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anniemm
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I was wondering if anyone had any suggesions for easy saints costumes for All Saints day this year? I have girls, but I'd love to hear boy ideas too! I have little to zero sewing experience, though I'm willing to learn - so that's why I'm asking soooo early! Thanks!
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Rachel May
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There is an easy pattern for a dress like Mary's in a homeschool book. I know someone will know it. It's basically a long rectangle for the body with rectangle arms and a cut out for your head. The book gave help for determining how big to cut them.
We did Our Lady of Guadelupe (painted gold stars on blue farbic for the head and tied a black sash around her waist), St. Anthony (made a hood and cape combo that wasn't attatched, used a cord belt), St. Stephen (with velcro stones), St. Michael (wings were fabric and sewn on and armor put over), and St. Raphael (wings plus a stethoscope) from it when Charles was a baby. They still use all of the costumes nearly daily.
My friend did Joan of Arc and glued felt flames around the bottom.
For me I bought several yards of white fabric. I painted 2 Blue lines down the length and looked up how to wrap a sari on a website. I sort of pulled the tail over my head. Viola! Mother Theresa. Have fun!
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saintanneshs
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Well, Andrea, I think the easier, the better! My Luke likes to be Saint Luke EVERY year. I've tried to talk him into something different (for a change) but he insists. I bought a small length of blue fabric and a small length of dark red fabric from the fabric store. One piece is his garment, the other serves as a sash. Minor sewing is all that's required. You could even tuck under the rough edges and use safety pins to hold it in place. Add a stethoscope around the neck (from the pretend doctor kit), a beautiful image of Our Lady and the Infant Jesus glued onto cardboard or something thick and tape a paintbrush to the image and string the whole thing through yarn to go around the neck. Ds has even carried a children's bible with him (but it usually ends up in my arms when we're done with the costume contest  )
It just doesn't get any easier than that!...except for maybe Saint Isidore the Farmer...we already have the farm boots, overalls and plenty of red bandanas on hand
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kristina
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Andrea,
We have made three saint costumes so far:
St. John the Baptist: fur like piece of material cut into a toga. A toy snake as a belt and bugs and such glue-gunned on.
St. Joseph: a soft brown piece of material folded in 1/2, cut out holes for arms and neck. Then, since my sewing machine was not working at the time, I did a simple hand sewn stitch to join the sides (I can at least sew a somewhat straight line by hand, but that is about the extent of my sewing skills).
We gave St. Joseph a child's tool belt with tools.
St. Michael, The Archangel: A white piece of fabric sewn in similar fashion to the St. Joseph costume, trimmed in with gold ribbon (with iron on tape, done by my much more talented husband). We added children's armor, which was borrowed from a friend, but I did see shields and swords and such at the Dollar Tree dollar store this past week. We also borrowed gold angel wings.
Blessings,
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Rachel May
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My friend printed a picture of Jesus onto iron on fabric, ironed it to a white cloth and pinned it to her shirt for St. Veronica.
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Rachel
Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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jdostalik
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The cutest costume I saw last year (and maybe ever!) was a little 5 or 6 month old baby wearing a plain onesie with a very special "bib" (ie: a piece of beige fabric fashioned into a bib) with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe painted on it (would be easy to just make an iron on, too). Voila, he is the youngest St. Juan Diego in history! Soooo cute!!!! 
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ALmom
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Find a mom with piles of different sizes of robes - basic colors in black, blue and white. If you were here you could borrow some of mine - but other moms around have better sewn ones. Then with appropriate props, these become anything. We usually bring and share from previous years at a moms meeting around this time.
My dc have tried to be something different every year - and always the most obscure saint they could find - harder for the other dc to guess that way. Usually doesn't make for simple - unless you beg and borrow some. (I also have a lady who will help my dc sew - she comes to my house and sews with my dc because I do not for $25 for the whole half a day - in that time, every one of my dc plus a few extra projects are done and my girls learn to sew without my hyperventilation cause sewing is one of the things I manage to find every way to do it wrong though for costumes I will try sometimes!!!
St. Dominic Savio is pretty simple - dress pants, white shirt, Bible and Rosary to carry. Wimple for nuns is not too bad - white snow cap thingy and throw a black piece of fabric over the top. (Now if someone wants to be Saint Catherine Laboure - that flying wings part of the habit is pretty complicated but with a lot of fabric stiffner and ironing it will look close enough to give the idea. I still have it stored away for future use - but somehow don't think my boys will go for it . They prefer ST. George and St. Michael - both made with cheap plastic medieval style armor and sword. St. Michael gets cardboard wings. They both can use a stuffed dinasaur to step on (in liex of a dragon). IF they want to be St. Martin of tours - a lot of the same stuff will do - just use a red vest for the Roman army feel and long red flowing fabric for the cloak that is cut in half. Any simple black robe can be made to look like a habit with the appropriate tie at the waist. It then becomes a large number of different things - Dominican, etc.
In desperation, long t-shirts tied at the waist can substitute for robes and when draped with whatever veil, they suffice. St. Elizabeth of Hungary just gets to dress up in any fancy dress-up clothes and carry a basket of roses.
If you have a boy and want to have something that can be changed up frequently - just do brown robe (we have a hood in ours as they were Franciscan habit copies so my girls would stop dressing the boys like nuns). Keep the white cord with 3 knots with a rosary. There are plenty of Franciscan and Dominican saints in any case so the same robe can be used for a thousand different saints. It is the props that change.
Oh, also make the hems huge (arms and length), so you let them out year after year - and for costumes, its the best place to learn to sew cause bunched up sleeves, no buttons, etc, doesn't matter. If the head is too tight to fit over the child's head - just open it wider with a pair of scissors. If the shoulders are falling off - no matter, they are wearing clothes on underneath anyways and with girls the veil covers it. IF it is real annoying, safety pins work.  Now I've revealed a bunch of my tricks.
Also store the things in a safe place - then you get to use them again until your children come up with something really different like Blessed (cannot remember her name anymore but she founded the pink sisters and my dd shares a birthday with her - so we had to make this habit). We now have a rose colored robe.
It's really fun after all - just don't let yourself panic, the kids don't really care how nice the stitching is, they really don't.
Janet
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marihalojen
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For Saint George and the Dragon I don't think you can beat this 'grocery store' getup. Who knew foil candy cups and sponges could be so cute?
I think these Princesses out of doilies would make great Angels with a bit of wing action.
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rivendellmom
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Does anyone have a suggestion for a St Therese costume? My dd doesn't want to dress like a nun, so I'm thinking a dress and carry some roses, but what kind of dress?
Jen
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marihalojen
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St Therese was middle class French during the elaborate Victorian era, a description of one of her childhood dresses may inspire your daughter: "She was wearing a green dress edged with astrakhan and frogged trimmings, and her hair was tied with a sky-blue ribbon." There is frequent mention of her elaborately dressed hair, somewhere else a mom mentioned pin-curling her daughters hair for the feast day.
Here is a Carmelite site with photos of her from age 3 1/2 till death. In the early photos you can see the elaborate Victorian-styled dresses and curled hair.
Hope this is what you were looking for, Jen!
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Margaret
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I am using the McCall's pattern 2340 and adapting it to our needs for saints costumes. I have no sewing experience except what I did in home ec about 33 years ago! And I am not creative! This pattern however is quite easy and seems to be coming along fine for our needs! Hope this helps.
Love,
Margaret
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Dawn
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marihalojen wrote:
| For Saint George and the Dragon I don't think you can beat this 'grocery store' getup. Who knew foil candy cups and sponges could be so cute? |
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Oh, now I'm almost wishing we didn't have a knight costume already (older brother's hand-me-down)! That is such a cute costume, Jennifer!
Middle son (7) loooooves St. George and wants to be him for his CCD All Saints Day party next week. He's going to wear the costume, bring a sword and we have this long green stuffed dragon he can carry.
If he had wanted to be St. Francis, I have a large amount of brown burlap on hand and was thinking I could have fashioned a crude robe and tied it with a belt, then attached a few tiny birds on the shoulders and arms. He was going to carry a small basket of our nature puppets and act out a little scene. 
But St. George it is!
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Lisbet
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We've done St. John the baptist before using the baby's woolie tied around the boy and a small jar of honey with a fake bug in it!
I've also found fleece super quick and easy to work with to make long tunics, just split a head hole and some kind of cinch around the waist. We've done Indians and missionaries this way. One year we did St. Peter and he carried a big cardboard key and a fishing pole. Someone pointed out that Peter probably carried a fishing net rather! I LOVE All Saints costumes!
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Lisbet
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OH, we also did Bl.Juan Diego, again we did a brown fleece poncho type with frindge on the bottom and I pinned a paper image of OLG and fake roses on the front. We've done St. Joseph too, with the brown fleece tunic, no fringe, and the boy carried a hammer. St. Anthony did the brown fleece tunic with a knotted rope around the waist and he carried a doll baby and a bible. St. Isaac Jogues, black tunic, big crucifix around his neck, and fake blood on his thumbs.
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Lisa, wife to Tony,
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Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
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gwendyt
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www.orientaltrading.com has some nativity costume gowns/hats and a white angel gown that come in child size 11-14 that work great for the base of any saint costume! I usually sew my costumes, but the gowns are only $5.95 apiece, so it was worth my time/material to buy a few (I'm not the greatest at sewing! )
I go to the dollar store to search out accessories (flower stems, crowns, skull (for St.Francis Borgia!), etc) I think twine and rosaries are used yearly for accessories I'm on the lookout year around for costume possibilities!
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marihalojen
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Marianna and I were just reading through this thread for ideas, but the ideas are mostly for boys! (or don't appeal to her,  picky girl ) Any other costume ideas out there?
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gwendyt
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Well, as far as girl ideas go, my girls have been St. Lucy, St.Therese of the Little Flower, St. Cecilia, St.Agnes, the Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Lourdes, St.Dymphna, St.Rita, St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St.Elizabeth Ann Seton. I sewed the Elizabeth Ann Seton costume from a period pattern - it was the most elaborate one I've done. St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Cecilia we used a store costume renaissance dress as the base and added accessories we saw on the Holy cards. (We always use the Holy Cards as our guide) The remainder of the above saints used a basic gown of whatever color (that has been mentioned many times above) and then we add the right sash, cape, head covering with glued on trim, what the saint is usually shown holding, etc.
St. Lucy was probably the easiest - white gown with a large piece of green fabric draped over one shoulder and belted with twine at the waist, sandals, a wreath of flowers for the hair (my daughters hair was blond already, but we've used wigs before too), a palm branch and a small gold plate with two styrofoam eyeballs glued to it to hold completed the costume.
Plain turtlenecks and simple sewn floor length skirts have come in handy too. Hope this helps!
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MaryMary
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Cutest thing I ever did see at an All Saints party..
You need twins (or children close in age)to really pull this off, though...
Both kids dress exactly alike with franciscan robe, white gauze around hands (red marker stains for stigmata) white beard, talcum poweder in hair. Guess who they came as?
St. Padre Pio BILOCATING!!!
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blairb4
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Okay, I'm taking a break here at 10:30pm from making my 3.5 yr old's Our Lady costume. I have no sewing machine so I'm using Stitch Witchery! I bought light blue fabric from the dollar table at Wal-Mart, cut it into 2 tunic shapes to put together (laid down a dress and wrote on fabric w/ chalk for the size), and so far have "hemmed" the bottom, arms, and neck. I'm considering borrowing someone's sewing machine to sew it together. But I think I'll try the Stitch Witchery first and see how it holds. I don't think she'll wear it that long at the party.
We have a few St. Clare costumes (adult and baby) and a St. Francis. For those I cut the same type of tunic in brown material, but the material was great, kind of fleece-like, and didn't have to be hemmed. I mostly hand-sewed those, but it took forever! I also made something in white to go underneath, they are 2 parts I think to look like a habit. Then ropes to tie around the waist. Steven wore a fake bird on his sleeve for St. Francis. He even came to visit the school where I taught on St. Francis Day! I made a fake monstrance out of cardboard for St. Clare to hold. And I believe we wore sandals.
For the veil, I just use a headband and hot glue white fabric around it, then black fabric glued underneath and cut long for the long veil (for Mary I'll use blue or white). We'll probably wrap a baby doll in a blanket to be Baby Jesus.
Hopefully next year I'll have a sewing machine and can be a little more creative!
Have fun, Andrea! Hope to see you soon! Let me know if you're interested in the homeschooling All Saints Party on Sunday.
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Jenn Sal
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My daughter is going as St. Rose of Lima. I bought black material and draped it over her head and then another piece around her shoulders. She is wearing a white dress underneath from a Cleopatra costume. Then I bought two stems of silk mini roses and twined them together. This is the wreath that holds on her habit. She will then hold a wood cross.
No sewing! I love it and she looks beautiful!!!
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: easy saints costumes for Nov 1?
