Le Muerte

My daughter Ava decided she wanted to be her favorite
character from the movie The Book of Life, Le Muerte. And I was all for that
because that meant one less Queen Elsa on the streets! The daunting project
began with a simple adult size red party dress, obviously too big for a 6 year
old. I wish I had taken a picture of it before I started the alterations! It
was a size 6, long sleeve, knee length (but not on her), open back, low cut
dress. But the color was right and it was something I could work with.

I started by closing the open back with a zipper, the first
zipper I've ever sewn! That made the dress fit around my daughter nicely. Next
I needed to add a little "Poof" the top of the sleeve and I did that
by just gathering the fabric and hand sewing it. I then cut the sleeve length
just above her elbow and added a chiffon trim. With the left over fabric from
the sleeves I added a section across the chest to change the neck line from the
low cut. I still had enough sleeve fabric so I cut slits up both sides from the
bottom of the dress and added a triangle to each so she could walk easier, and
it gave the dress a little flare. Finally the sewing was done!

Now to the fun part! I attached a long yellow boa, with
thread and some hot glue, around the waist and down the front of the dress. I
use a boa for filler because the dress would have been too heavy if I had use
all flower like the cartoon character has. Next I hot glued small yellow rose
onto the boa and dress, randomly. I also glued the roses along the neck line at
this time, adding one large rose in the center of the neck line. I then added
larger roses at the base of the dress, also in the boa. After I was done gluing
all the flowers on, I gave the boa a haircut so the concentration was the roses
and not the feathers. For the next step, I prepped ahead by spray painting gray
plastic skulls a bright white and added a little glitter. I glued the plastic
skulls randomly among the roses and boa towards the bottom of the dress. The
dress part was done, now on to the hat!

I started with a hat I found at a Halloween store. It was
all black with red ball fringe, perfect! The first step was to add small skull
beads between all the red balls on the fringe, which I found at a craft store
but they were the wrong color so I also prepped these skulls by spray painting
them white. I sewed them onto the hat with embroidery floss. Before I worked
anymore on the hat itself I needed to create the candles to around the brim. To
do this I bought some paper straws and cut them into 2" pieces. I could
not find just white straws so I spray painted them all white. Next I took mini,
battery operated, Christmas lights and inserted them into each straw piece just
until the bulb came out the other end. When I got all the lights in the straw
pieces, I then hot glued them along the brim of the hat so they would stand up
straight. I left the last 5 light loose, unattached for a latter step. I also
glued the battery pack on the very top of the hat. Next I covered the green
light cord with red ribbon, gluing it in place over the top all the way around
the hat.

After that was done I then took another yellow boa and glued
it around the head section of the hat, all the way onto the top, covering the
battery pack. Once the boa was on I gave it a haircut to take off some of the
bulk and fluff. Next I randomly glued on small yellow roses in the boa. Then I
took the extra lights/candles, that I left un-attached, and glued 3 of them on
the very top of the hat and hid the other 2 inside the boa. I added two rose
leaf clusters behind the candles on top. Then I attached two large pink roses
on either side of the hat, and two large yellow rose under the hat, above the
ears. I then glued on the small white skulls into the boa on the front side of
the hat. It was almost done, but I felt it needed one last touch. I melted
white candle wax down each straw so they looked like real candles.

The hat was done! Now just 2 more details. I made a choker
necklace with a red ribbon and one of the small yellow rose attached to a chain
so it dangled. And for the last detail I made two bracelets by gluing the small
yellow rose onto elastic bands I tied to fit her wrists. Game Day! It took
about 20 minutes to do her make up. And we did it several times for various
Halloween parties throughout the week. Each time I started with white face
paint but by Halloween I realized that her face is naturally vary white and
that was an extra step we did not need to take. She had so many compliments and
people stopped in their tracts to take a look at her costume. I'm so very happy
with how it turned out and that I took the time to create something special and
original for Ava! She was so happy!