I wanted to do something a little different for our costumes for the WDW Marathon. It was gonna be the first marathon for Kris and me, but I didn't want to do anything like the basic Disney characters. I'm in a few Facebook running costume groups, and was getting all sorts of inspired. Now, as always, I wanted to keep these costumes extremely run-able. so I was gonna build off of some basic running tops.
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But then what to do... I got inspired as this was the 25th anniversary of the Walt Disney World marathon, and started to think about my Disney World memories. Now this isn't so much a memory, as an family story turned urban legend, but word has it my favorite thing on my first trip to Disney World was "It's a Small World." I loved it so much, that my 2 year old self was singing the song on repeat and we rode the ferry back to the Ticket & Transportation Center. The other people on the ferry were going nuts listening to my little voice singing the ear worm over and over. With that, it was too easy to decide to make a Small World costume.
I told Kris my idea about ride costumes, and she decided on the Haunted Mansion. She decided on the Haunted Mansion cast member costume. Pretty easy, or so I thought.
Since it would be January when we ran, and there was no telling if it would be cold or hot, we decided on short-sleeve workout shirts. Cause there is no way in hell I was gonna run 26.2 miles in something that wasn't sweat wicking. I looked all over for a striped shirt for Kris, but to no avail. I ordered plain shirts on Amazon in the colors we needed (dark green for Kris, light blue for me).
Then I started on Kris's costume. I got a dark green shirt, and then was gonna paint on the stripes. I found Tulip spray fabric paint, which I figured would be easy to do, and not too stiff. I used masking tape to tape off the stripes, and used freezer paper inside the shirt to prevent bleed through. Then I sprayed, and waited forever for it to dry.
As I was painting, I wasn't sure the color was dark enough. So I was mentally preparing to start over. Once I took off the tape after it was really dry, it did look black, thank God! Then, I taped and painted the back and the fabric for the apron. In total this took one small and 1 large can of the fabric spray paint.
After waiting til the back was dry, I made the lace collar. I didn't make the collar go all the way around, since I still wanted the neck to be able to stretch for her to be able to put the shirt on.
With a scrap of white fabric and some lace I made the headpiece. I also added the bat bow with black felt. I attached this to Kris's visor with some safety pins, and it was good to go.
Now my shirt, initially I wanted to paint the big clock onto my shirt. but that is insane and crazy and I wouldn't have time, so iron-on it was. But I wanted this to be BIG, like covering my whole shirt big. I sized this all out on the computer, and then went to print. Not the easiest to print an image on 6 sheets of paper. I used the poster printing to get this all done.
I first tried on normal paper before attempting the iron-on sheets. A few trials and errors, and it was finally all lined up and ready to print.
First I cut around the design on the sheets closely, so I wouldn't have too much extra iron-on material left on the shirt. Then, I lined up all of the iron-on sheets, and started ironing.
Some pieces required a little more heat. I was also afraid of melting the dry wicking shirt. But thankfully, it all worked out. As I slowly started peeling off the backing, I saw my creation..
I had grand ideas of having the kids from the ride holding hands around the bottom of my skirt, and having all of the goodbyes on the back of my shirt. But between running, the holidays, and life, I just didn't have enough time. I loved the bright colors on the shirt, and figured this got the point across just fine.
The best part of all was that the costumes both made it 26.2 miles! They looked good after the race too. My shirt had some of the iron-on lifting after I got home, so it doesn't seem like it'll make it through another run. But it did the job. And really, as long as I looked cute, that's all that matters.
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