Introducing the 2013 Goodland Buzzard Princess

The trip I took with the girls to visit my parents in Florida coincided with the 29th annual Goodland Mullet Festival.  A main attraction of the festival is the crowning of the Buzzard Queen and Princess.  Arden competed in the Buzzard Princess contest and she won!!

Here she is at my parents’ house getting all costumed up and practicing her wing flapping.

Waiting (somewhat impatiently) to go onstage for the competition.  The Buzzard Lope is a song written by Stan Gober who passed away in June 2012.  He was the owner of Stan’s Idle Hour Restaurant which is where the majority of the Mullet Festival events take place.

There were two other girls in the contest.  Arden looks like she’s eyeing up the competition.

My Mom says she looks for wing flapping and feathers in the princesses who get her vote.  Arden definitely had the wing flapping part down cold!  She hardly paused the whole time she was on stage.

All three girls performed the dance together and then a short version by themselves to help the crowd decide who would get their vote by applause.  This is Arden’s solo – I’m the nut screaming right next to the camera…

And here she is with her prize!  She won the trophy and cash as well as the bike you see in the background. We decided to donate the bike to be auctioned off with proceeds to benefit Hospice.

She also won second place for the costume only portion of the competition and even more cash.  I’m planning to put all the winnings towards a nice present for her upcoming 4th birthday.

The proud Momma!

Here’s the detail for the fascinator I made for her costume.  I cut ovals out of felt and then used scrap feathers from the wings.  I singed the black polyester fabric with a lighter and fringed some of the silver pleather.  Mom had the little swirl of feathered fluffy stuff and then I added sequins for extra sparkle.

… and the wings.  I knew when I was packing that we were going to try to enter the competition so I tossed in a bunch of black, pink and silver fabrics I had on hand.  I used black felt for the base of the wings – leftover from a prior winged costume.  I have no idea where the polyester fabric came from – go fabric stash!  The tulle was something I picked up in the dollar bin at JoAnn’s when I was planning Arden’s pink-themed 3rd birthday party and never used.  A bit of pink fleece from the stash and this was essentially a free costume.

I feel pretty confident that Arden will do really well with this year’s dance recital if this is any indication.  It was so much fun to see her up there flapping her little arms off!!