Costume Crafting with Cookie’s Kids

As a crafter, I love making my kid clothes, and making Halloween costumes is especially fun. Last year I spent several hours over a week or so making the Bit’s Yoda costume, which was quite cute even though the hat didn’t fit and she started screaming before we even got to the next-door neighbor’s door.

This year, as my regular readers know, I’m in the last throws of a book deadline (seven weeks!) and don’t exactly have time for crafting of any sort, especially not days sewing a costume. This is also the first year the Bit has an opinion about what she wants to be, and boy has she had some opinions.

A Brief History of Halloween Costume Ideas

First off she said she wanted to be an apple. An apple? I kept asking until she changed her mind.

Next it was a princess. That I can deal with, I thought. Then she said “a brown and pink polka dot princess.” What is with this kid? Still, I figured I could buy some pink pants and shoes, make a quick cute skirt (I even picked one out on Pinterest) and a top if I had to.

I was thinking about this pink and brown princess thing, but I asked her again just to be sure.

“I want to be a butterfly.”

Really? Yes. A yellow butterfly, she tells me.

OK. Cool. Really? I’m going shopping. Yes.

Taking Help from the Store, aka #CookiesKids to the Rescue

So last Sunday night, after the girl was asleep so she couldn’t change her mind again, I headed to Cookie’s Kids, the online component of a chain of New York-area department stores for kids (their seven stores are located in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Jamaica if you happen to be up that way). A lot of their livelihood seems to come from selling school uniforms, but they have a wide selection of other clothes and shoes (and some toys) for babies and kids up to size 16 for girls and 20 for boys.

You can learn more about Cookie’s Kids, by the way, by checking them out on Facebook and Twitter.

Navigation is easy through a drop-down menu when you hover over the department you need, in my case girls 2T-4T. Each category within that menu breaks down further, say from bottoms to leggings.

In my case it was awesome that you can limit your search to a particular color, so I was quickly able to see there was not a lot in the way of yellow tops and bottoms. I went ahead and bought the bedazzled yellow leggings I could find, since they were only $3.99, but I was skeptical of the brightness of the color depicted in the picture (and, sure enough, in real life they are highlighter yellow. Thankfully I didn’t end up needing them, as you’ll see).

It turned out that the best place to search for me was actually in the sets, which provide multiple pieces at a great value. In addition to the scary yellow pants, I picked up a set with black pants, yellow shirt and a sparkly chevron top to wear over the yellow shirt as well as a set with a black top and bottom and a houndstooth shirt to wear on top (at least my girl is stylish!). I figured I could convince her to be a monarch butterfly with a black body and orange wings. Buying sets like this you’re assured the clothes won’t look like they were just bought for a Halloween costume and you’ll still get plenty of use out of them throughout the season.

I liked that you could see a bigger image of the outfit to get a good look at what you were choosing. I also scored a pair of black shoes with a floral theme, because she needed some that weren’t all scuffed up.

Checkout was quick and easy but be warned: you will get a lot of e-mail from this company. On Sunday alone I got three different messages.

Making a Costume

The gentle art of motherly persuasion was used to convince the Bit she wanted to be a black and orange butterfly instead of a yellow butterfly (I pulled the Elmo card, I’ll admit it). When the package came and I told her it was clothes for her Halloween costume, she was so excited she wanted to wash them right away. She even watched the machine go for a while. She didn’t quite get that putting on those clothes would not a butterfly make.

I knew that I would have to get the pieces together the next day so she could try it on after school. I initially wanted to craft wings (I was planning to go with these from Martha Stewart) as well as an orange and black tutu. But when I saw the Halloween costume supplies were 40 percent off at my local craft store, I grabbed a pair of orange wings for $5.99, deciding my time was more valuable than that right now.

I did buy three yards each of black and orange tulle, as well as a pack of three-quarter inch elastic. I’ve done a tutu tutorial in the past, and this one was basically the same, though I did learn a trick from Pinterest I want to share, but this post is way too long as it is, so that’ll be for another day.

The other fun thing I picked up was a butterfly pin from the floral section. I pulled out the wire that would normally be used to attach it to a wreath or something and glued it to an orange headband. Hysterical.

The Bit dubbed it “humongous.” But I think she secretly liked it.

No matter which way you look at it, this Halloween costume is pretty darn adorable, and thanks to the help from Cookie’s Kids (and the craft store) it only took me about an hour to craft my girl an adorable, one-of-a-kind costume. Now I can get back to my book!

Go Shopping on Me!

You can see lots more of my shopping adventure in my Google+ Cookie’s Kids Shopping Album. Or, go have a shopping spree of your own with a little help from me.

Now through the end of November (that’s 11/30/12) you can get 10 percent off sitewide — that’s clothes, toys, baby gear, whatever you want. Get a jump on Christmas shopping or build your own Halloween costume for kids out of these great raw materials. All you have to do is click that link right there and you’ll automatically get the deal when you check out. Awesome, huh?

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and CookiesKids.com #CBias #SocialFabric, but no one pays me to have an opinion.