I am apparently not a very good blogger. Not only do I not blog often enough, but I also forget to take pictures of the things I KNOW that I’m going to blog about. Case in point: I knew I wanted to blog about the crafty night I was going to do with the Mommies from our Mommy groups. Forgot the camera. Forgot to ask the hostess if she would take pictures with her camera. Huh. Well, I guess you’ll have to rely on my beautiful descriptive writing. *sarcasm*

One day, while sitting around watching our kids play at a play date, another Mommy and I came up with the idea of a Crafty Mommy’s Night In where we would make something for our kiddos.  My mind immediately jumped to tutus because I have a little ballerina girl. Tied tutus are super-easy and I thought “Great!”.   My plan was to teach some Mommies how to make tutus for their little Princesses so we had sign ups and limited it to 8 Mommies. It filled up quick and the waiting list grew and grew and grew in case someone backed out. Nobody backed out. We offered two different color choices and several Mommies wanted to make more than one tutu. Fantastic so far!

As I started to calculate exactly how many yards of fabric I would need, I started to panic a little. Twelve tutus times 4 yards per tutu equals 48 yards of tulle. Wow. Forty eight yards of tulle. It really sunk in when I asked for 26 yards of pink tulle at the fabric store. I have never bought 26 yards of anything in my life. Except maybe carpet, I guess. But still. Then there was the cutting into one yard sections so as to make it easier to handle, rolling it and cutting it into 3 inch sections, cutting those sections in half, and packaging 4 yards per bag in the appropriate colors. That was the hard part.

Once everyone arrived, chatted, and gave me their money (48 yards of tulle, People…I’m nice but not made of money), the fun began! I showed them examples, showed them the entire cutting process so they could do it at home, and started measuring, cutting, and sewing their elastic waistbands. I asked everyone to measure the waist of the Princess and bring that number but we were able to guesstimate for those who didn’t. Everyone got the tying process in no time flat and the tutus started to take shape. There were several Mommies who proclaimed that they were useless at crafty stuff yet they made a beautiful tutu by the end of the night.

If you are planning your own MNI Tutu-making, I would recommend having the participants buy their own tulle and then having them do the whole process themselves after demonstrating. MUCH easier for the hostess (that would be you!). And that way they can leave with the confidence that they can do it themselves at home later.

This is the tutu-making process that I used:

You will need 4 yards of tulle. Whatever colors you would like. Mix and match or all the same, it’s up to you!

Cut your tulle into one yard sections.

Take the first yard and roll it up in to one long roll.

Snip off the ends that are uneven.

Cut it into 3 inch sections.

Unroll each 3 inch section and cut it in half.

Repeat for all yards of tulle.

Measure child’s waist and cut elastic to that measurement.

Sew ends of elastic together.

Stretch elastic over back of child’s chair, your knees, whatever gives it a little stretch but not too much.

Tie strips of tulle onto elastic. Do not make knots very tight at first…you will stretch out the elastic and have a very large-waisted tutu in proportion to your small-waisted Princess. Once you remove the elastic from the chair and it is not stretched out any more, you can tighten the knots more. One of the best parts is that you can use whatever colors you’d like! Brown and turquoise, hot pink and black, orange and black for Halloween…you’re only limited by whatever colors of tulle your local fabric shop has!

That’s it. Not hard. Go. Go Tutu! Have fun!