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Thursday 29 October 2020

Studio Ghibli Costumes: Satsuki & Mei from Totoro

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Another Studio Ghibli costume! This time it's Satsuki and Mei from My Neighbor Totoro along with their adorable Soot Sprites. And some more bad photoshop from me! 


Have you watched My Neighbor Totoro? It's such a sweet movie and my kids love it. I'm sure it has to be one of the all time most beloved Studio Ghibli movies. If you're not familiar with My Neighbor Totoro I definitely recommend that you watch it with your kids. Or by yourself. It's a great movie either way.

The two main characters of My Neighbor Totoro are two young girls, Satsuki and her little sister Mei who move into an old house in the countryside with their father while their mother is in hospital. Their house has been empty for some time and is filled with fuzzy little Soot Sprites just like the ones we made. Nearby is a forest which is home to magical creatures including Totoro and the Cat Bus (a giant cat that is also a bus carrying passengers inside of it). It's all super cute and very Japanese. 

Totoro costumes are pretty easy to come by (you can find lots of them here) so I decided to go with making simple costumes for Satsuki and Mei.


Let's take a look at Satsuki first...

What you'll need:


For Satsuki's costume I dressed Lola in a pale yellow t-shirt and orange skirt. Satsuki's skirt has suspenders but I knew that I wouldn't be able to find any to match so instead I took orange ribbon and pinned it to the skirt with safety pins to make suspenders with criss-crossing at the back. As Satsuki has quite short hair I tied Lola's hair back in a low ponytail. We added a red umbrella and a cute Soot Sprite to finish the look.   


And now let's take a look at Mei...

What you'll need:
Red sleeveless dress (I used a short sleeved dress and tucked the sleeves up)
Red hair bobbles (we made small pom poms


Mei's costume requires a few more items that Satsuki's. The base of the costume is a red sleeveless dress with a white shirt underneath. In the past I've been able to buy simple sleeveless dresses from both Primary.com and Hanna Andersson, but neither store has them at the moment. Instead I took a short sleeved dress and tucked the sleeves up. As the dress was layered over a white t-shirt the tucked up sleeves stayed in place. I then took a small brimmed straw hat and added a red ribbon around it. You can easily attach the ribbon with a hot glue gun, stitch it in place or even just tie it around. I then added a brown crossbody bag from my closet. I tied Mathilde's hair into two piggy tails and tied small red pom poms around each one to look like hair bobbles. 


And you're done! Shoes are a probably a good idea too if you're going outside. 

My favorite thing about simple costumes like this is that the kids can wear the clothes any time they like. These items are all staples in their every day closet. 

More Studio Ghibli coming up. Next it's Ponyo!

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