My Princess Jasmine Costume

I'm a little late on finally posting this, but better late than never, right? 

Last summer I decided that I wanted to be Princess Jasmine for Halloween. So I went online to find a costume to buy. Problem was, all the Jasmine costumes online didn't look anything like her actual outfit!

   That... doesn't look like... This.

So I decided that if I really wanted to look like Jasmine, I need to make my own outfit! 

Here's what happened...

(Oh look! Brody found his way into my picture!)

It took me a while, mainly because I had no pattern, but I think it turned out pretty well!

I went to Joann's fabric store and found a variety of different Jasmine-blue fabrics, I liked a shiny fabric best, so I bought 2 yards of it, elastic, some thread, and then I went to work!

Like I said before, I didn't use a pattern, so I just used an old pair of pajama bottoms as a reference and just went from there. The fabric I chose was a bit sheer, so I lined the inside with some white cotton fabric that I had lying around. For the waistband, I cut out a thick rectangle about 8 inches thick and about 6 inches longer than my actual waist-measurement. To give it that tapered look near the belly-button, I just cut out the rectangle with a triangular taper in the middle on both sides. Then I folded that in half, making sure the triangular tapered parts met perfectly, and sewed it shut. To attach it to the bottoms, I first sewed an elastic band (that I measured to fit around my hips) into the top so that it would have a nice, uniformed gathering all the way around. Then I just pinned the waistband on, and sewed it onto the pants (making sure not to sew into the elastic). Once I finished, I cut out the elastic and got rid of any extra fabric. I added velcro strips to the back of the waistband and placed them where I needed to in order to make it snug around my hips. To finish, I sewed elastics that fit around my ankles into the bottom of each leg to give it that pouffy look. (Brody somehow found his way into this shot too, lol!)

Then came the top...

The top was a nightmare to make. And I can honestly say that I have no idea how I managed to figure out how to make it without a pattern. It's a miracle I suppose. The easy part was making the band that goes beneath the bust. It was very similar to the way I made the waistband for the pants, but without the tapered point. For the bust part, I also cut out a rectangular shape (a few inches wider than I needed it to be so that I could gather it like the picture above), and then figured out where to start tapering it so that it went down into the band under the armpits. Before sewing the bust part to the band part, I cut out a small strip of fabric (pictured above) and used it to gather the fabric so that it came together in the middle. Then I sewed the bust to the band, attached a skin colored bra underneath, and then added velcro in the back. For the sleeve-things, I figured the easiest way to do it was to just make them separate from the top itself so that I could move my arms around. To make them, I just cut out strips of fabric, sewed them into circles, pinched the part where I sewed them into circles and hand-sewed them pinched so that it made a gathered look around the arm. Then I added some elastic to the inside, only sewing it to the pinched part and not to the entire armband! I did this so that it made the sleeves appear like they were hanging loosely on my arms, but actually they were on snug and fit because of the elastic.

The Accessories!

It took me FOREVER to find these shoes! And when I say forever, I mean a month or two. But I ended up finding these "genie shoes" on this website. The dance company I bought them through only had my size in silver, so I just bought a can of gold spray paint and sprayed them gold.

I found the necklace and earrings at Kohl's. The earrings were more of a bronze color, so I spray painted them gold and then rubbed gold glitter glue all over them to make them sparkly. The best advice I can give for you is to just shop around and try to find jewelry that resembles Jasmine's. Even if it's not the right color, you can always spray paint it to make it work.

For the headband, I used a strip of left over fabric and wrapped it around an old headband and then hot glued it into place. I found the big jewel at a craft store, and then used the same gold glitter glue that I put on the earrings around the edge of the jewel.

I bought the wig on ebay, and then I styled it to look like Jasmine's hair. For the pony tail, I ratted the hair into two balls and then wrapped some ribbon that matched the color of my outfit in-between them.

This costume is NOT for sale, so please don't email asking me to sell it. Thanks!

*Clicking on each picture sends you to a separate window where you can enlarge it in order to get a better look at the details.*