Queen of Hearts Costume

As I mentioned a while ago, my daughter decided to make a Queen of Hearts costume for Halloween. It's all finished now, and she has raced back to see her friends in their old university town to celebrate Halloween tonight.

She found the inspiration for the costume on Pinterest, and if you search for Queen of Hearts yourself, you'll see all kinds of variations for this costume ... even zombified! The zombie queens were just a little too horrific for either of us, and she (thankfully) opted for something more fun.

My daughter made the top bodice portion by gluing playing cards over a tank top she bought at the thrift store for $3. She put the tank top on, and then using a glue gun started gluing the cards in place all around. I didn't help with any of that part, and she says she only burnt herself slightly once. ouch! I honestly forgot to ask her how she managed to glue the cards on the back, but maybe she took the top off to do them. Some people used only red cards, or only red heart cards, but my daughter decided she wanted both the black and red cards. Once she got to her natural waist, she first folded the cards in half cross-wise before gluing them on. This flared the cards outwards and gave her a little comfort to sit down.

She left a vertical space down the back where I was asked to cut the tank top from top to bottom. Then she punched holes in the cards and the tank top together down both sides of that cut. The holes were a little rough looking, and I begged her to let me make some buttonholes on the sewing machine before she even started gluing the cards on. But! (and you may already know this) kids can be stubborn when they just want to do things themselves. The argument grew, and finally her also-stubborn mother realized it probably didn't matter, and left her to work on it her way.

Once all the holes were punched, she took some grosgrain ribbon and threaded it through the holes on each side like a shoe. This lacing enables you to get the top on and off. She left two feet of extra lace on each side to help get this part opened up again. Some of the holes in the cards did rip, so she just reinforced all the punched cards with duct tape wrapped along the edge (both front & back).

I was left to sew the skirt, which was supposed to be "tutu" style. I have never sewn a tutu, and I don't think it turned out exactly as she had hoped. But it's only a costume for the night, and it's done, and I hope I am never asked to sew another costume again.

Here's the final result ...

You can see that the skirt didn't flare out like a proper tutu, and I think I maybe didn't use the right fabric for that.

My daughter also made this rose from playing cards following a tutorial she found on Pinterest and glued it onto a wooden skewer. I think it looks great!

I quickly made this "brooch" from some leftover lace. Seeing it now I think it would look better with some sparkly red jewel glued to the centre. We just hot glued this directly onto her costume.

And that's it!

Of course I left the finishing of this skirt to the very last minute, and had troubles with it (doing the gathers the gathering thread kept breaking!). I spent all day working on it from 6:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and had had quite enough of it by then. If anything could go wrong, it did! Glad it's done and she's happy with it ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

Wendy