I always dreamed of having a little girl & dressing her up in frilly tutus. Well I got my wish & we have so much fun! Tutus aren’t always cheap, so I’m sharing with you how to make them yourself! These tutus are so easy to make that you will never go out & spend a ridiculous amount of money of a tutu again! I’m going to show you how!
My 1st attempt at making a tutu for my little girl was for her pink princess 1st birthday party. It turned out so well that I decided to do it again for her deer Halloween costume!
Here is what you need:
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- Elastic: 1/2-1 inch
- Tulle: Order tulle on Amazon if you like to order online OR Hobby Lobby has the best choices in my opinion! You will want the 6″ rolls & they are usually 25 yards. Pick how ever many colors you want! I like 1-3 colors
- Needle & thread: to sew together your elastic waistband OR you can totally hot glue it together for a complete no sew tutu. Note: I glued mine for her bday & it came undone. I chose to sew it for Halloween & it was much better…just an FYI on my experience.
- Scissors
- 2 pieces of cardboard: Cereal boxes are great for this
- Tape measure
- White felt if doing deer tutu
Directions:
- Measure your little one’s waist to determine size & length of tutu. Cut your elastic about an inch longer than your desired waist line. Then you can tie the elastic ends together or hot glue for no sew method OR sew the ends together. (my preferred way, & the most comfortable & secure) Refer to size guide as a general reference
- Next you need cardboard. Any cardboard will do, I used cereal boxes. You will need 2 identical pieces measuring wider than your tulle. Your tulle is 6″ wide so I suggest at least 8″ or more. Then the length will be 1/2″ longer than your desired tutu length. I wanted my tutu to be approx 10″ long so I made the cardboard length 10 1/2″.
- You will place the 2 pieces of cardboard together & wrap your tulle around them which I demonstrate in the video below. I used about 60 strips of tulle for Emmy’s tutu. If you are using 3 colors equally then you need to have 20 strips per color. That means you need to do as many wraps around the cardboard as strips that you need. For this particular deer tutu I didn’t need quite as many white. If you are only doing 1 color then you need to do 60 wraps around the cardboard for 60 strips of tulle. etc. I know it sounds like a lot but this is what is going to make the tutu full. And obviously if you are making one for a smaller child you will need less strips etc.
And then you cut…
Tying the Tulle:
Put your elastic around your cardboard or a book. Take 3 layers of tulle, lay them on top of each other & fold them in half. Slide the folded middle part under the elastic about an inch and take the ends of the tulle, pull them over the elastic & through the loop to form a knot. Gently tighten. If using multiple colors, I like to alternate which color of tulle I start with. Continue tying your tulle knots all the way around the elastic. For my deer tutu I used a brown, lighter glimmer brown, and white. Fluff your tutu by gently pulling apart the pieces of tulle.
See? Super easy right? You just made a tutu!!
Now if you are making a deer tutu like I did, these are the additional steps:
- Take a sheet of white felt & draw circles. I used my coffee K-cups to trace because they were the perfect size!
- Cut out circles with scissors.
- Hot glue the circles onto tutu in sporadic places. Now you have deer spots!
Emmy had so much fun spinning around in her tutu on Halloween. She got SO many compliments on her costume. Check out our Halloween Day here! Have you tried this to make your own? I’d love to see pics!
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