It seems that every year, my kid gets into some fad or other that winds up being expressed in his Halloween costume: Thomas the Tank Engine, Happy Feet, the list goes on. A couple of years ago, his obsession with trains resulted in this costume. Last year we got off easy with a “Flint Lockwood” costume (you know, the inventor from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs), which just called for a white lab coat, a can of spray pint (for the spray-on feet) and a stuffed monkey.
This year, he’s gotten into Super Mario Bros. Easy, right? They even make Mario and Luigi costumes. Oh, if only it were that easy; but no, my child doesn’t want to be Mario or Luigi. No – he wants to be this:
Yeah, this was gonna be a challenge.
So how did we do it (because we did it, oh yes, we did)? Well, let’s break this down into its components. There are:
A big purple shell
A yellow/orange body
A pink head
Pink sunglasses
Studded black cuffs
Claw feet
Metal wand with a black ball on it
The Shell
This was the biggest challenge. Fortunately, we had a source for material that made this project possible: Synthetic casting tape (we used the 4″ tape). It’s essentially a bandage that’s impregnated with substances that cause it to harden within minutes of contact with air. Vets use this stuff on animals because it doesn’t require the animal to stay still for very long. The way we created the shape was to take a couple of wire hangers and pull them out until they were oval-ish in shape, and put them over the top of a small (about 1 1/2-foot diameter) exercise ball (we had to tape the hangers down, because otherwise they would have fallen off). The hangers extended out around the ball and created the edge of the shell. We then laid the bandage strips over the ball, wrapping the edges of the bandages under the hangars (the hangars stayed in the shell), working from the top of the shell down. When the shell was a good thickness, we painted the shell with purple latex paint. This is what we got:
We created the spikes on the shell by forming more of the casting material into cones; we’ll be spray painting them white and attaching them to the shell with glue. Cost: Free (we had the paint, and we got the casting material for free from my sister-in-law).
The Body
This was easy: We just bought a long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of leggings in yellow-orange (actually, mom messed up and got them in pumpkin orange, but the boy decided he liked that better, so we kept them). Cost: $10 for t-shirt and leggings.
The Pink Head
This one was surprisingly hard to find; I knew I wanted a pink do-rag, but NO ONE had them so I bought a white one and some Rit dye from the craft store, and dyed it myself. Cost: $6 for dye and kerchief.
The Pink Sunglasses
Another one that was surprisingly hard to find; we finally found them in a Claire’s Accessories store, of all places. Cost: $6.
Studded Black Cuffs
These were also hard to find. We finally found these in the same Claire’s as the sunglasses. Cost: $10 for the two.
Claw Feet
I made these by cutting out feet shapes from orange foam, gluing little yellow triangles on the edges (for the claws) and velcro-ing the whole thing onto his sneakers. Cost: $2 for two packages of foam; we had the velcro.
Metal Wand
This was a toughie; the wand is somewhat cone-shaped though, so I got a large styrofoam cone from the craft store and a styrofoam ball to go on top. I cut a piece off the bottom of the cone to shorten it up a bit, then drilled out the bottom to make a hole in it for the wand handle. I used a thick wooden dowel (about 1″ diameter) for the handle and I painted the cone and the handle silver. The ball I painted black, and then I used a paring knife to dig out a hole in the cone for the ball. I used a toothpick inserted into the cone and ball to hold them together, and craft glue to attach the cone to the wand handle. Cost: $12 for the two foam pieces; the dowel was “found” by the husband. Here’s how it looks:
That’s it! As soon as all the pieces are completed (we need to attach the spikes to the shell, and cut the dowel) I’ll post a picture of the boy in costume. Phew!
