DIY Halloween Costume

Halloween is always a fun time to be creative, especially, when you have young children. Sometimes a child’s request can be really outside the box. Other times you just don’t want to spend a hundred dollars for a costume he or she will wear once for a few hours and if you get lucky maybe some random play time during the year. Whatever the case may be, don’t be afraid to try your creative skills out and make your own costumes.

I am not normally one to make a costume from scratch. I am the girl who would buy the whole costume or buy random parts to make my ideas come to life. My husband and I have always done the matching couples costume’s, so it wasn’t a surprise that when my son was born, we sought out family costumes.

Last year, my son requested to be a robot and this wasn’t a huge surprise either. He has been obsessed with robots since he was about 2 years old and has been running around acting like a robot ever since.  We came across this Robot helmet at TJ Max around the end of September, so I bought it with the intention of buying a made robot body suit. I thought this would be an easy task, but I was not having any luck finding a costume in the stores. Of course, my next search was on the internet, but I was having an issue finding a costume to fit my tall 4-year-old son. So, I went where most Mom’s search for great ideas, Pinterest. I found a bunch of awesome ideas and thought to myself, this doesn’t look too hard, worst case scenario, I will find a back-up on Amazon.

I started with a list of things I thought I would need:

• Either cardboard or felt, something to give that boxy look.

• Glue or some other type of adhesives.

• Gadgets/small toys I could glue on.

• Markers, preferably Permanent.

• Letters- iron on if found.

• Paint- preferably in pen.

• Anything else I came across that could be useful.

Since I already had the helmet, the body was my main focus. I debated back and forth between cardboard and felt. The cardboard had a lot of nifty ideas that didn’t look that hard. However, knowing my son, I did not think he would be comfortable. I was also worried he would destroy the costume while wearing it, as he’s a very lively and enthusiastic boy. So, I choose to go the felt route.

My local fabric store was Anna’s Linens and I found a lot of these items there. I bought blue felt to use for his body suit and it matched his helmet. I also bought felt in differenrt colors, I figured I could cut these up and make gauges and other sorts to fill up the body portion of his costume. They also had a great selection of adhesive products that were heavy duty such as E6000 glue and Velcro Strips.

For the rest of the decorations, I already knew I was going to find it for a great deal at the 99cent store or the dollar store. First trip I ran was the brand new 99cent store near my home. Just an FYI, I found the same E6000 glue and black off brand Velcro strips, which of course was more at Anna’s Linens. I also gathered up small widget looking toys, bike reflector lights, fabric paint, foam letters, poster board letters, no sew liquid adhesive, and a drawing kit.

The felt was going to be an easy overlay. I got it long enough so that when I folded the felt in half, it went down past his knees and I just had to cut a hole in the middle for his head. The nice lady who helped me cut the blue felt at Anna’s gave me a great tip. She told me not to cut the hole to the size of his head or otherwise it will dangle and not fit well. She instructed me to measure his neck for the size of the hole, then to cut a line down from the hole on the backend. This would give the head room to squeeze through. I did just that and it fit perfect.

Next, we brainstormed on how to incorporate the gadgets on the body. I included my son in this part, so he can be involved and feel his contributions to his costume. He spelled out his name with the foam letter’s and I added the bot for the full effect. I cut out a pieces of the white felt to make a gauge-like drawing. Then, we played around with all the placements of the toy widgets and bike reflectors, until we felt like it came together. 

Then, I glued on the placement of gadgets we chose for our final decisions with the E6000 and left heavy books on top of them to sit for a day. I wish I would have glued down the reflectors better because my child lost most of them at the school parade. They were adhesive and I did not think to add the E6000, looking back I wish I had. Here is my results.

Of course, we had to have some family fun with it. I did not make my costume. I ordered a white coat and some fake black lensed glasses from Amazon. I was the mad Scientist who created the Michaelbot. My son still has this costume and wears it every now and then. Luckily, it is something you slip over and can’t outgrow so easily. My son loves robots, but I think even more than that, he loves the memories of the time he built a robot with Mom.