How to make an Ember Elemental running costume

A look at how I put together my Ember Elemental running costume:

Ember Elemental running costume - Disney in your Day

I’ve participated in Disney’s Princess race weekend every year since 2014 (except for when they switched it to virtual in 2021 and 2022). And since it’s a princess race, I always pick a princess or someone from a princess movie to dress up as. But every once in awhile I run a different Disney race, and then I have so many possibilities outside of the Princess films!

As I was brainstorming costume ideas for this past Wine and Dine half marathon, I didn’t really care about sticking to any theme that they picked (Encanto, this year, but I had already done an Encanto costume recently). Instead I just decided to do a character that had really resonated with me recently from a film I very much enjoyed.

Enter: Pixar’s Elemental. I’ve talked to too many people who have said they haven’t seen it yet. If you’re one of those, it’s on Disney+ so go watch it! It might not be everyone’s favorite, but I really enjoyed it and especially the character of Ember.

Not only did I relate to her fiery personality, but her fiery appearance is super cool. I’ve always been drawn to oranges, yellows, and reds as my favorite colors. I’m an Aries (fire sign), born in the Year of the Dragon, and I have a tattoo of a phoenix. So Ember was right up my alley and I knew I wanted to try and do justice to a costume based on her!

I’m not talented enough to actually take pieces of fabric and sew them to make a costume or anything, but I do like to try and put together bits and pieces to assemble a costume myself rather than buying one. Nothing wrong with that of course, and there’s some amazing work out there for sale! I just like the challenge and fun of crafting. And I also like to be unique. So most of what you’ll see me make starts with a base layer of a shirt/skirt/ etc. and then I add some details here and there. Oh, and I do need costumes that I can actually run in.

Here’s how I put together my Ember Elemental running costume!

This post contains affiliate links – that means it costs nothing extra to you when you purchase by clicking the link but I make a couple of extra cents to support the blog!

To start with the base of my outfit I used a plain Black running skirt and black crop top tank (the one I linked here is the one I purchased, as I thought it looked the most similar to what Ember wears).

When I began planning it I actually was going to start with a black tank athletic dress, but I realized she’s actually wearing a skirt and top. I bought that black dress but ultimately decided it wasn’t quite the right fit so I didn’t use it. I did however keep it, because I figure there will probably be a running costume at some point where I will need a black dress to start with!

So I had my base, but I needed to add the diamond pattern. I will say this – what I ended up doing took a lot longer than I thought it would. I think it looked really cool when I was done, but it was more of a painstaking process than I anticipated!

I have a good amount of craft supplies just generally on hand, so I decided to start with what I had. I had some gold ribbon and some gold sequins that seemed like they would work.

Now remember, I’m not really a sewer, so I just glued everything on. Turns out tacky glue works really well! My running costumes aren’t meant to last long, but this one survived being packed and unpacked, plus going through a half marathon with only a few sequins lost here and there (I did bring some of the tacky glue for last minute fixes the night before the race, which ended up coming in handy!).

I did run out of the gold ribbon while I was making this costume, and my first thought was “oh no – I think this ribbon is probably 15+ years old, how will I ever find the same kind or something similar enough so it doesn’t look weird?!” I guess ribbon companies are doing pretty well, because I was able to google the name on the spool and purchase more of the exact same gold ribbon – on Amazon, in fact!

Once the rather grueling part of my costume was complete, I had to add my accessories! I basically went with flames for everything everywhere. I found some compression socks with flames on them, and I used a cheap pair of tights that had flames printed on to cut up and use as arm decorations. My favorite running headband company, Bondi Band, had a headband with flames.

For the final touch I used a piece of bright orange fabric that I had to wrap around my waist. Oh, and my orange shoes of course – I didn’t buy them specifically for this costume, but since orange is my favorite color I happened to have them anyway!

Check out my other running costumes here:

What do you think of my Ember Elemental running costume? What character should I dress as for my next RunDisney event?

Here’s how I put together my Ember Elemental running costume!

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