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Can you believe it’s almost halloween? I’m proud that I’m actually ahead of the game this year which is why I’m sharing this DIY unicorn costume tutu!  The past few years my daughter has been happy with being Minnie Mouse or a Disney Princess so we just headed to the Disney store for her costumes, but this year, she had several ideas that required me to be a bit more creative.

EASY DIY UNICORN COSTUME FOR MOMMY AND DAUGHTER

She’s been obsessed with unicorns, as well as all her friends (every birthday party we’ve been to lately is unicorn themed, including hers!) and I knew I wanted to make the unicorn costume. I’m also realistic and know that I don’t have that much time nor did I want to spend a ton of money so I wanted something easy to make and comfy for her to wear.  This costume fit all that criteria!

DIY UNICORN TUTU COSTUME

I got the idea to make a DIY unicorn tutu and it turned out so cute!  You really don’t need many supplies and the part that takes the longest is dyeing the tulle but everything else comes together so fast!  I didn’t want to buy the tulle skirt as I wanted to glitter it and didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a skirt that she probably would just wear for the costume.

I partnered with Rit Dye on my instagram and they had sent over a few bottles of dye that I could use.  I’ve never dyed tulle before so I was a bit nervous but the project was a lot easier than I had anticipated!

Materials for the DIY Unicorn Costume:

• Rit Dye in various pinks and purples
• White Tulle – the one on the spool is preferred
• Measuring Tape
• Scissors
• Glitter
• Mod Podge
• Foam Brush
• White Ribbon (not pictured): 1 or wider inch preferred
• White long sleeve tee
• White Leggings
• Unicorn Horn (this one with flowers is so cute!)

DIY Glitter Unicorn Tutu Tutorial

Measure your child’s waist and how far down from the waist you want your tutu to fall.

For the ribbon –

Take the measurement of the waist and then triple it and then add 6 inches.   My daughter’s waist is 21 inches and I cut my ribbon 69 inches (21 x 3 = 63 + 6 = 69).  Adjust as you need but this gave me the right amount of ribbon to be able to tie it on her waist easily.

Find the center of the ribbon by folding it in half and then measure out from there to get the waist measurement.  So half of 21 is 10.5 so I measured that out from the center and then marked it with a pen.  I knotted both spots that I marked so that the area in between should be the measurement of the waist.

For the tulle –

Take the measurement of how long you want the skirt to be and then double it.  I measured 12 inches from her waist down so I cut my strips of tulle at 24 inches.  If you buy the tulle on the spool like I did (rather than the the full yard of tulle like you get at the fabric store) it makes it go by faster.  But if you do buy the tulle by the yard, just cut out 6 inch strips first before you cut the length of the tulle for the skirt.

I ended up cutting about 120 strips.  Since I was dying my tulle different colors, I wanted to make sure that I had enough. Obviously this is going to be different for you depending on the waist measurement.  I think I ended up using around 100 strips total and the skirt was quite full and fluffy.

Dying the tulle – 

Follow the directions on the bottle depending on how much fabric you are dying.  I filled up a big pot of water and put in half the bottle of dye and let it come up to a boil.  Pull the pot off the heat and then put in the strips of tulle, I made sure that I pulled them apart and put them in one by one to avoid them sticking together and creating uneven spots in the dye. Continue stirring so that every piece would be covered and evenly dyed.  With tulle it’s a bit hard to tell how much dye is getting on there as you pull a piece up and it basically is see through!  I kept on checking and trying to figure out if it was pink enough.  I ended up letting it soak for over 30 minutes with continual stirring.  When I pulled it out it, it was a really pretty shade of light pink which obviously as you can see in the photo below, the dye makes it look like it will come out a lot darker!  Do the same steps for the remaining colors that you want to dye.

Let the strips of tulle dry.  I used our clothes drying rack (the one we have is huge so it fit all the strips perfectly) making sure to add plastic or newspapers underneath in case the dye drips.  Luckily the tulle dries very fast so I could move on to glittering!

How to glitter tulle –

I used a mixture of glitter and modpodge – similar to my glitter everything tutorial – to add the glitter to the tulle.  Lay the strips down on the floor (we had plastic covering on the floor to make it easier to clean up) and used a foam brush to paint the mod podge/glitter mixture on the tulle strips.  I got my daughter involved in the process and she loved it!

Let the strips dry – I just placed them on the clothes drying rack so that they wouldn’t stick to each other.  The next morning they were ready to go!

HER OUTFIT: TEE \\ LEGGINGS \\ SHOES \\ PUMPKIN \\ UNICORN HORN
MY OUTFIT: DRESS \\ SHOES

Making the DIY Tulle Tutu Skirt – 

Fold the tulle strip in half and slide it underneath the ribbon.  Make sure to start at the end that you knotted so you know where to begin/end.  Loop the long ends of the tulle into the little loop that you had created and pull tight.  This part is a bit hard to explain but if you watch this tutorial, it’s a lot more helpful! I alternated colors of tulle so that it would be a pretty mix.  This process goes by fast once you get the hang of it. I think I made her skirt in less than 20 minutes.

Pop on the skirt to make sure that it’s the fullness that you like and add or take away strips of tulle as needed.  The rest of the outfit comes together easily!

I wish you could see the colors and the glitter more as they don’t show in the photos but in person, it’s so pretty!  I love the more intricate unicorn horns but my daughter always just takes off those kinds of headbands so these ones with the elastic are a lot better for younger kids.  I added a bit of glitter to her face which was cuter in person than in photos 🙂

I didn’t end up making a tutu for myself, because, well, #momlife.  You end up getting so busy but as long as your child has a cute costume that’s all that matters right?  So I put on a white dress that I already own, my sparkly shoes and a horn to match with her!  My daughter loves twinning with me so she was so happy to see me dressed as a unicorn too.

These unicorn shoes are one of her favorite shoes ever, she wears them so much.  They are available here and come in pink too!

I did want to share with you how easy it was to just pop the tutu over my white dress and create a costume for myself!

I hope this tutorial helped!  It really only took me one night and the results were so much better than I expected!  I also spent less then $20 on everything so that was a definite win!  I’ve got another mommy and me costume coming up soon so if you haven’t yet, subscribe to my newsletter to keep up to date on my posts!

For more fun Halloween ideas check out my DIY Minnie Mouse and Snow White costumes!