Calcifer is no longer doing the no-pants dance!

As I mentioned before, Charmander is kind of a larger "bear," and his shape isn't superbly conducive to a lot of things. Pants in particular are a challenge because of his short legs and rather large tail base. Myself, I don't mind him without pants as I don't think they're entirely necessary for him. However, I came across a pair of overalls that I thought I could re-purpose for him. 

I ended up cutting the top off the front and back, and shortening it significantly before reattaching it. I was able to avoid shortening the straps by trimming it off the bottom instead, which worked well. The straps have two different sets of snaps so that you can make them longer/shorter. For this outfit I used them on the longer side just to show a bit more of the stripes beneath since the shirt's collar is already a similar color blue. I think that with any of the other shirts of different colors, I would use the shorter length instead. I made a large tail-hole  that suits him pretty well, and re-hemmed everything aside from the legs.

Overall (pun possibly intended?) I like how they turned out, and I may investigate some additional overall options in the future. I still think pants would be a weird fit on him, but this style works nicely.

More Pokemon Spam!

My apologies for all the Charmander spam, he's just so cute and photogenic! I also spent the weekend working on some clothes for him, which was surprisingly easy and fun. Since he's a larger "bear," he actually more-or-less fits into some infant clothes. I've used some thrifted baby clothes before for bjd clothes, so I thought I'd try it for him as well. Mostly I had to take the hem up quite a bit, but otherwise they work pretty well.

I try to choose items that don't look completely like baby clothes, as I prefer them to more like miniature adult clothes. This shirt does have little side snaps on the neck, but it's not overly noticeable or identifiable as being specifically for a baby. It also helped with getting the shirt over his head, so it's not a bad addition.

This item was actually a jean shirt that I cut the sleeves off of and re-hemmed. I have additional plans for decorating this, but I thought it was cute even in it's base form.

Hipster Charmander liked Pokemon before it was cool... I couldn't resist a little plaid shirt, especially paired with the jean vest. This one was also taken in at the bottom, and might eventually need some trimming for the sleeves. 

The last shirt, which is much more orange in reality than it looks here. I also hemmed this one quite a bit, but otherwise it fits nicely.

Making Pip

I had mentioned previously that I wanted to turn my Build a Bear "Bear-o-Lantern" into Pip from The Halloween Tree, and I started on that project this week.

For those unfamiliar with The Halloween Tree, Pip is the young boy in the center here. He wears a green/blue shirt, red overalls, cuffed jeans, and red high tops to complete the look. I wanted to try and modify some existing items if possible, though I didn't have a chance to make it out to BaBW as I live about 45 minutes away from the closest one. I think the shoes will definitely come from there, but the other items are ones I could pick up or create from thrifted items. So I made a trip to my favorite thrift store on their 50% off Wednesday sale to get some basic items.

Here is Pip dressed up in the unaltered items I thrifted. BaBW bears do fit into some children's clothing, usually in the newborn-3mo range. I was able to get the shirt and pants for a total of $3, and the suspenders for another $2.

The shirt needs to be hemmed and dyed, the suspenders cut down and re-sewn, and the pants need a tail hole at the very least. I may end up doing some of the weathering/patching as well, though I don't really want to cut the pants.

I have started some work on the shirt (and cut the tail hole in the pants), so see below for the initial steps.

I used Rit Dye in Emerald for the shirt, and just gave it a light wash over in it. I wanted the color to be blue and green, given how the shirt in the movie is interpreted as both.  Once dyed I pupped it in a pot of cold water, and then hung it to dry. This is the finished color.