Kid's Ladybug Costume

This is a costume made on the night of the 30th for my little friend here to wear to pre-school on the morning of the 31st. As Susanna and I had 2 kid's costumes to make on the same ONE NIGHT, I did the easy ladybug for the 4 year old, and she took care of the more complex costume requested by the 8 year old (those pics coming soon!), which I assisted by constanstly rooting through my disorganized tangle of craft junk for the supplies she requested.

For this ladybug costume I used a large men's hoodie that used to belong to this kid's grandfather. I removed the front pocket and sewed a large oval of black sweatshirt material on the front. I sewed on spots, stuffed the antennae, and painted a little crack in the back to represent the wings parting. Not the most impressive costume, but easy, and it was really super cute on him. He loved running around in it.

The ladybug was his own request. We were going to make him a little monster costume but he wanted to be "friendly". In my opinion you can't get more friendly than a beneficial insect that eats the destructive mites in your garden.

Black Dragon Costume For A Kid!!!

I know it's sorta late to post pics of the Halloween costume that Susanna and I made for our 7 year old kid-friend, but I finally gave up on getting him back in costume so that I could take the pictures I wanted, and decided that these are decent enough pics, considering that they actually EXIST.

He wanted to be the Dungeons and Dragons version of a black dragon. We used the fig I posted here as a model for making it.

My friend Susanna and I made this costume in one night, and truthfully, she made most of it. I was there the whole time, doing stuff she directed me to do, but she made it happen.

I made the horns from stuffing a couple of those stocking pantyhose that you buy in the little plastic bubble for 30 cents at WalMart. I put a wire inside the stuffed hose to give shape to the horns, and handstitched and gathered the thread for texture.

Susanna built the mask, which is actually a hat, on a ready-made small child's baseball hat. There is a snap on the material that hangs down from the hat, so he can snap it to cover his face, or un-snap if he's tired of covering up.

She mounted 2 big wires inside a tiny backpack, which she attached the dragon wings to. The wings were made from pleated contractor bags. I hand-stictched the pleats because we forgot to buy staples for the stapler. We dis-assembled a plastic "caveman" necklace and attached claws at the tips of wings with black duct tape.

The backpack was an easy way to fit the wings on him, and to make sure they would go on and off easily. It was also a great place for him to store his claw gloves when he was not using them.

We used black plastic fake fingernails as claws to attach to his gloves and to glue onto the cheap black sneakers we bought him to go with his costume. Oddly enough, he really liked the shoes and continued to wear them for several days after Halloween.

It was a quick job, but a very gratifying one. It was great to see a kid come home from school basking in the glow of how cool he looked all day. We love our kid-friend and hope we can make his costume again next year!