DIY Crayon Costume

Halloween is always a fun time of year, and it's especially exciting to see the people who have put real effort into their costumes. This year I decided to get a little crafty too and put together a simple blue crayon costume, which only cost me about ten dollars. I found all of the necessary materials at my local Fabricland and Walmart stores.

The inspiration for the costume was found here.

The formal plan for costume construction included my sewing machine, but it's currently back at home with my parents. I decided to make do with a hot glue gun, which worked surprisingly well!

Materials used:

- Felt (approx. 2 metres of the crayon colour, 1 metre of black)

- Scissors
- Tape

- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- Bristol board

- Hook and loop tape (aka Velcro strips)

I started by first downloading this font. I loaded it into Microsoft Word, expanded it to size 250 and printed out the letters of "Crayola".

I realized that the paper would be too flimsy to use as a stencil on the heavy felt, so I glued the letters onto index cards for extra support. This made the letter stencils much more durable. I used the stencils to cut out the blue felt, then glued the letters onto an oval of black felt. 

The next step was a little tricky to do alone, so I would recommend having an extra set of hands to help you fit the felt around yourself. I wanted to make sure the costume would fit as loosely as possible, as I always seem to be an inconsistent size and wanted to be comfortable. 

The exact location to cut off excess felt was a very rough estimate. I chopped away and then attached several strips of Velcro to the interior. 

Thankfully felt is a rather forgiving material to work with, (it doesn't fray at the ends) but I still wanted a closed edge on the costume. I folded in about three centimetres of material around all four edges and secured them with glue.

The logo was then attached to the centre of the costume. I just guessed where the centre was and stuck it on.

To make the stripes for the ends of the crayon, I cut long thin strips of black felt, then made an irregular squiggle cut through the middle just like this. These strips were then glued on as close to the edge as possible.

The final part of the costume was the pointed hat. I rolled a sheet of Bristol board into a cone shape and cut off the excess until it fit snugly on my head. I then secured the inside of the hat with tape and glued blue felt around the outside. To wear the hat, I attached two safety pins to a headband and the inner rim of the hat.

The outcome was much better than expected!

Tell me below: What did you wear for Halloween this year? Have you ever made a costume from scratch?

- Katie