic into a circle.
3. We used two skeleton birds. We used some wire cutters to deconstruct them, cutting out the wings, head, tail, and feet to use on the crown.
4. We played with several layouts to create our final look for the crown.
Glue the bird parts to the elastic with E6000 craft glue
DIY Xian Lang Inspired Chest Peice:
1. Use a garbage sack, or piece of plastic painter’s drop cloth to create a pattern. To make the pattern, we held the bag up to lily and marked her shoulders’ width and where we wanted the head’s opening. We also kept the length and width of the torso. ( I’m so glad my mom, Joan, was here for this part. I would not have thought to start with a pattern.)
2. We cut it out and tried it on. Amazingly it was pretty close on the first try. We did adjust the width. It was too wide on the first cut.
Next, we deconstructed a spider to use the long legs, and another bird skull to create a layout and pattern for the chest piece design.
DIY XIAN LANG INSPIRED SLEEVES
1. Next, we use a garbage bag again to create the pattern for the sleeves. We helped up the garbage bag to Lily’s shoulders and marked the width for the draping sleeves. I wanted her to be able to use her hands, so we made the decision to leave the sleeves as open. If you watch the movie, her sleeves drape on the ground and have a wide opening.
2. We wanted to keep it safe, so we went slightly above the ground and created a wide triangle at the bottom.
3. Then, we tried the pattern to make sure we liked the shape, and we did.
4. After that, we used the pattern to cut the sleeves out of the lightweight decorative fabric.
5. Then, we used hot glue to attach the sleeved to the shoulders, gluing it underneath to give it a clean look.
6. To finish the look off, we added the feather appliques to the top of the shoulders.
DIY Xian Lang Inspired Warrior Leggings
1. We wanted to make the Costume so it could go over some leggings and long sleeve black teeshirt.
2. Start off by measuring and cutting a piece of the 2 in elastic to fit around your child’s waist.
3. Then glue it with hot glue
4. Next, we created a pattern for the open leggings we wanted to make.
5. The way we created for each side was similar to the letter W to wrap around the waist.
6. After we tried on the design and adjusted it by cutting it down, we cut the final shape out of vinyl.
7. Then, we glued the vinyl to the elastic waistband to the pants, ensuring the vinyl’s side that shows is covered by the band.
8. Next, we used hot glue to attach feathers to the full leggings.
9. Finally, we finished off the waistband with some of the wings deconstructed from the birds.
DIY Xian Lang inspired Bracers:
1. This is the perfect time of year to look at your fabric shops for unique pieces. We found these pre-assembled arm bracers make of fabric with great details.
2. Next came the easy part. We used some 1/4 in elastic to attach to the wrist and forearm, measuring to fit loosely to fit over a teeshirt.
FINAL DIY HALLOWEEN XIAN LANG INSPIRED COSTUME FROM MULAN:
I could not be more excited about the final product. She put it on and sat patiently while I put on her makeup. She thought she was the real thing. She had such a serious face as she ran around, pretending to fly like a falcon and making her best fighting moves. She wants to wear it every day. She will definitely be wearing this more than once since her favorite place is Evermore in Utah County wear you can dress up every time you attend. I can’t believe we did this whole Costume without sewing, and it is so fun to challenge yourself to get creative. If you decide to try this for Halloween, we would love to see your costumes.
TELLING YOUR STORY THROUGH DÉCOR:
Making things to display for the holidays is a great way to give your home decor instant memories and story. It is impossible to not think of loved ones and the fun times spent creating things together. Please share ideas and pictures of your Witch Shoes and how you display them.
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