Christmas Elf Tutu

In light of the Christmas Season my friend and I decided to make elf costumes to wear to work. The tutu itself was super easy to make and requires approximately only an hour of your time. Who says you have to be a cute newborn to wear a tutu?! Here is a list of things you will need to create this adult sized tutu:

• 1 reel of 6" Emerald tulle, 100 yards
• 1 reel of 6" Red tulle, 100 yards (You will use approximately half of this reel depending on how full you want your tutu.)
• 1 reel of 2.25" Black Double Faced Satin Ribbon, 3 yards (I used all three yards in order to create a full bow when tying the ribbon together.)
• pair of scissors

Remember you can use whatever color of tulle that you want! :) To begin with, you will need to measure how long you want your tutu to be-- I used the Emerald Tulle as my base color.  In measuring mine, I held one end of the tulle at my waist and from there decided on the length. I settled with two to three inches below my knee. DO NOT cut the tulle at that length!! You will need to double that in order to keep the length that you desired. After you've doubled the length you can then cut the tulle. While holding one end of the strip of tulle you just cut measure it along the tulle that is still on the reel. Continue to do so until you've acquired a large amount of strips, or until you run out of emerald tulle. Now lets focus on how we are going to keep your tutu on. Take the Double Faced Satin Ribbon and measure around your waist, tying a knot on each side to measure the end of your waist size. The area between these two knots will be the area that will need filled in by the tulle.  This step can be done before you start measuring your tulle depending on your personal preference. The next step is to begin "tying" our strips of tulle onto the satin ribbon. In order to do this, fold one strip of tulle in half evenly forming a loop at one end. Hold the tulle behind the satin and then taking the opposite end pull it through the loop forming a slip knot around your satin ribbon. Repeat this process until you have filled in the space between the two knots, pull the tulle tight enough to ensure that the slip knots won't come undone. Don't worry if the space between the knots on the satin isn't completely filled in, because you will be going back over it with your red tulle. We're almost done!!! :) Start by measuring out the desired length of red tulle as you did above with the emerald, except this time you will make the red strips a few inches shorter than that of the emerald. I used knee length for mine. Now it's time to start cutting again! Remember you won't need to use the whole reel. Approximately half would be enough, don't worry your tutu will be super poofy!! After you've measured out enough red strips, let's start adding them! Using the same slip knot technique, knot one red strip after two of the emerald ones. Continue this process until you've run out of strips, or you have reached your desired look. Now you're done knotting tulle! We thought it would be fun to "jingle" around the warehouse, so we tied a handful of jingle bells to the bottoms of some of the tulle strips. I took the knots off the ends of my satin ribbon so that i would be able to tie the tutu around my waist as tight as I could. Now all that's left to do is TRY IT ON!!!! 

Now just imagine how cute you are going to look wearing your tutu! This technique can also be used on kids. You will just have to adjust according to their measurements. Thanks so much for reading!! Feel free to add pictures of your creations to our gallery page!!

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