DIY Monster’s Inc Costumes

During October, one of my biggest decisions is “what am I going to be this Halloween?” I love homemade costumes because I find it so interesting to see how people’s creative juices start flowing.

Last year, MG and I made minion hats for our costume.

Minions

This year we’re going to be… Can you guess from the items below?!?!

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Do these colors remind you of any Pixar movies? Perhaps Monster’s Inc. MG will be Mike Wazowski, and I will be his companion, Sulley.

Mike & Sulley

This year, my costume will be a double-duty outfit. If you’ve been following along, then you know what these costumes were used for (my Disney half marathon!).

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In this post, I’m going to show you how I created these looks.

First let’s start out with Mike Wazowski. What you’ll need is a bright green shirt and 3 different colors of fabric (white, black, and dark green). Cut out a circular eyeball on the white fabric, a smaller dark green circle for the cornea, a smaller circle for the pupil, and then a small white circle to use as the reflection of the eyeball.

Find circular items around the house as your guides – I used a variety of bowls.

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Iron the eyeball flat:

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And simply sew each piece onto the t-shirt. I kept the sewing simple, so the edges are raw and a bit frayed (I chose this since MG will only be wearing the shirt twice). If you want the costume to last longer, definitely sew with a zig-zag hem. Another option is to use Fray Check by dotting along the edges and letting the liquid dry (it works like clear nail polish).

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Now for the Sulley costume! I wanted to keep it girly and cute still (ideally, I don’t want to look like a huge fluffy monster). What I came up with is a tutu with a cute set of horns.

If you’re looking to make a tutu – this is the perfect tutorial for you!

tutu-cover

What you’ll need for the tutu is: 10 feet of tulle, an elastic band (or ribbon), scissors.

Cut the tulle into strips of 4-5 inches. Measure our your elastic band/ribbon around your waist, and tie the tutu around the elastic band or ribbon (tutorial on how to tie below). Keep going around the band/ribbon until you’re out of tulle.

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Tying the tulle:

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Keep the band around your waist to tie the tulle on easily.

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For the Sulley costume, I needed to add spots of purple. I purchased purple tulle pom poms and simply hand-sewed them onto the tutu.

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Now for the horns. I purchased a blue headband and cut out horns from felt. I stuffed the felt with some extra fabric and sewed the horns together and slipped them through the headband.

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Then I made some pom poms from yarn and glued them onto the headband (pom pom tutorial here).

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And that’s it! A cute Sulley costume to match an adorable Mike Wazowski! Creating costumes is so much better than purchasing. It’s unique and a great way to show off your creative skills.

What will you be this year for Halloween? Will you be making your costume?

Happy Halloweek!
Jay

Prepping for the Half

It’s Friday before Labor Day. That means one thing for me – the Disneyland Half Marathon is this weekend.

That’s 13.1 miles. Whew! When I first started running, I ran a block and was totally winded. I kid you not. MG convinced me to sign up for this half (why did I say yes?!?), and since then we have been training to run. I’m nervous but exhilarated. It’s going to be a great first half marathon with Disney characters cheering for you. Yup, that happens!

At first, I had decided to concentrate on my run and wear normal gear. It’s my first one, and it’ll be hard. But then, it’s Disney! How could I not dress up? I literally decided to make a costume this week, one week prior to the half. We basically have most of our gear (remember my Lululemon post?). But I wanted to make this half more fun by dressing up. One week left? Definitely do-able. I made a trip to JoAnn’s and Michael’s and Viola! I created something but won’t reveal it quite yet until after the half.

Here are some sneak peeks of my materials. Can you guess what characters we’re dressing up as? Keep in mind it’s at Disneyland!

Shopping

Outfits

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^^^ Smile!

C’mon! Take a guess.

Come back next week to see pictures from the half marathon. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see pictures before they are posted on my blog so add me (username: jayscup).

Readers – any advice on how to get through?!?

Wish me luck,
Jay

DIY: My Little Minion

UPDATE:  Congratulations Winnie Cheung! You’re the winner of this costume giveaway! Thanks to all those who participated in this contest. Your pet can still be a Minion with this easy DIY. Happy Halloween!

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Minion

It’s almost Halloween (only two weeks away)! I know you’re thinking only one thing – what costume should my pet wear? I got you covered with this DIY! Plus, enter a comment below and you can win one of these costumes for your pet!

After watching Despicable Me 2 and going around a few McDonald’s to pick up those Minion Happy Meal toys, I knew I had to make a Minion costume. Meet my little Minion, Chubs.

Little Chubbo

Chubs

What do you think? This costume takes a little bit of sewing, cutting, and some hot gluing. Super easy, and I promise you’ll get a lot of “OMG, SO CUTE” reactions.

What you’ll need:

  • Felt (yellow, black, grey, and white).
  • Sewing machine (you can definitely hand-sew if you don’t have a machine)
  • Scissors
  • Hot glue gun and glue sticks
  • Black pipe cleaners
  • Elastic
  • Velcro

Let’s start out with the yellow felt. My cat is a small animal (10lbs), so I measured his head and cut a piece of yellow felt 9×7 inches. Then sew the edges together on both sides (follow the pattern below). I used a sewing machine, but this is easy to do by hand too.

Yellow Felt

Next cut black pipe cleaners into 2 inch pieces. Stick them through the top of the hat (you may need to snip a little hole at the top for the pipe cleaners to go through). I then bent the end of the pipe cleaners inside the hat, and hot glued them into place.

Minion Hot Glue

Now it’s time to sew the elastic onto one side of the hat. Then sew the velcro onto the loose end of the elastic, and sew the velcro onto the other side of the hat. Make sure your band is flat when it is velcro-ed together.

Elastic

Velcro

Finally, we can move on to the details. Let’s cut the other pieces of felt. Again, my hat is for a 10lb animal so my circle diameters are as follows:

  • Black – 1.5 inches in diameter
  • Grey – 3.75 inches in diameter
  • White – 3.25 inches in diameter
  • Black band – 6.5 inches in length

To make things easier, here’s a template for the circles. You can print the pattern so that it can serve as a guide.

I simply hot glued all the pieces together. First the eyeball, then the pupil, then the black bands, and lastly the grey glass.

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Done

Put it on your little minion, and take lots of pictures!

Minion Boy

Chubs' Hat

Is this something you can easily recreate? Are you thinking about making your little pet child a minion now?

As I mentioned earlier, enter a comment for this blog post, and you could win one of these small hats for your little pet. You’ll get it before Halloween! Enter now!

Only one entry per email. Email must be valid. Shipping address must be in the United States. This costume giveaway ends at 11:30pm PST on 10/22/13. Winner will drawn and announced on Wednesday, 10/23/13 at 12:00am PST via blog and email provided.

Banana,
Jay
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Minion image copyright