Madeline costume....And a desperate plea for help.

I LOVE making gifts for my nephews and niece. ( and I will Love making gifts for my son too. Although, right now, he is only 6 weeks old)

My niece is the " Princess of the family" She is 4, the only girl in the family, and she is also adorable. 

Audrey has a great amount of princess dress up clothes.  What a great idea to make her a costume that would introduce her to a literary character.

 I chose ...

Madeline!

I also purchased a Madeline book, just in case she was not familiar with Madeline.

I have been starting to sew some simple things.  I don't have a sewing machine, but trying to decide if I should get one.  My mom brought hers with her when she visited for  Thanksgiving, and helped me with this project.

We found fleece remnants at the fabric store. for about a dollar apiece. With fleece, you don't have to hem the ends and its durable for a little girl to play in.

The Madeline dress is made out of a little girl PJ patternl  My mother has been sewing for a LONG time. She has pretty much every pattern you can imagine. 

The Madeline cape is made out of a basic children's cape pattern. We then just added the white collar ( also fleece) and I hand stitched the ribbon on for the finishing touch.  

I measured the ribbon longer than I thought it needed to be.  If this is too long, it can always be cut.

Here is the finished product.....Almost finished.

Initially, when I posted my Madeline costume, I posted a plea of help in the blog world.  How would I make Madeline's hat that goes with this costume?  You guys left some great comments below on how to make a yellow hat.  I looked into yellow hats, and straw hats.  

I ended up purchasing a straw hat from Hobby Lobby and sewing on black ribbon.  I could have done more with Madeline's hat, but I had a 2 month old at the time and I didn't have time to visit this further. 

And lastly, here is a Eiffel tower made from a pipe cleaner. This is from my " breakfast toppers" post.  I just thought this would be cute to incorporate into the gift wrap somehow. Also would be a cute cupcake topper for a Madeline themed party.

Happy Holiday crafting everyone!!