This is the coolest DIY Sally Costume (from The Nightmare Before Christmas!)—I still can’t believe I made it! I am not a seamstress. I’ve sewn a handful of things in my life, and thankfully I’m creative and a good problem solver so they’ve turned out well, but any real seamstress (like my mom or mother-in-law) would have a good laugh if she turned my creations inside out and saw the mess of seams and loose threads underneath.

I made this Sally costume for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland, and I truly love my Sally dress even more than the dress the official Sally wears at Disneyland! Disneyland Sally’s hair and makeup definitely beat mine, though!

This is day 2 of my 10-day Disneyland tips spree: 10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland!

10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party series (view all):

Go to Tip #1: Is Mickey’s Halloween Party Worth It?
Go to Tip #2 (You are here): DIY Sally Costume Nightmare Before Christmas
Go to Tip #3: Make the Most of Your Disneyland Day: Stay Close and Nap!
Go to Tip #4: Comfy Shoes for Disneyland!
Go to Tip #5: Things to Do Before Mickey’s Halloween Party Starts!
Tips #6–#10: Don’t Miss a Trick—or a Treat!—at Mickey’s Halloween Party!

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Today’s tip for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland: Get Your Costumes Ready ASAP!

My kiddos said noway to a family costume for Mickey’s Halloween Party, but KC and I decided to do a couples costume as Jack and Sally! Jefferson went as Deadpool (this was pre-movie and I didn’t actually know that Deadpool is a foul-mouthed anti-hero, or I would not have let my 11-year-old wear that costume!). Jameson went as Sabine from Star Wars Rebels, and even had her hair cut short so it would look just like Sabine’s.

We went all out on all of our costumes, and I’m so happy we did, because it made our night at Mickey’s Halloween Party extra fun, and we loved seeing other families’ creative costumes at Disneyland!

Here are a few costume tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland, and a basic tutorial for my DIY Sally Costume—plus how we made KC’s custom Jack Skellington costume!

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Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland Tip #2: Get Your Costumes Ready ASAP!

A big part of the fun at Mickey’s Halloween Party is that adults get to dress up too! Adults and teens 14 and up usually can’t wear costumes at Disneyland, but at Mickey’s Halloween Party, anything goes! (Within the boundaries of “safety and good judgement” and Disneyland’s discretion!)

Right after we got tickets for Mickey’s Halloween Party, we found out we had to move. My husband and I had already decided to go as Jack and Sally, but we weren’t thrilled with the Jack or Sally costumes available at the Halloween stores, Hot Topic, etc., so we decided to DIY Jack and Sally costumes.

We moved into our new home two weeks before our Disneyland trip for Mickey’s Halloween Party. Because we were so busy house hunting, packing, and moving, KC and I stayed up late sewing my costume and painting his costume right up til the night before our Disneyland trip.

You may be more organized than I am, or maybe you’re not planning to wear an elaborate costume to Mickey’s Halloween Party, but I’ll advise you anyway: Get your ENTIRE costume ensemble completed ASAP. I was still hunting for the perfect Sally socks the morning before we headed to Disneyland!

The kids’ costumes were not custom, but Jefferson’s costume had to be taken in; Jameson needed colored hairspray. These small items became more urgent as we got closer to our trip.

Packing for a vacation is stressful enough for any mom. Get those costumes ready right away once you buy your tickets for Mickey’s Halloween Party!

Study Disneyland’s Costume Rules!

Disneyland tweaks its costume rules every year, so make sure to read the rules before you buy costumes! Here are Disneyland’s Mickey’s Halloween Party costume guidelines for 2017.

Be flexible!

You might have to take part of your costume off if a Cast Member determines it is not within Mickey’s Halloween Party costume guidelines. If your kid might freak out about “ruining” his costume if he has to take part of it off at a Cast Member’s request, make sure he has a rule-proof costume from head to toe!

When we attended Mickey’s Halloween Party, kids were allowed to wear masks, but the Cast Member at the turnstiles asked Jefferson (who was 11) to take off his Deadpool mask because there weren’t any eyeholes in the mask. He put it on for a few photos inside the Park, but he was fine not wearing the mask throughout the Party.

KC was allowed to wear his Jack Skellington mask even though he is an adult, because it had large eyeholes. He pretty much just wore it for photos though, because it was really hot that night! The new rule is no masks for adults at Disneyland, period.

We didn’t want to worry about anybody accidentally getting whacked by Deadpool’s weapons, so Jefferson kept the long swords on his back except when he removed them to ride more comfortably on the rides. We also left the short swords behind at home, because I didn’t want to end up carrying them!

Jameson went to the Party as Sabine from Star Wars Rebels, and her toy blasters were not an issue. Since toy guns are now banned from the Disneyland Resort she would not be allowed to take the toy blasters into Disneyland again.

The blasters weighed her costume down, so she ended up carrying them in her candy bag. Consider what you’ll do with any costume item your kids discard during the night. If you have a stroller, just toss items underneath. I didn’t want to ruin the effect of my Sally costume by wearing a backpack, so I made sure the kids could hang on to anything they might want to take off.

DIY Sally Costume Nightmare Before Christmas

DIY Sally Costume: How I Made Sally’s Dress:

All you need to make a Sally costume like this:

Fabric scraps, plus a larger piece of fabric for the back of the dress
A black Sharpie and/or black fabric paint
Pins
Needle and thread (I made quick seams with a sewing machine but you could make it by hand too.)
Embroidery thread for the stitches detail

As I noted earlier, I am not a seamstress.

I watched every Sally scene in The Nightmare Before Christmas about a dozen times each until I had a good sketch of what the front and back of the costume should look like, as well as Sally’s socks and shoes, hair and makeup.

Once I had that sketch, I made a list of the specific fabric colors and patterns I needed to hunt for. Joann was a one stop shop for fabric, plus I lucked out finding many perfect fabrics in the remnants bin, so all of the fabric cost less than $20! I hand painted details on several of the fabrics to make them look just like Sally’s with a Sharpie and fabric paint.

I cut out each piece of fabric, eyeballing the proportions of each patch on Sally’s dress. I paused the movie at a point where I could see the entire front of her dress so I could refer to it as I cut out the fabric.

Since Sally’s dress is so loose, I didn’t need a pattern. I measured myself around the shoulders, waist, and hips, and added 6” on both the left and the right sides. Once I had Frankensteined everything together, I ended up with an extra 3” on each side, which made the dress easy to slip over my head, and very comfortable to wear!

The seams are on the inside of the dress, and because Sally’s dress is made from scraps in specific shapes, I used tons of pins to pin everything together on the right side of the fabric until it looked just right, then flipped it over to sew the pieces together.

I wasn’t sure if it would all hold together, so I wore a tank top and shorts under the dress. Thankfully, nothing fell apart!

To mimic the stitches on Sally’s dress, I sewed the edges of some of the patches with black embroidery thread. I did a lot of that stitching in the car on the way to Disneyland! Stitching with the embroidery thread was tedious, so I stopped at the bodice. Maybe I’ll finish it one day, but I think there’s so much going on with the dress that it’s not very noticeable that every patch doesn’t have the stitches detail.

DIY Sally Costume: Sally’s Shoes and Socks

I didn’t look for high heeled booties exactly like Sally’s, because those would be super uncomfortable to wear at Disneyland! I wore short black boots, and since I couldn’t find socks with a wide stripe, I bought striped tights and cut them into tubes that I wore like boot socks.

DIY Sally Costume: Sally’s Hair and Makeup

I toyed with the idea of temporarily dying my hair orange, but Mickey’s Halloween Party is only 8 hours long, and I didn’t want to go out and about with orange hair for more than one day! I used orange Halloween hairspray ($2 at Walmart). I twisted 1” pieces of hair into a rope and sprayed each rope heavily with the hairspray. The ropes separated into tiny strands because the Halloween hairspray doesn’t hold very well; if I wear this costume again I’ll spray it with a strong hairspray too, or bite the bullet and use temporary dye so I can straighten my hair.

At Disneyland, the Sally character has amazing blue skin! No way could I attempt that. I used false eyelashes for the first time—and did not poke my eye out or lose one! I copied Sally’s makeup by looking at closeups of Nightmare Before Christmas stills. I drew stitches on my face, neck, arms and legs with liquid eyeliner. My stitches stayed put through the night!

DIY Jack Skellington Costume

KC’s Jack Skellington costume is amazing! He had the idea to buy a black tuxedo and hand paint stripes on it. He ordered this tuxedo jacket with tails from Amazon. It was expensive, but we didn’t have time to hunt for a short tuxedo coat with tails at thrift stores. He just used old suit pants he already had. A very cool touch was this skeleton bones t-shirt that KC wore under the jacket. He wore black Vans so his feet wouldn’t hurt walking for miles at Disneyland. The mask and bat tie that came with the Jack Skellington costume looked great, so he used the mask and bat tie and wore the hand painted tuxedo instead of the costume suit.

We hand painted white stripes on the entire suit so it looked just like Jack Skellington. That took us several nights but it turned out well!

If you want to dress up as Jack Skellington for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland, be aware that September and October are typically very warm months in Anaheim! KC was hot all afternoon and night in his costume, but he didn’t want to take off his Jack jacket and ruin the effect.

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