'Tis the season for Nutcracker dreams and shipping updates!

IMPORTANT: We are only shipping physical products in 2021 for a FEW MORE DAYS. Any orders placed after Saturday 12/18/21 will NOT BE SHIPPED until January 2022.

There are still a handful of HOLIDAY MYSTERY BAGS in our Etsy store, as well as plenty of COTTON FABRIC and SILK SHANTUNG STRIÉ. But get your order in quick, or you'll have to wait until 2022 for delivery of your goodies!

CLICK HERE to shop the Fabric, Trim & Kits section of our Etsy store before Saturday 12/18/21

Of course, all of our downloadable PDF patterns for 18 inch American Girl®, 16 inch A Girl for All Time® and 14 1/2 inch WellieWishers™ and similar dolls will still be available for purchase every day.

Last weekend, our pattern designer Pearl gave herself a sparkling treat!

She dusted off the glittery holiday bag and headed off to Bass Hall in downtown Fort Worth for a performance of the Texas Ballet Theater Nutcracker.

You still have time to create your own Nutcracker treats for the doll- and ballet-lovers in your life using our just-like-the-real thing patterns for 18 inch, 16 inch and 14 1/2 inch dolls!

For inspiration, let's take a look back at the design and construction details of our iconic Sugar Plum Fairy, sparkling Candy Cane and sweet Gingerbread Cookie ballet costumes...

One of the first ballet costumes Pearl made while designing our Ballet Performance tutu and bodice patterns was a gorgeous pink-and-gold Sugar Plum Fairy outfit for American Girl® Caroline.

This classical tutu and seamed bodice ensemble is still one of our favorites. We love the subtle interplay of ombré shades of pink tulle under the glittering gold top layer of the tutu, and the deep gold lace that we cut into flattering shapes and basted onto the pink brocade bodice.

But while designing an addition to our ballet pattern collection — Pattern 1074: Mix-and-Match Ballet Costume Accessories for 18 Inch Dolls — Pearl realized that she could take this costume to an even more gorgeously glittering, just-like-the-real-thing level with a matching tutu plate, dainty tulle sleeve puffs, and a sparkling painted and jeweled tiara!

This Sugar Plum Fairy may be our absolutely favorite costume of all time, and we're going to show you all the lovely details that went into making it.

First, let's talk about that tutu plate.

Tutu plates are lightweight, flat pieces that ballet costume designers adorn with lace or jewels or any other trim they like, and then baste or stitch onto the costume as an easily swappable element that can turn a stock tutu into a whole range of different character costumes.

Our tutu plates work exactly the same way!

Pattern 1074 includes five standard shapes — the Flower, the Snowflake, the Folktale, the Princess and the Rose — that can be decorated any way you like and then tied or hooked on top of an existing tutu for costume changes that are as easy as tying on an apron!

For our Sugar Plum Fairy, we used the Princess plate, a graceful shape that emulates the look of swept back 18th century skirts.

For the top layer of the plate, we used the same pink brocade that we used for the bodice and tutu basque.

Though this fabric looks sturdy, it's actually a very light polyester silkie that frays easily and can't be turned neatly. So we made it into a crisper, sturdier fabric by bonding it to crisp, sturdy pink silk organza, using sheer fusible webbing from our interfacing stash.

Though we're showing all three layers in the photo above, do not iron directly on fusible webbing as it will melt and make a mess on your sole plate. In fact, we recommend using a pressing cloth to make sure that the webbing can't touch anything except the fabric it's sandwiched between.

Once we'd bonded the silkie to the silk organza, we were able to stitch up the plate easily, using another piece of organza for the lining layer.

To decorate the tutu plate, we found more scraps of the gold lace we'd used for the bodice overlay and arranged them in an attractive design around the edge of the plate.

Though the finished result looks like a single piece of curved lace, it's actually quite a few pieces, with the round rosette shapes pinned on top of the loose edges. Net-backed lace like this can be cut, re-organized and hand-stitched in place almost invisibly, which makes it a wonderful design element for doll ballet costumes.

Once we were happy with the arrangement, we basted the lace to the plate with matching thread and small stitches tucked between the lace motifs.

But there's one more bit of sparkle needed to match this plate to the bodice!

In the photo below, you can just see that there are tiny pink beads basted here and there on top of the gold lace. These are light pink, translucent glass 8/0 seed beads with silver lined holes. And here's the fun part — those silver lined holes are SQUARE, not round.

So even though you can barely see the beads in the finished outfit, you'll definitely see the little square sparkles they create, which look like a scattering of sugar crystals across the surface of our Sugar Plum Fairy's costume.

Isn't that a pretty effect?

We used the same beads interspersed with gold translucent 11/0 seed beads in an easy, looped bead-embroidery edging all around the top of each tulle SLEEVE PUFF, another fun ballet costume accessory included in our Pattern 1074.

The nice thing about a looped edging like this is that it remains stretchy, so the elastic around the top of the sleeve puff is still flexible enough to fit over the doll's hand. That's something you have to be careful about when attaching trim to the elastic edges of the sleeve puffs or ruffles — keep the trim as flexible as the elastic or the doll won't be able to wear her pretty new accessories!

Finally, we decided to make a matching tiara for our newly refurbished Sugar Plum Fairy costume.

At Lee & Pearl, we love painting plastic — turning inexpensive toys into stunningly realistic doll-scale accessories!

For all our costume tiaras, we start with crazy-cheap plastic princess party favors, which can be found in lots of different sizes and shapes in party stores or big box retailers like Target and Walmart.

Tiaras like these can also be found online: CLICK HERE for the actual tiara we bought on Amazon to make this costume.

To get ready for painting and decorating, we snipped off the attached plastic combs and spray painted each tiara with plastic primer. Here's a tip: use white primer for light, sparkly tiaras, and black primer for rich, jewel-toned tiaras.

Next, we pulled out our favorite Lumiere® by Jacquard metallic paints, a sponge pouncer and a small rectangular brush. We applied several coats of the metallic paint, starting with a bright metallic brass and then applying darker coats in mottled patterns with the pouncer.

Before the darker coats dry, lightly wipe off some of the color from the high points with a scrap of microfiber toweling to let the brass underneath shine through as a highlight.

Use the small rectangular brush to apply touch-ups until you are happy with the coverage and the arrangement of colors, then let dry thoroughly before coating the whole tiara with a gloss sealer (below, right).

You can leave the painted tiara as is, or add even more sparkle by gluing beads or tiny rhinestones into the round openings on the tiara. We always choose to add more sparkle, of course, and have quite a collection of tiny manicure rhinestones for this purpose,

NOTE: If you use E6000 glue to attach the beads and crystals, be sure to work in a well-ventilated area or while wearing a properly rated respirator mask.

And that's that!

Isn't that a lovely tiara? It's hard to believe it started out as a piece of cheap plastic, but that's why we love crafts like these.

Next up, we had fun with two more Kingdom of Sweets costumes:

Here's American Girl® Kit as a dancing Candy Cane!

Pearl started this outfit with a classical tutu of white tulle and a strapless bodice of white bengaline, both made using Pattern 1073: Prima Ballerina Strapless Bodice and Classical Tutu with Basque and Panty for 18 Inch Dolls.

Next, Pearl made a red silk organza tutu plate, also using the Princess plate from our Pattern 1074: Mix-and-Match Ballet Costume Accessories.

Then the fun began as Pearl pulled every bit of red or white trim and fabric off the workroom shelves and tried them out in layers on the plate, and tucked under the plate as well.

The winners were a piece of large-scale white rick rack, a strip of red and white striped holiday cotton and this adorable ribbon of tiny dangling pom-poms — the result of a last minute trip to JoAnn Fabrics in search of that "one more thing" that no one ever seems to have, no matter how large the stash.

To attach the trims, Pearl started by hand stitching the pom-pom ribbon in place, with the pom-poms just peeking out from under the edge of the tutu plate.

Next, Pearl hemmed and finished the strip of striped fabric, gathered it to fit the edge of the plate, and then hand stitched it to the bottom of the plate, over the white pom-pom trim.

Finally, Pearl arranged the rick rack on the plate to her liking, and hand stitched that down as well.

With the bodice, tutu and tutu plate done, it was time to consider final touches — like these red tulle sleeve puffs, also made using our Pattern 1074: Mix-and-Match Ballet Costume Accessories for 18 Inch Dolls.

Pearl snipped a few of the tiny white pom-poms off the trim, and loosely stitched them to the edge of the sleeve puff. Though Pearl used a needle and thread, dabs of fabric glue would work just as well. It is important to note that the pom-poms are attached separately, so that the elastic edge of the sleeve puff can stretch over the doll's hand.

Next, Pearl dug this collection of poly clay candy canes out of her box of doll food, wrapped them in gold ribbon and glued them to an alligator clip for a hair ornament.

Finally, she made a choker from a scrap of red velvet ribbon and finished it with a red plastic poinsettia pendant from the bridal aisle at JoAnn.

And with that — our Candy Cane Kit is ready for her Nutcracker debut!

For our American Girl Lea's Gingerbread Cookie costume, Pearl started with exactly the same white classical tutu that we used for the Candy Cane costume.

And yet, the outfit looks completely different as the white tutu is worn with a ginger brown long-line Russian bodice made using our Pattern 1076: Grand Gala Dropped Waist Ballgown with Evening Gloves and Russian Ballet Bodice with Neo-Classical Tutu for 18 Inch Dolls, and a set of matching tutu plates that snug up against the bottom of the bodice for a seamless look.

That's the wonderful thing about our mix-and-match ballet costume patterns — with multiple, easy-to-make bodice and tutu plate options, a very small number of tutus can be used to create a remarkable number of unique character costumes!

Pearl layered TWO tutu plates for this costume — a simple circular plate on the bottom, made out of the same fabric as the bodice, and a "Flower" plate on top made out of toffee silk organza, with a loopy white "icing" trim created by stitching white piping all the way around the lobed edge.

Though we love the ornate gold lace and glittering crystals on our Sugar Plum Fairy and kaleidoscopic red-and-white trim on our Candy Cane, this Gingerbread Cookie is a real Corps de Ballet costume — a costume of simple lines that will be most effective in a group of matching costumes, like a baking tray of dancing cookies!

At the last minute, Pearl decided to add one more bit of trim. Red Hots® are our favorite candy for decorating gingerbread cookies, so Pearl dug some red plastic domed shank buttons out of her button box, and wrapped them in leftover pieces of white piping.

Stitched onto the bodice, these icing-swirled buttons make the perfect final touch on our Gingerbread Cookie's yummy ensemble!

CLICK HERE to shop the Ballet Performance Bundle for 18 Inch Dolls in the Lee & Pearl Etsy store.

The Ballet Performance Pattern Bundle is also available for 16 inch and 14 1/2 inch dolls — and as a super-discounted bundle that includes all three sizes.

CLICK HERE to shop Pattern 1074: Mix-and-Match Ballet Costume Accessories for 18 Inch Dolls

CLICK HERE to shop Pattern 1076: Grand Gala Dropped Waist Ballgown and Russian Ballet Bodice with Neo-Classical Tutu for 18 Inch Dolls

CLICK HERE to shop Pattern 1075: Ballet Slippers for 18 Inch, 16 Inch and 14 1/2 Inch Dolls

Want '80s fashion fun for your dolls? Sign up for the Lee & Pearl mailing list to get our FREE exclusive subscriber Pattern 1984: Retro '80s Romper for 18 Inch Dolls — as well as pattern announcements, tutorials and behind-the-scenes news from Lee & Pearl delivered directly to your inbox.

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See you next time!