Last year was our first time dressing up as a family for Halloween around the Finding Nemo theme. This year, my daughter wanted to be a turtle so I searched for a cute kids turtle costume. I always purchase her costume because I have a bad habit of procrastinating until the night before Halloween to buy and make the costumes for the rest of us… and there’s always that chance that my last-minute costume ideas could turn out terribly awful. So it’s better to be safe and make sure at least my daughter is all set =)
Here’s what I did to make a simple turtle costume for the rest of the family:
1) Find a Turtle Shell
I’m all about spending as little money as possible, so I searched through my kitchen cabinets for some old party platters. Sure enough, we had an enormous bowl that was used for a salad once that looked like a perfect shell shape. I’m sure this is pretty easy to find in any supermarket if you don’t have one at home!
2) Cover the Turtle Shell
I tried to look for anything in our house that had green fabric, but no luck. I ended up at Michael’s Arts & Crafts store and they sell T-shirts for $3.99! I bought a Large Adults shirt to make sure I had enough fabric to cover up the bowl.
Duct tape is the best. Strong and reliable! I wrapped the T-shirt around the bowl and used the duct tape to secure all the edges. No one will see the ugly insides!
No duct tape on the outside!
3) Decorate the Turtle Shell
While at Michael’s Arts & Crafts store, I found some glitter felt sticker sheets that would be fast and easy to cut into turtle shell shapes. I bought 2 sheets.
I tried to maximize the space and cut out random trapezoids for the turtle shell. I made 8 trapezoids for the sides of the shells, and 2 trapezoids using the second sheet for the center of the shell.
I love that I didn’t need a glue gun. Just peel off the paper and stick it on! In fact, my daughter did all the peeling and was able to help me quite a bit since this wasn’t a “messy” project at all!
4) Make Shoulder Straps
Something else I found at Michael’s Arts & Crafts store were giant chenille pipe cleaners! One package was about 6 feet long, which was plenty of length to make 2 shoulder straps.
I cut the pipe cleaner in half, making each about 3 feet long, and again used my favorite “glue” – duct tape!!!
Make sure the straps are the right width and length depending on who’s wearing it. This turtle shell was meant for my husband, so the 3 feet straps worked for him.
5) Make a Turtle Head
Something simple and cheap to decorate are visors.
I bought some wiggly eyes, and cut out nostrils and a mouth using some of the leftover sticker felt scraps to make the turtle head. Nothing spectacular, but adds a little more to the costume!
And now the final product:
Now my daughter had her costume, my husband had his, and I could have made another set for myself, however, I decided to try and be a little more creative given the fact that I was 7 months pregnant! Take a look at how I made my Halloween Pregnancy Turtle Costume using my belly as part of the costume!
Last but not least, we couldn’t leave our doggy without a costume while we went trick-or-treating! Her costume was simple: just a youth small T-shirt and some leftover sticker felt scraps to create a “shell” pattern and some flippers:
Then I cut the shirt to make it fit my dog, keeping the arm sleeves to tie around her neck, and part of the waist to tie around her belly. Oh, and don’t forget to cut a hole for the tail!
Happy Halloween!
Other Halloween DIY Posts:
Halloween Family Costume 2018: Finding Nemo (again), Jellyfish, and Daddy Shark Do Doo Do Do Doo
Halloween Family Costume 2015: Pandamania
