Given the red and green festivities of this time of year, I made an elf costume. This how-to is no-sew. Not a single needle was used in the making of this ensemble.

Here’s what you need:
Turtleneck in green, red, or holiday pattern
Over large T-Shirt in a contrasting color
3 or 4 pieces of felt each in red and green
Festive ribbon or bric-a-brac
Pompoms
Colored or sparkly tights
Scissors
Fabric glue or hot glue
Paper and pen

Start by creating a fringe on the bottom edge of your t-shirt. I made a small triangle pattern from construction paper and traced it onto the inside of my shirt. I didn’t want any ink on the right side. Next I traced the pattern onto the sleeve edges. To finish the edges, simply cut out your pattern.

Next I cut out some of the width of the shirt. Since this is no sew, I glued the seam. It worked just fine. Then I cut up the middle of the front, but you don’t have to do this. You can make a 6-7 inch cut from the bottom. It’s to give the illusion of a jacket. Glue your ribbon down the center of the shirt. To accentuate the open jacket, make sure to attach the ribbon along the cut. Give it the elf whimsy by adding pompoms.

Trace a pointy elf shoe on the red square of felt. You may need two joined together to be long enough for your foot. My foot barely fit on one square. Trace the same pattern on the green felt. Cut out the shoe. Glue the pointy toe bit and sole together. Leave the ankle top open. It’s also good to leave the ankles open about an inch or two down so you can easily slip into the shoes. Add a little trim or pompoms if you’d like.

Last step is the hat. You have a couple options here. I went with a basic three point hat. All it takes is a cut from one side of a square of felt to the center of the same square of felt. Slide the edges over each other to create a little pointy hat. Or you can cut out large triangles from your squares of felt. Stick the pieces together to form a conical shape.

Voila! Once again all you need is some trim and pompoms.

Put it all together. Pull on your tights, turtleneck, shirt, and shoes. Have some fun with the makeup if you’d like. When I was a kid my mom would paint red circles on my cheeks. Grab your hat and you’re an elf.

Here’s the gallery of the finished elf costume.

Now go out and spread some holiday cheer.

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Tags: elf costume, no-sew, red and green

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under How to, costumes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.