Buddy the Elf Costume for 7" Desk Goose

 

It's finally Christmastime, which means I can make Christmas costumes for my 7" desk goose! Elf is, by far, my favorite Christmas movie, so it was a given that I would make a Buddy the Elf Costume first. I opted to make this on out of felt. I made the original costume by hand, but decided to try using the Cricut to make a pattern to share. It worked up very nicely on the Cricut and cuts easily if you have the rotary blade tool. I would not suggest attempting this on the Cricut without the rotary blade, the fine point blade doesn't cut felt very well. I have also included a jpg of the pattern for you to print and cut out by hand. If you don't have a printer I will give you a brief description of how to draw up the pattern on your own.

Supplies:

Desk Goose

Felt (Lime Green, Yellow, Black and White)

Hot Glue

Curly Brown Doll Hair (optional)

1/8 inch elastic  for chin strap (also optional)

Printer/Paper (optional)

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Let's get started! Here is the pattern. Print this to a 8.5"x11" sheet. Ensure that the 1inch square is 1" x 1" on your print out. 

Cut out the shapes on paper, then cut them out on felt.

Here is the link to the Cricut Project. I have not attempted to share a Cricut project before, so I apologize in advance if the link doesn't work. 

Starting off with the jacket, line up the black belt on the green jacket piece. Carefully hot Glue the belt in place, making sure that you don't use too much glue for the glue to ooze out the sides of the belt. Don't Glue the collar down yet.

Make Sure the that belt will line up with the other end when you close the jacket. Wrap the jacket piece around the goose and decide what size you want to make the jacket. Use hot glue to close the jacket.

I have purposely left the jacket piece big to accommodate all of the various sizes of desk geese that are out there. You will have a bit of overlapping fabric here, that is to be expected. It's easier to cut off excess than it is to add more fabric after it's cut! 

After the jacket is glued, fold it in half, with the jacket "opening" at the fold and clip the bottom corners of the jacket in a 45ish degree angle. The angle doesn't have to be perfect, as long as you clip them together so they are the symmetrical.

Glue the little yellow square to the middle of the little black square, glue those onto the belt.

Now for the collar, the fabric here is also bigger than it needs to be so first we need to cut it to size. Line the collar up with the top collar of the jacket, fold it in half again, as you did in the last step and trim off the extra white fabric. 

Remove the collar piece from the jacket, with the piece folded in half, cut a 45ish degree cut from the corners of both ends.  Again, the exact angle of the cut isn't important, as long as both sides match. 

Glue the collar onto the Jacket piece the top corner of each end should line up with either side of the jacket opening.

Next is the hat! Line the yellow stripe up on the hat and glue it down. Cut off any excess yellow, if needed. 

Next, Fold a third of the hat over onto itself

Then, fold the other side over onto the itself, overlapping the first folded side. You can fold this over as little or as much as you like, the less you overlap, the bigger the hat will be. Use hot glue to glue all the way up the seam up the hat. 

You can add an elastic chin strap at this point. I cut a piece 1.5" piece of elastic, use hot glue to secure one end to the inside of the hat, then glue the other end to the inside of the other side of the hat. I leave a loop about the size of my pointer finger outside the hat, to make sure the elastic is snug under the chin. The inside of the hat can get messy, but no one will see that if you add hair.

Next Step is the hair, this part is completely optional, but I love adding the iconic Buddy fro to ensure everyone knows who my goose is dressed up as.

Start with 10-15 clumps of 3" hair. I cut out a small circular piece of green felt to glue the hair to. 

Stretch out the center of the hair and glue them to the circle in all directions

It should be pretty full and wild.

Shove the felt piece up into the bottom of the hat, spread the hair out around the hat. Once you're happy with the placement, add some hot glue inside the hat to keep it all in place. Trim the hair to give it a good curly poof hair look.

Put the Hat and Jacket on your goose and you've got yourself a Buddy the Elf Desk Goose!

Now for the quick instructions on how to draw your own pattern if you don't have a printer! 

Most of the pieces are made out of a series of half circles. 

Jacket: 8" circle with 2.5" cut out of the center, (cut circle in half)

Hat: Half of a 2.5" circle, trim a wedge off either side of the semi circle

Belt: 7" circle and 6:5" circle, (cut in half)

Collar: 4"circle with a 2.5" circle cut out of the middle (cut in half)

Belt Buckle: Black: .5 inch square, Yellow: .25" square

I will work on a more thorough tutorial, and add a link when it's created. Until then, I hope this helps!

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