About halfway through watching Wreck-It Ralph in the theater a few months ago, I became slightly obsessed with the character of Vanellope Von Schweetz. She is adorable and sassy and I thought it would be a great costume to make, and one I wouldn't be self-conscious in. So the rest of the movie I was about three-quarters watching, and about a quarter brainstorming how to do this.
First, I looked everywhere for a teal sweatshirt and teal leggings, to no avail. I also couldn't find an appropriate brown double-ruffled skirt. So I purchased this stuff instead.
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| Ignore the small gray cat with lazer eyes, please. |
That's a white men's sweatshirt, a brown maxi-skirt, and white leggings, all purchased online from Target. I got some teal Rit dye and colored the sweatshirt and tights. If I were to do it over, I would have added just a little bit of kelly green dye to get a more accurate color, but it worked well enough. I purchased two sets of hot pink shoelaces to replace the hood tie and to create the stitching on the pocket. I cut the skirt to the length I wanted, and then used the fabric left over to create the two ruffles with. To make the stripes on the leggings, I hand-sewed white and purple ribbon on them. This was by far the hardest part of the costume, and the part I'm least happy with how it turned out.
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| Not an internal organ. |
Next, I made some hair do-hickeys. To create the licorice hair tie, I sewed pipe-cleaners diagonally into a rectangle of red cotton fabric. I think it looks a bit like a weird internal organ or something, but it works in context well enough.
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| The "gummi bears" were especially fun to make. |
Then I made a bunch of polymer clay "candy" for her hair. I don't think I am 100% movie accurate here, but I did my best without absolutely losing my mind. (Okay, I know I lost my mind ages ago, hush.) These all got glued to either snaps or bobby pins to actually attach to my hair.
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| Trying as hard as possible to look animated. |
And here is everything all put together. I think I will actually add a wig to this to make it a little more authentic, but otherwise, this is the end product!
UPDATE: WIG!