DIY

DIY Inuyasha Halloween Cosplay Costume

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My tween/teens have been watching a lot of animes lately and one of them is Inuyasha. My daughter decided she wanted to make an Inuyasha costume for her youngest brother for his birthday. Plus, it will double as a Halloween costume.

She only bought two things – the wig (although she did try to make one with white yarn – it just proved too time consuming) and the katana (Tetsusaiga in it’s smaller form). We were hoping to find one at Dollar Tree, but no such luck. Maybe when it’s closer to Halloween season.

The necklace was made from oven bake clay. We found a one pound block at WalMart for around $6. The beads are about 1″ in diameter and she used a large needle to make a hole through them prior to baking. Make sure that they bake long enough! The first ones apparently didn’t and then after they were painted they stayed tacky. The teeth have nothing on them. We tried ModPodge, but it stayed super sticky so those got remade too. She threaded the necklace on a piece of fishing line. The necklace is heavy so we will make a cloth sleeve to go around the string at the back so it doesn’t hurt his neck. It will be hidden by the wig.

We used a scrap of white craft foam to make the dog ears. Cut a slit in the bottom of the ears and then hot melt glue the edges to help them stay in a curved shape. The fuzz is white and pink yarn that was pulled apart and then hot melt glued to the ears. The ears were then hot melt glued to the clear headband (also bought at WalMart).

The pants and shirt were made from some fabric we found at, you guessed it, WalMart. It’s similar to this one. The one we used is heavier, but any knit fabric with some drape will work. The pattern came from several different patterns that I mashed together. The pants can be made using a pajama pants pattern. There’s a free one available in youth and adult sizes. They need to be baggy and a bit long. Putting elastic around the ankles helps give them the needed volume while keeping them from being tripped over. The pants will sag over the elastic and it won’t be seen.

The shirt was a bit more complicated. I used this pattern because it was one I had, however, any v-neck shirt will work. The shirt is cut big and the side seams are straight (my pattern has the side seams tapered in, but I wanted a baggy look). I cut the sleeves at an angle so they get bigger at the wrist instead of smaller.

The sleeves have a small white spot (a tear, maybe?) midway between the elbow and the shoulder. This is easiest to do before you sew up the sleeves. I folded the sleeves in half and cut a 3″ slit that was less than 1/2″ wide in the center. I then sewed a scrap of white fabric to the inside of the sleeve.

The black around the sleeve hems is a scrap of black fabric cut into strips about 1/2″ x 3″. I zigzag stitched them on, but you could probably glue them on too. The belt is 2″ wide and 7′ long.

I think the piece that we are proudest of is the Tetsusaiga! The hardest part was getting the shape right. Once we had that, everything else was relatively easy. Because we wanted the sword to be lightweight, but also not flexible we used 1″ rigid foam board (we got ours from Home Depot). It’s covered with craft foam. We bought a 2mm sheet at JoAnns (I think it was 24″x40″ and was around $10 on sale – there are almost always coupons available if it isn’t on sale). We were able to cut both pieces out of it. We cut them about 2″ too big so that there was room to glue them together around the edges and then trimmed off the excess. The whole thing is painted silver.

The handle is a 1/2″ dowel about 16″ long. We drilled a hole into the rigid foam board and put some super glue on the dowel and pushed it into the foam. The dowel is then covered with craft foam and then wrapped with strips of black fabric.

The fluff around the handle is yarn that was separated into strands and then tied in bunches and hot melt glued to the sword. It also helps hide the edge that isn’t finished.

Do you have any questions? Let me know in the comments. Happy sewing!

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Upcycling T-shirts into Pillows

My husband had these shirts that he really likes but they were just too hot to wear in SWFL. He hated to get rid of them and definitely didn’t want to throw them out. They sat in my pile of stuff to do something with for quite a while (probably close to two years!).

Last November, I bought some new pillows on Black Friday to replace our flat pillows. I washed and dried the old pillows and then added them to my pile of stuff to do something with sometime. Then, I had an “a-ha” moment and knew what to do with the shirts and pillows – make pillows for the sofa.

I measured the pillow (folded in half) and then measured the shirt. Happily the pillow would fit in a case made of the front of the shirt. For a smaller shirt, you would need to use the front and back.

Sew around both sides and then 3-4 inches across them top on each side so you have an opening to turn it right side out.

To square the corners, I flattened the corner by matching the seams and then sewing across it a couple inches down.

Next, stuff the pillow into the case.

The last step is to close up the opening. I normally do everything I can to avoid hand sewing, but this is one of those cases where it just can’t be helped if you want a neat finish.

Tuck the raw edges in and clip or pin the opening shut.

A quick demonstration of how I close up the pillow.

Admire your new pillows.

Reviving Fitted Sheets

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There’s nothing quite as annoying as a fitted sheet that just won’t stay, well, fitted! Waking up in the night with a corner undone and the sheet bunched up under you is not restful. Having to put the sheet back on every morning is just frustrating.

This corner should be fitted not flat

Fixing this is actually really easy and if you’re new to sewing, don’t worry. No one will see it when it’s done – it’ll be tucked under your mattress where it belongs. All you need is some elastic – 1/4″ would be best, but 3/8″ will work too. Anything bigger would be too bulky.

Use .25" elastic

Then you need to figure out how much elastic you need. Measure another corner (hopefully all your corners aren’t flat). Currently the elastic goes about 11″ beyond the corner. I decided that I want mine to go 15″ beyond to hopefully help it stay in place better. I’m very exact when I measure elastic….no, I’m really not! I held one end of the elastic at the 15″ mark and gently stretched it to the end of the tape measure. Then I doubled it so it would stretch from one end to the other. Mine ended up being around 18.”

Measure the current elastic

Fold the elastic in half and mark the middle (I use a highlighter). Clip it to the seam at the corner.

Clip the middle of the elastic tothe seam

Measure from the corner seam out however far you cut your elastic (15″ in my case) and clip the end there. Do the same for the other end of the elastic.

Measure to see where to clip the end of the elastic

Here you can see how the elastic will need to be stretched as I sew.

Clip the elastic at the ends and in the middle

You want to sew the elastic with a stretch stitch or a zigzag so that stretching it doesn’t pop the stitches. You will also want a ball point needle otherwise your machine will make a mess of the elastic. Gently stretch the elastic as you sew. I hold the sheet and elastic near the middle clip and stretch from there so I get a nice even stretch.

Stretch the elastic and zigzag it

Next, admire your beautiful work. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect (mine looks a little wonky in spots) – no one will see it and it will still work!

Fitted sheet with elastic sewn in

Finally, make your bed and know that in the morning all the corners will still be tucked in.

The revived fitted sheet

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What to Do With Lemons

We have a lemon tree that produces an abundance of lemons every year. That would be great except we don’t care for lemons (or homemade lemonade) and even if we did, who can eat bags and bags of them? I hate to waste them so I’m constantly trying to figure out what to do with them. I normally give away as many as I can, juice some of them and freeze the juice in ice cube trays to have for baking or lemon water. After that, I’m lost and my compost heap is well fed.

Lemon Tree My sister-in-law gave me two great ideas! One was cookies – while I’m not a fan of lemon flavor, the rest of my family loves it. SIL found a cookie recipe and made them for us. They were actually pretty good….so I made a batch and they came out just as good! There are actually a bunch of recipes on her site that use lemons…I may have to try some of them out too.

Lemon cookies

She also found a recipe for dishwasher soap. I’ve made homemade laundry soap and use it from time to time (I’ve been finding great deals on my favorite brands at CVS so I haven’t made laundry soap in ages!). I made dishwasher soap once and it was a flop! It hardened and was a pain to measure out. This time, I only made a single batch and I followed the directions carefully. I’ve been using it for a couple weeks now and it works just as good as the name brand I normally buy. Plus it’s a whole lot cheaper! I didn’t have to buy anything (I had the coarse salt leftover from last time and the other stuff I had on hand). I will say that I did NOT strain my mixture. I don’t have a strainer, so I just blended it really, really well!

Making dish washer soap from lemons

I’ve been juicing lemons and freezing them in egg trays (I think my ice cube trays met with an unfortunate end), I’m going to chop up some lemons for future batches of dish soap, and I’m freezing some lemon peel for the cookies. I still need more ideas (seriously, we had at least 5 shopping bags full!), but I’m not putting as many lemons in my compost heap this year!

Juicing lemons

Do you like lemons? Any great ideas for what to do with an over abundance of them? I really do hate feeding them to my compost.

Lemon Tree

Homemade Dishwasher Soap

I’ve been wanting to try making dishwasher soap for a while and finally got around to buying the necessary ingredients. There are a lot of recipes out there, but I went with simple – Borax, washing soda, coarse salt, and citric acid. All items that can be found at your local store. I paid about $9 for everything but the Borax (which I already had). Borax is around $4 for a box.

The citric acid came in a 7.5 oz container which is almost one cup. So, I doubled the recipe (the original used 1/2 cup citric acid) because why just make a little bit when you’re testing something, right? Since I doubled it, it didn’t fit in my handy peanut butter jar. So, I had to rummage for another container. This one doesn’t seal very well so as soon as I use some up, I’m going to transfer it. If there’s a next time, I’ll only make a single batch.

It was really quite easy! Just dump all the ingredients together, stir them a bit, and it’s ready to use.

Recipe

1/2 C Citric Acid

1/2 C Coarse Salt

1 C Washing Soda

1 C Borax

Use 1 T per load.

When I figure out how much it cost to make it, I get about $2.45 for a single batch or about $.05/T. I’m not sure it’s any cheaper than the Palmolive Eco gel I normally buy.

What about you – do you make your own or buy it? Why?

Update – I didn’t like this as much as I wanted. It may be that because it wasn’t in an airtight container, it clumped up and made it hard to use. It wasn’t really any cheaper than my normal detergent so I never made it again.