Juan Diego Decoration and Costume

Although I made this as a costume for my youngest son (age 1) It really is cute enough to make just as a decoration to hang out on Dec. 9 -12 for the feast of Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe. Because my little guy is so small and will be growing out of it, I know I will use it as a decoration in the future!  🙂

Click here to read about Juan Diego.

You will need:

• light brown felt

• an image of O.L. of Guadalupe appropriate size for the cloak / tilma (I used a coloring page that my 8 year old colored.)

• white glue

• a paint brush

• gold fabric paint (optional)

• artificial roses

• hot glue and scissors

First, cut the felt into the size and shape you like for your tilma.

Cover the back of your image with white glue.

Place it glue side down onto your tilma and smooth it out.

Now add more white glue to the top. Cover the entire picture and brush the glue off the edges, too. This helps to make the paper more pliable and stronger! Allow that to dry over night.

After it’s dry you might have edges that could snag. Because mine was going to be worn by a toddler and I didn’t want him to be able to rip the image off, I trimmed the edge of the image with gold fabric paint.

I spread the fabric paint over the edge of the image and onto the felt.

This made the edges more secure and it looked really neat! Allow that to dry. (about 4 hrs. or more)

Now I made a “cup” area on the bottom to hold the roses.

I added a few drops of hot glue to the bottom area and pinched it together.

I then arranged the roses and hot glued them in place.

The next step is totally optional: I used a small straw hat as a counter weight…I tied the ribbons of the hat to the ribbons of the tilma. This worked well for my little guy so he could comfortably wear the tilma without having pressure around his neck.

Isn’t he sooooo cute!?!?! The funny thing is that when he wears it he feels he needs to sit or kneel. So maybe I should make him wear it all the time to keep him out of trouble!! 😉

Thanks for visiting!!

God Bless.

~Jen-Marie