Costume Clinic Recap + DIY DracuLaura Costume #JPHalloween

A couple weeks ago I ran a costume clinic at the Charity Wings Art Center. Katie and I were available to help people create, repair, and reimagine their Halloween costumes. We helped sew a dress for a Big Trouble in Little China costume, made an owl with a girl to go with her Harry Potter costume, made a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory inspired costume, and created a DIY Monster High DracuLaura costume for a little girl. It was a lot of fun. We did it all at the Charity Wings Art Center! The Charity Wings Art Center is located at the Quad on Cal State University San Marcos, offering sewing machines, craft supplies, metalsmithing, pottery, and other arts and crafts tools to make your imagination come to life.

You can join the Art Center as a member whether you are local to San Marcos, CA, in the greater San Diego area, or not. There are a variety of memberships available – this place is great for:

School projects
Crops and scrapbooking with friends
Learning new skills in their classes
Getting to use machines that might be to expensive to own or operate on your own, like kilns and professional embroidery machines
And more!

I have been a Charity Wings supporter for many years and was really excited to see them make the move to the Quad at CSUSM. The new facilities are very nice and open and comfortable to work in. Check out more about Charity Wings here:

While at the Costume Clinic, we created a fun Monster High doll inspired costume for the character DracuLaura. Today I am going to share how we made the DIY DracuLaura costume using Kunin Group Felt. This post is sponsored by Kunin Group Felt, who also donated the felt available at the Charity Wings Art Center. I created a short fast tutorial on how we made this, over on my YouTube channel. Watch the video below:

The challenge here was taking a doll with a skimpy costume and translating that into a costume suitable for a little girl. We wrapped the legs with felt to make boot covers that look like the leggings and heels that DracuLaura wears, but that fit over comfortable tennis shoes. We also made a bodice with velcro in the back to mimic the bodice on the doll with without boning so it is comfortable to wear. I sewed the trims and velcro onto the costume but you can glue it too. Finally, we made a tutu with shredded tulle and ribbons, tied to a piece of elastic, that looks like the skirt DracuLaura wears. Here's all the steps: