I had the great pleasure of participating in the GISHWHES scavenger hunt this year--seriously, SO MUCH FUN! For one of the hunt items, we had to dress up as a Pokemon Bellossom, go to a Pokestop, and plant actual flowers.
Now, it's summer, and we live in Phoenix, and though my girls desperately want to play Pokemon Go, we've mostly done it in the car. It is just WAY too hot to walk around the neighborhood, at least for another month. But Niamh was outrageously excited to help me with this scavenger hunt item.
Dress up plus going on a Pokemon adventure? A seven year old's dream.
Pokemon Go Bellossom Costume Dress Materials:
- Dark green tulle, 5 yards
- green felt, 1 yard
- yellow felt, 1 yard
- elastic (enough to go around the chest of the costume-wearer)
I used my sewing machine to make a basic tutu, but you could definitely do the no-sew type of tutu in which you tie strips of tulle to a circle of elastic. If you have some extraordinarily basic sewing skills, though, I find it much easier to use the sewing machine.
When you buy tulle, it comes folded in half (that's how it's wrapped on the bold of fabric. I simply didn't unfold the fabric, and stitched a straight line to create a pocket for the elastic, then threaded my elastic through the channel.
Tip: If you pin a safety pin to the front end of the elastic, it's much easier to thread it through the tulle. Tip 2: If you safetey pin the other end of the elastic to your own shirt while you're doing this, you won't accidentally pull the end of the elastic into the fabric and have to start all over again.
Cut basic petal shapes out of the felt. I just eyeballed them, but they ended up being about 12" across, and 24" long. Cut eight petals total: four yellow and four green. A rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat makes this a really easy and quick process.
Use a needle and thread to hand-stitch the felt petals to the tutu, gathering the top of the petal slightly as you go along. Attach the felt ONLY to the tulle, not the elastic, part of the tutu, so the elastic will still be able to stretch. I'll bet you could use a hot glue gun for this, too, but if you do, be sure to use a low temperature glue gun, because the glue WILL stick to your fingers through the holes in the tulle.
Attach the four yellow petals first, on the four points of the compas. Sew the green petals on top of the yellow petals, centering each green petal between two yellow petals.
That's all there is to the dress! We could probably get away with just this here in Phoenix for Halloween (we had a tank top and shorts underneath), but in other, cooler parts of the country, I'd definitely get a green leotard to go under the dress. That would protect skin from itchy tulle, too.
The massive flower headband is the final crowning touch for the Bellossom costume.
I wandered around the craft store until I found something that looked like the center of the flowers. I ended up using the top half of a papier-mache cupcake shaped box for each flower. They only cost about $1 each, and are easy to paint with craft acrylic paint.
Once the yellow paint dried, I cut 8 petals of red felt, and hot glued them to the rounded bottom (what used to be the top of the cupcake).
I glued an inexpensive headband to the backside of the yellow flower center, then glued on a batch of felt to sandwich the headband inside for extra stability.
Repeat for the second flower, and you're ready to go plant some flowers or score some major candy on Halloween!