This Sunday is Dapper Day at the Natural History Museum. I've never been to the Natural History Museum and I've always wanted to go to Dapper Day so it was a perfect opportunity for both.

Being the extra mama that I am, I decided to DIY some of our outfits and accessories. I took my dudes with me to Joanne's to pick out some fabric and found these two pretty rad ones. I had to get the second blue fabric because they only had 2 yards of the dinosaur one, but having a more subtle fabric worked out to ~compliment~ the dinosaurs.

I made the following:

me: pillbox hat, necklace, full skirt, shoes

Diosaur: little vest, bowtie, pocket square

Alex: bowtie, pocket square

Skirt: I knew I wanted a full skirt so I found a bunch of tutorials online and used this site to calculate the math part. I taped grocery flyers together to make the pattern for the skirt since I knew I needed a big piece of paper. I transferred the pattern to the fabric and started pinning the pieces together. I sewed the pieces together and my mom helped me serge the bottom of the skirt which made it so easy for me to hem the bottom. She also helped me put the waist band and the zipper. I used these snaps to close the skirt.

Bowtie and vest: I used a vest that Dio had as a pattern and followed the same steps as the skirt. I found this pattern online for the bowties as a guide. I ended up deconstructing the finished tie because we couldn't figure out how to tie a tie haha. I made the tie and hand sewed it so it would stay permanently and used another strip of fabric as a neck strap.

Hat: This is probably the 4th pillbox hat that I've made since they're pretty easy to make. I used to sew the fabric together, but I just used spray adhesive to secure the fabric to the cardboard which was easier and cleaner too. I used a chocolate box as the base and then wrapped the fabric around it. I traced 2 pieces of the round top and a 2 inch strip for the base. I wrapped the strip around the round piece then wrapped both pieced with fabric. Then I wrapped the other round piece and finally glued it on the base. It's important to cut little ~triangles~ on the edges-both the fabric and whatever your'e using as a base- to make sure that it doesn't pucker when wrapping around the corners. I wrapped more of the box with fabric in different sizes. I found this perfect triceratop at the 99¢ store and finished it off with this scrap of fabric I had.

Necklace: This dinosaur came with the triceratop from the hat. I wanted it to sit flat on my chest so I cut the other side with a utility knife. I just added the dinosaur and the flowers from another necklace to a bib necklace with thread and some thin wires.

I found these blue suspenders on amazon and these gloves randomly at a Korean super market.

Tada! Overall it was fun challenging myself to make something new and repurposing things I already had around the house.

I'll post more photos of the actual event soon with our matching outfits.

Stay rad!

-Nika