Dia De Los Muertos Blog Tour: Day 4

I feel like life has been rather hectic lately, and the end result is that I haven't been blogging a lot, BUT when I saw this tour, I really wanted to be part of it.  So, welcome to my post for the 2nd Annual Dia De Los Muertos Blog Tour hosted by Rebel and Malice. 

On my side of the family, Inara gets a rich Peruvian history, but from her dad, Inara gets a Mexican heritage that I'm not super familiar with.  But somehow Inara loves the music and the bright colors.  And then the movie The Book of Life came out, and on a whim, we bought it for her and she fell in love.  She's been totally obsessed with it since, and when I asked if she wanted to learn a little more about Dia de los Muertos and help make an outfit for a blog tour, she jumped on it.  So with lots of help and opinions, here is what we came up with.

She's been running around calling herself La Muerta since.  So here's how we came up with our outfit.

The top is the LittleKiwisCloset Flutterby Peasant Dress and Top.  Inara wears a size 7, but I wanted it to have a looser, flowy look, so I made the size 9, but with the size 7 sleeve elastic, and added three rows of shirring at the waist line to give it some puff at the waist. 

I used a plain white interlock for the top, but then Inara and I sat down with some fabric paint markers and added a little Day of the Dead flair to it with some brightly colored flowers and a sugar skull. 

And then it was time for the skirt.  This one was an easy choice.  As soon as I saw the pattern, I knew it was perfect for this outfit, and thankfully, Inara wholeheartedly agreed.  The skirt is the Striped Swallow Designs Festival Skirt.  (Note on the skirt fit: if your kid is like mine and wears their bottoms more on the hip than waist, you'll need to shorten this a little). 

I did the yoga waistband and the underskirt in a lightweight black knit.

In case you were curious... La Muerta does not appreciate being chased around by her small bother while trying to take pictures.  He refused to be part of the fun dressing up, but insisted on chasing her around running head first into her while declaring himself to be a bull.

This outfit immediately shot to the top of the "wear this to school" list, and she gleefully wore it (minus the makeup, despite much begging), to school the next day. 

As for the makeup...  Let's start with the fact that anyone who knows me knows that it's a miracle if I manage to find my contacts.... applying makeup is well beyond my every day scope.  And, another fun Alyssa fact... I have NO artistic abilities.  My older brother can draw decently, and my little brother could build anything when he was little... but me... I can't even draw stick figures properly. 

It only took us three tries, and me abandoning the face paint in exchange for my colored eye liners and Inara's bright red lipstick that she got for her birthday.  In the end, though, she was really happy with it, and I think it came out pretty good considering that my seven year old has more artistic talent than I have. 

I think for me, the best part of being able to be part of this tour is that it gave me a great chance to teach Inara more of her heritage, and she's loved reading through the posts so far (She thinks that Melissa is SO COOL, so she loved reading her post).  And she's been planning all sorts of outfits out with all of the great posts so far.

So thanks for coming to check out our post and I hope that it gave you some inspiration to make some fun Dia de los Muertos inspired items for yourself!  And a huge thank you to Melissa for giving us the opportunity to be part of the tour.  Make sure you check out all of the other amazing posts for the week too.