Here is another couple costumes that I was able to complete with the good old hot glue gun. A duo you are sure to know, Link and his little fairy. My son is also an avid Link fan. He was set on the idea of dressing up as link one past Halloween and his baby sister had to be the fairy.
If you decide to construct a costume with your hot glue gun, it is a good idea to buy the material by the yard. Add an extra yard on top of what you plan to use, incase you make a boo boo. Be sure to look for material that does not ravel, when its cut. Once you find the right color material, you need to makeshift a type of pattern. This is easier than it sounds. Use one of your child’s shirts to gauge the size of the costume, because you will need a front and a backside. You will also want to make sure you double the material so that you have two exact pieces laying flat onto each other. Make sure the material is nice and flat, then overlay your child’s shirt flat on top of the doubled material. Use light marks to trace around the shirt. When tracing, be sure to leave 2-3 inches padding from the outer edge of the shirt and your trace lines. This extra padding helps to make space for the seams when assembling the costume pieces with hot glue. Oh, and one more little tip. If your material has a front and back side, then make sure before you glue to have your material laying with the outside facing you, so once you glue the seams together, you can flip your costume inside out and the seams will be clean and tucked in on the inside of the costume. You may want to stop and gauge the measurements based on the size of your kid as you progress in creating the costume, but wait till the hot glue becomes cool before doing so.
If you need to make a belt or something that needs to clasp, I recommend Velcro it makes for a quick simple solution. As far as the small details (belt buckle & boot straps) those were constructed from yellow paper and any designs on the buckle were quickly drawn on with a permanent marker. Oh darn, the shield you can’t see pictured, it is behind “Link”. It really came out cute. The shield was made from two sheets of white corrugated plastic held together, with duck tape on the edges. The front was decorated like Link’s red shield with the Triforce on the front. In between the two sheets of the corrugated plastic, there were two arm straps inserted between the layers so the shield could be held and supported by “Link’s” forearm. Once the other side of the shield was overlaid, the arms straps were hidden, allowing only “Link” to see the arm straps. The only thing missing besides the blonde hair was the pointy ears. I hunted everywhere, but I couldn't find small enough “elf ears” in the costume stores. I ended up using a small piece of clear tape to make a small point at the end of his ear. It worked out, and somehow it added to my sons perception of him dressing up as Link. He loved having pointy little ears. I loved the fact that we found a cost effective solution to the “elf ears”.
For the fairy, I purchased a pair of pink sparkle fairy wings. I didn’t want my daughter to be un-comfy, so I used a "Onesie" as the basis for the costume. I used a thick piece of ribbon to be the basis of the ribbon skirt. Basically I used a variety of pretty ribbons and attached them to the top of the thick ribbon. I worked my way around until I had enough ribbons attached to cover the circumference of my daughters waist. It turned out cute, comfy and simple!
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