How hard can it be?

Noah has a 3rd grade musical coming up on December 10th. They are preforming songs from The Nutcracker. Therefore, he has to dress as a Nutcracker. At first, I was going to order a used costume online. However, I hesitated and when I went to order it, someone had beat me to the punch. So, I decided to make him one myself. I mean, how hard can it be? I assured Noah that he would have an awesome costume for the musical.

I quickly decided that I could just use a long-sleeved, red button-up shirt and some navy blue pants as the base for the costume and just embellish it a bit. Noah, however, had a different idea. He quickly vetoed the navy blue pants (that I had already purchased), saying that it just didn't look like a "Nutcracker Prince." I asked him to explain exactly what a "Nutcracker Prince" was, but he didn't really know what he looked like, only that he was called the prince in the songs he was singing for the musical. We googled "Nutcracker Prince" and agreed that the costume that we were going for was somewhere between the following two images...


This image is not mine. Click here to see where I found it.



And neither is this one, click here.

I asked Noah if he was going to wear ballet tights for the pants since he didn't like the navy ones that I had purchased and he seemed to consider it until Wyatt died laughing saying, "You are going to wear girl tights?"

Noah quickly changed his mind, but insisted that the pants needed to be white. I remembered Noah had white baseball pants from the summer season, and we decided that those would probably work.

I started my hunt for the long-sleeved, red button-up shirt last week thinking it shouldn't be too hard to find one. Boy, was I wrong! After going to Wal Mart, Target, Once Upon a Child, Khols, and every kid's store in the mall I was doubting that my grand idea to make a costume was going to pan out. Out of desperation, I bought a maroon shirt from Wal Mart since it was the closest thing that I could find to red. Noah quickly informed me that it wasn't exactly what he had in mind since it wasn't really red and proceeded to find the exact color of red that he did have in mind just so I would understand what he meant. After a little contemplation, I remembered seeing a long sleeved, white button-up shirt at Once Upon A Child. After going back to the store to take a closer look, I decided it was just what I was looking for. It was a brand new, (with original tags) White, Gap, 100% cotton shirt just in Noah's size. I bought it for a whopping $8. I really love Once Upon A Child! I also made a trip to Hobby Lobby (also love that store!) to pick up some red fabric dye, glitter, rubber cement, poster board, braided gold cord, and liquid stitch. This is what Kru did at Hobby Lobby...



After Hobby Lobby, it was home to dye the shirt.



Unfortunately, it turned out more of an Orangeish-red.



So back to Hobby Lobby. Another dye job later...



It was finally the color of red Noah had in mind! Then I bleached the baseball pants. I doubt Nutcrackers have dirt stains on the knees.



Finally, I glittered the poster board crown that Matt so cleverly designed.



Now all I have left to do is apply the gold braid to the shirt, make a belt, and buy white gloves. Let's hope the gloves are easier to find than the red shirt.