Handmade Flamingo Costumes

This post could also be titled I'm too cheap for Pottery Barn.  My girlies decided that they wanted to be flamingos this year when they spotted this flamingo costume on PotteryBarnKids.com.  Now back when it was decision making time these were a whopping $59 a piece.  That's $118 for 2 flamingos that I couldn't help but notice were quite simple in design (this is the plague of having some sewing abilities, you know you could possibly make it for less than buying it!).  Having many a time learned my lesson that things are often more difficult then they seem I was pretty set on forking over the small fortune to save myself the stress . . . and it was in that state of mind that I innocently walked into JoAnn's (as I often do) only to find that their solid felt AND fleece fabrics were on sale for less than $3 a yard. . . ugh, the frugal couponer in me won the battle and I bought everything I'd need for BOTH costumes for around $20.  That's almost a hundred dollars of savings (a fact I had to keep reminding myself of as I reached for my seam ripper after sewing the largest seam on the garment and had to stop and rewind the bobbin only 6 inches shy of finishing).

For the bodies I just made very basic 3 piece vests: front and two pieces for back (cut out two sets each and lined them to avoid as much hemming as possible).  For the hoods I just traced a hoodie and used two layers of fleece so again, I didn't have to hem.  The wings are felt and sewn up in between the two layers of the hood.  There's a lot of velcro action going on and even though I measured my littlest flamingo has quite a snug fit but it only needed to really last one day :)

I used pink dish washing gloves with holes cut out in the palms to act as bird feet and that seemed to be the real crowd pleaser of the costume :) haha  All in all I'd have to call these a complete success!

I even got all ambitious and made daddy a palm tree :)

Hope you had a wonderful day!

I'm linking up with Naptime Crafters