Transformers Bumblebee Costume

A stroke of laziness overcame me the other night, and I almost went to WalMart and paid $20 for the Bumblebee costume in the costume aisle.

However, I'm super glad I didn't because I love how this turned out, and Rylan couldn't be more proud.

We worked on it all day today and when it came time to pick up Brodie from school, Rylan couldn't stop telling his brother about his cool costume.

I started by gathering all of my materials.

The materials used were:  masking tape, foam, ribbon, cardboard, various colors of craft paint, an old belt of my husbands I found in the closet, and a pair of crazy looking goggles (belonging to my husband) that I also found in the closet.  :)   Oh, and a pair of charcoal long johns, which my boys already had.

For the belt portion, I cut out the desired shapes, and used scissors to remove the wavy cardboard in the center.

This allowed the belt to slip right through.

My main goal in making this costume was to make it as light weight as possible.  I knew if I created all of it, especially the helmet, out of cardboard it might be too heavy for my little boy to maneuver in.  I had some left over 1 inch foam from an attempt at making chair cushions, so I used it for a lot of the costume.

For the parts tied to his arms and legs, I did this:

The unpainted version of the chest plate looks like so (a little easier to see the construction, although I don't have step by steps because I just winged it to fit his body).

From previous life experience, I know that my son prefers to wear goggles on his head rather than on his face....

So I figured I could somehow attach the foam to the goggles to wear as head gear.

Once all of the pieces were assembled and taped together, I added a coat of yellow craft paint.

Then I just painted on the details with red, black, grey, and tan craft paint... and done!

LOL!

Autobots, Roll-Out!

:)

Thanks for looking!

-Courtney

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Maternity skeleton shirt

  

I'll apologize in advance for the view of the toilet in these shots.  :/

You may notice that there appears to be a white smudge on the belly part of this shirt, and you would be correct.   Funny thing- when you have a large stomach, a freshly painted wall, and you tend to bump into things, accidents happen.   haha.

To me, this was a good excuse to use this shirt for a project that would be worn once and then discarded. 

Oh, and if you're expecting, you MUST try out the BEE maternity tanks from Target.  Oh how I love them.  Getting paint on this one was just an excuse to go out and buy more.  LOL.

Back to the subject at hand!

I was inspired by this post at Someday Crafts

http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/2010/10/skeleton-with-fetus.html

The version featured there is actually cuter, and an iron on, but I didn't have time to wait for shipping for an iron on.

So, instead I invested 40 cents into two sheets of white felt.

I cut out the parts and just glued them on with fabric adhesive.  I'll probably go back and stitch around the shapes to ensure they stay on.   Possibly not though..  so far they're holding up pretty well.

Here's what I did. 

Start with paint ruined shirt.  Or a normal shirt.  haha, your call.

Prop feet up and start cutting felt parts out.  Use super size belly to lay out parts to determine size.

Cut out baby parts.

Spread shirt over a piece of cardboard, glue on skeleton.

After gluing on the baby skeleton, I let it dry and then tried the shirt back on.  I actually glued the adult ribcage pieces to the shirt while wearing it so that the pieces would lay right once on. 

Using the mirror for a guide, I applied glue and placed the bigger pieces where it looked appropriate.

It's not quite as lovely as the iron-on version, but it works!

I'm ready to take the kiddos out trick-or-treating!  Hopefully my white smudge won't show up in the dark!  :)

-Courtney

Happy Hot-Rod-aween!

LOL- Okay, I was trying to pick a clever title for this post, but I might have failed.   Just a tad.

Today I'm going share with you my 5 year old's costume for this year.   He'll be wearing it on suspenders, so it will float around his waist/hips, and I'm excited about coming up with just the right outfit for him to wear under it.  I'm thinking "50's greaser" look, or something similar.  Maybe even an over the top hip-hop look.  We shall see!

Here is it...   The Ford Mustang costume.

This idea came about as we were watching an auto show on tv one day.  He pointed out a mustang and said he wanted to be that for Halloween.   What's funny is that after the car was made, he wanted me to paint on "a circle with a sideways L"....   ??  A Lexus symbol?  LOL.

My son picked the color, and the style of the car.  I was hoping for a vintage mustang look, as seen in the photo where I was gathering my supplies.

We obviously ended up going in a different direction. 

I ended up using 2 large boxes, about a roll of masking tape, a little bit of foil, and several colors of acrylic craft paint.

I used this large box as the base of the car.

I then added on to form the shape of the car.

I honestly think Brodie would have been happy if I left it like this, as he was very happy to hop in it, and told me numerous times how much he loved me.  haha.

My next step was to cover the entire structure with the masking tape.  This provided a barrier so the cardboard would not bubble when painted.   I actually used duct tape on my other son's Thomas costume last year, and while it worked, the smooth surface didn't hold the paint well.  At the end of the night the paint was coming off in large chips.  The finish of the masking tape is a little less smooth and should hold up better.

As you can see, we all worked on the base coat.  LOL.  This was a good day for mommy's control issues.  haha.  They weren't quite as strong as they normally are.

Even Daddy decided to get in on the action after he got home from work.

After the base coat dried, I went back and added shadowing and details.

I added half moons for the wheels and taped on.

See that swollen mommy foot?  Ugh.  So ready to have this baby.

Anyhoo, here is more of the finished car...

Thanks for looking!

-Courtney

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