Toddler Owl Halloween Costume

Owl costumes are easy to makes.  A long sleeve t-shirt, various colors of felt cut into U or V shapes, and fabric glue. Then glue the felt in overlapping rows until you obtain the desired mix of colors. I lack the skill to knit and only had 2 weeks before Halloween to complete this, so I bought the hat on amazon.com for less than $7.  The costume came out awesome. Put together with pants and shoes that you already own.  Hooray for homemade costumes that are comfortable, adorable, and less than $20. 

Bumble Bee Costume For a Little Boy

My 3 year old wants to be a bumble bee for halloween. He doesn't want to wear tights and a tutu.  He doesn't want glittery wings. He must have a stinger.  He wants a dude bumble bee costume.  I want to get it done ASAP and share it with you.  

How I did it:

The bee striped shirt- 4T sized yellow shirt painted with black fabric paint on front and back.  I used 3M blue painter's tape for the stripes.

The Stinger- A party hat with a  stretchy string. Wrapped in felt. Hot Glued on.  I glue a strip of yellow felt to make it stand out more. 

The antenna-  old headband wrapped in black felt. Pipe cleaners for the antenna part

The wings- Poster board cut into a wing shape, then pinned onto shirt.  

Toddler Halloween Costume

When my 2 year old said, 'I want to be Jake for Halloween', I knew I could buy the costume from the Disney Store.  

When I saw the costume, I was shocked by 2 things. First, how thin it was.  We live outside Chicago and Halloween is cold.  I hear sometimes it snows. 

My second shock was the price. At 40 bucks for such a pathetic outfit, I would still need the sword and good chance he would have to wear a jacket over it. 

I decided to make the costume.   I have a sewing machine but I have never used it. It's so fancy that I am afraid of it and NEVER have time to read the instructions.  But I can back stitch. Thank you years of cross stitching to ease my adolescent insomnia.  

Sorry I did not use templates and I haven't saved an exact step by step of how I did it. But I can tell you that most of the costume you can by ready made.  The blue sweat pants and white shirt came from Target.  They were warm and cheap so I could cut up the shirt and have no regrets.  The sword and the treasure chest pail were purchased on Amazon.com.  

The homemade bits were the headband, the vest, the detail on the shirt, and the boot covers. Get some felt, find a tutorial on making vests, and you can figure the rest out from there.  Here are a few pictures to get you motivated. 

Please note that the cost of supplies were equal to that of buying the costume. However,you still need a sword and treasure chest pail, right?  The store bought costume was paper thin and would have not been adequate for our climate.  My son is 3 now and still wears this costume, although its too tight and the boot covers don't stay on anymore.  He had a blast and so did I. Not bad for a mother who doesn't have time to sew and doesn't care for crafts.