Awaken Sewing Machine! Rise!

So, it's been years since I've brought out the sewing machine. So much so that some of the plastic thread spools intended for the machine crumbled and has left plastic crumbs all over our dining room. But it's the sacrifice we're willing to pay to make Little Lady's costume this Halloween. We passed by the store in hopes to find it, but 1) it was slim pickin's, and 2) well my goodness they were expensive. For potentially one-time use only?! We had started talking, before this shopping trip, about making her costume but thought "let's just check."

We did and we decided, we're going to make it! Like we have the passed two years, but this year--required sewing. Yikes! Between Pinterest and Google searches for DIY lab coats for toddlers, we cut up a size 16-3/4, white, men's shirt from the closet. Voila, a doctor's coat we can use for a while.

A couple tangled bobbins, thread nests, and two nights later (after Little Lady went to bed and sometimes interrupting the work when she would wake up) we had our white coat. Doc McStuffins costume, check! Well almost, it's all about the embellishments and details.

As parents, we've tried not to be character-centric when it comes to toys. When she took an interest in Doc McStuffins, the toy Doctor, we sought out for a environmentally responsible, generic looking doctor's kit. Believe it or not, that was tough to find. After some research and a visit to the local toy store in Old City, Philadelphia, we found our doctor's kit and she was over the moon about it. Thank goodness. I was getting tired of my heart, ears, and eyes being checked with a shoestring from another toy.

So now the embellishments! You know what's beautiful about having gone to design school, and your old, college roommate being an IT guy, if you can't find what you need online you just create it yourself! To make our generic looking white coat and doctor's bag a little more Doc McStuffins, I went into Adobe Illustrator and created her emblem found on the show on her stethoscope, bag, the credits, etc. I was going to make some purple heart buttons out of foam (that I wasn't sure I had) to embellish the front, but instead found a Doc McStuffins ID badge online. Figured it would bring it all together.  Then, since we volunteer for several events year round, well we have all sorts of sticker labels for name tags to print on. Easy to adhere, and best of all easy to remove. Several print tests and two full sheets of sticker paper printing a Word document, then requiring some image resizing, we had what we needed and some extras. Check it out below.

Added her name onto the ID badge.

Covered the first aid symbol with a sticker too.

Her white coat complete.

Happy Halloween!