My son's Halloween costume how to

Last Halloween I told my kids we could make their Halloween costumes! Whatever really cool thing they wanted…and boy did I regret those words! This is one my son picked:

Now–if you look closely you may notice…that my son is the only person in this picture!

As much fun as this was to see him–it was a doosy of a project! Also-we tried to make it as light as possible. But it is still heavy. My son wore it for Halloween parade and then took it off for the rest of the School party.

Here is what you need:

Wire (that you can bend…but not too flimsy )
stuffing
mask
backpack
2 dowels
hot glue
old pair of pjs
mask
cape
old man size shirt
duct tape
head (got mine from here)

It is wire…shaped into legs. Then I added a pool noodle for the upper thighs and a pool noodle for the lower. Wrapped stuffing around until it was the thickness I wanted. Filled some socks with stuffing as well and then I added them up over the pool noodle. Hot glued the hem of the pajama pants to the sock to keep the stuffing from falling out.

Then I just slit the back of the top.

This part was a little more complicated. I made a lowercase t shape about the size of a man with the dowels (hot glue and duct tape) . added pool noodles on the “shoulders” and wrapped it all with stuffing. You don’t need a torso…just arms and shoulders.

Attached head to top of Dowel. I actually snagged fake hands at the dollar store. I pocked the wire into the bottom of it. Hot glued them into place and then put some gloves on them to help hide the look of the fake hands!

Okay…once all the pieces were done…time to assemble. We took a backpack and filled it full of stuffing. You can see how the shirt goes around each side (because of the slit we cut) We pinned on the fake legs onto the shirt. You can see how the stuffing is up pretty high–That is to help it look proportionate. Then I stick the dowel into the backpack and zip each side tight around the dowel. We ended up dressing the guy in an old shirt we bought at the thrift store…and a couple capes we had to help hid the face that he had no real legs (We also chose pants that matched the cape to help it all hide it.

We added some sticky velcro to place the hands on my son’s chest. The head was a little too small –so we placed over this old mask with hair…that also hides the dowel. All in all…one of my most favorite Halloween costumes (even though it was a bit more complicated than I cared to admit! )