DIY Aurora Costume: The Most Underrated Disney Princess?

Back in October 2025, my daughter announced that she wanted to be Aurora for Halloween.

I had no intention of making this costume for her. But when we started looking for one, there were zero Aurora costumes in her size. Apparently, if you're older than one year old, you're out of luck if you want to be Aurora!

This is why I think Aurora might be the most underrated princess.

So that meant she had two options: She could go as her second choice… or I could take the 2–3 weeks before Halloween and make the costume myself.

Obviously, I'm not one to back down from a challenge.

So I piled the kids into the car, and we went fabric shopping at the best spot in town: Fabricland.

Once she picked out the perfect Aurora pink fabric, the next step was finding a pattern that could work for the dress.

The first place I checked was the Violette Fields Threads website. I found the Catrine pattern, and thought it would work really well because of the off-the-shoulder design.

Years ago I had bought a beautiful gold applique from Fabricland. It was one of those things I purchased because it was gorgeous, but I never had the right project for it.

Until this one.

I cut the appliqué into smaller pieces and started applying them to the bodice and sleeves.

I also added a gold belt along the bottom of the bodice to bring in a bit more gold detail.

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Once the bodice design was coming together, it was time to figure out what to do about the white shoulder pieces.

Honestly, I had no idea if this was going to work.

I used tracing paper to draw and measure the shape, then top-stitched the final cut pieces onto the bodice. To my pleasant surprise, it actually worked!

Here is the idea pinned onto the bodice.

I did accidentally cut one side a little too short. Instead of redoing the whole piece, I moved one of the appliqué sections up slightly to hide it.

Honestly… it worked perfectly.

And since this was just a Halloween costume, it definitely wasn’t worth starting the whole thing over.

For the white skirt overlay, I added a gold trim along the bottom edge.

Here it is pinned onto the mannequin so I could see how everything was coming together.

Once the main pieces were working, it was time to make the tulle underskirt.

Gathering tulle is always such a fun part of making these dresses.

One thing I would change about this costume if I made it again is that I would use a tie-back closure instead of a zipper.

The tulle underskirt added a lot of bulk at the waist, which made the zipper difficult to sew in and caused the skirt to sit a little unevenly.

Normally, I would make a mock-up version before sewing the final dress. But with such a short timeline before Halloween, I skipped that step.

Even with a few imperfections, I was still really happy with how the dress turned out—and more importantly, my daughter loved wearing it trick-or-treating.

Here she is with her siblings and cousins on Halloween night.

In my eyes, this project was a success and a challenge worth taking on.

Thank you so much for reading, and I can’t wait to share the next creative project.

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