[Creative DIY]No Needles or Thread Required – Make a Dreamy Puffy Skirt Yourself

Every year when Halloween rolls around, it almost stumps the parents (ouch), but I never expected that after making a puffy skirt myself, I’d realize it’s actually not that hard—even I could do it... And since I’m super lazy, I really didn’t want to sew anything or deal with a single stitch, so you’ll see both of the following pieces (the dress + the puffy skirt) are no-sew creations too. In previous years, I used to just pay for them instead, but after seeing the notice from Cen Cen’s kindergarten encouraging homemade DIY (the first DIY project that popped into my mind was… making a black cape out of a black plastic bag), a friend told me she had made one before and that it wasn’t hard at all, which also nudged me. Alright, let’s give it a try then. Who knew this little attempt would reignite my old crafting enthusiasm?

① 2 yards each of five-color soft tulle (stiff tulle is more scratchy and also more expensive)
② 2 yards of pink glossy satin ribbon (elastic ribbon can also be used)
Cen Cen was at school and not at home, so I used her dress to roughly measure the waist circumference. Once measured, I tied a knot at both ends of the ribbon (you need to leave enough length for tying a big bow when wearing, so don’t tie the knots too close to the edges—tie them evenly towards the center on both sides). Then I cut the tulle into your desired length and width (mine was: 73cm long * 8cm wide), and it’s faster if you fold it a bit and cut several layers together.
Take one piece of tulle, fold the width in half, then align the lengths of two strands, use your left hand to poke a small hole with your finger, pull the lower part tight with your right hand, then wrap the lower tulle around the ribbon and thread it through the hole to tie a knot, finally tighten the knot.
Align the tied tulle next to the knot at the very end of the ribbon. I wanted the colors to stand out a bit more, so I used four strands for each color. If you tie the tulle knots a bit tighter, you can place them closer together so it won’t look so empty.
Once all the tulle are tied (remember to leave enough length for the knots on the front and back of the pink ribbon), when it comes time to wear it, just tie a bow with the pink ribbon and you’re done.
The ribbon can also double as decoration—killing two birds with one stone. Since the ribbon isn’t stretchy, don’t tie it too tightly, and since it’s tied on, it can be worn by sisters of different sizes. It’s actually super fast to make—cutting the tulle takes a bit longer (you can also replace the ribbon with elastic, but then you lose the decorative bow). Because I tied the tulle knots really tight and placed them closely together, the final piece turned out very puffy. The tulle is transparent and a bit itchy, so it’s best to wear tights underneath. Fortunately, it’s also quite cold during Halloween.

① 4 yards each of six-color soft tulle
② 4 yards of pink glossy satin ribbon
③ A small pack of elastic bands
④ One floral brooch
The extra color is because I found another craft store that offered more color options and at a cheaper price per unit too.
Folding the tulle and cutting them together is faster. This time I tried making the width a bit longer, at 10cm. I aligned the 10cm mark on the measuring tape with the black line on the tile floor—it’s much quicker this way.
After cutting, it’s a very long strip. Stack it all up and then cut the length all at once is also much faster.
Ta-da~ all cut. Took a bit of effort (sweat dripping), cutting is actually more tiring than tying (I later realized I cut them too short, because I measured Cen Cen’s dress at 50cm, and I dumbly cut them at 50cm, forgetting that they needed to be folded in half when tying later. So the length should have been doubled to 100cm!). The fix is to tie two strands of tulle together using a different knotting method, and tie them onto the elastic band (for those who are as lazy as me to sew, just tying a knot is fine). You can loop the elastic band over something cylindrical to make tying easier (like a paper towel roll or a lamp base, etc.).
After tying all the tulle onto the elastic (the elastic is stretchy so you can loosen it, and there are many spots to tie onto), thread the pink ribbon through (leave the longest part sticking out, and keep a bit of tail), wrap the ribbon around a knot and then bring it back out.
Keep wrapping like this, using the ribbon to cover all the ugly knots from the tulle (normally the knots wouldn’t look as bumpy and uneven as mine—I ended up tying a really big knot just to fix things). Finally, tie the ribbon around the waist area again (glue the ribbon ends with hot glue), and pin the flower on with a safety pin to finish (you can also use hot glue).
If you use more pink ribbon to fully wrap the open part where the tulle is exposed, it will be less scratchy to wear. Or you can also add an inner layer top yourself (since it’s winter during Halloween anyway, you were planning to wear something underneath anyway). If you don’t have a floral brooch at home, you can just tie a big bow with the ribbon, or even add another ribbon on the open part to turn it into a “wrap-around-the-neck” dress. Add two straight ribbons and it becomes a “thin-strap” dress—get creative and improvise.

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