Birthday TUTU-TUtorial

TUTU-TUTORIAL

When my daughter turned 1 I talked to a girlfriend of mine, who is a photographer part-time, and asked if she would do a photo shoot of Grace for me for her birthday, she happily obliged and did it for me for FREE!  I was so stoked!!  So, we planned what she should wear and we decided that with her strawberry blond/red hair we should do reds and turquoise (a favorite color scheme of mine)  I found most parts of the out fit and decided I wanted her to have an over-the-top tutu to wear for it!  

I wanted the tutu to have some depth so I went to the fabric store and bought a yard each of three different colors (light blue, a richer turquoise and a pretty green) of tulle that together would give a nice turquoise color with a lot of depth.  

 I had some ribbon that matched laying around and decided to add that too to give it a really whimsical feel.  I cut the tulle into strips about 3 inches wide and 12 inches long.   

 Note:  To make this tutu a little less crazy you could double the width of each strip of tulle and that would tame it down a little

Also I would highly suggest using a rotary cutter if you have one, it helps keep the cuts uniform

 So here we are all our pieces cut and ready

 I got a really nice spool of 1.5 inch thick satin red ribbon for the waist band of the tutu.  You first measure the waist (or hips) or whoever you are making the tutu for.  I added an extra 24 inches to that measurement and then cut my ribbon.  You then take your initial measurement of the waist of hips and center it on the ribbon and tie knots at either end to mark that point and leave plenty of extra on either end as seen below.  this also keeps the tulle and ribbon strips in the desired area.  

 Now you start tying on the strips.  It's best to decide on a pattern before you begin.  here are my first three pieces of tulle attached (sorry for this blurry pic) 

Here is a poorly drawn illustration of what I found to be the most effective method of attaching the ribbon and tulle strips to the Waist ribbon.

 I found that tying the waist ribbon to the back of another chair made it SOOO much easier to manage.

 see how the 3 colors together give it so much depth?

 I went back and added the ribbons after I finished applying all the tulle strips.  I love the way the ribbons make it look like a little fluffy party!  All the extra waist ribbon for tying is just awesome!  I'm glad I left a lot because it accents the crazy-ness of the rest of the tutu.

 SO CRAAZY!

 love these colors all together! 

Here's the cat being nosey as usual...  <3

 Fantastic!  I'm so proud!

All in all it took about 2 hours with all the prep work and putting it all together!  

I definitely plan to make more, maybe a Halloween themed one?

So for the rest of the outfit, I got a nice plain red long sleeve shirt and a slightly too big denim jacket.  (her Birthday is November 28th so it was chilly). I found some awesome tights at our local thrift store that were red white and pink striped, and obviously completely adorable.  And then her little white mary-janes. I let her wear my favorite turquoise necklace too.  

The pics turned out wonderful!

My Beautiful Girl

 Renee did such a fantastic job on these photos!  She really captured Gracie's personality!

 You should've seen her waddling in this thing!  lol

I had so much fun making this for her, and it still fits her now and she's almost 3! The effect is a little less intense now though since she is taller.  You could tell she loved this tutu though even though it was kind of a pain for her to get around in!  

If you have any questions or comments leave it in the comments section below!  

Thanks!

BTW this post was