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.

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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.

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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!

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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

Disneyland Half Marathon

This past weekend was by far one of the most memorable things I’ve done in my life. Coming back to a normal, regular day is so difficult when you’ve had an epic weekend.

If you’ve been following along, you’d know that I ran a half marathon. I ran a half marathon – that’s 13.1 miles!!! When I first started training, I could barely run a block. I was literally wheezing because my lungs would burn and my legs would ache. Not even kidding. But I did it. I ran a half!

Okay, more like walk/run. Still… I’m pretty proud! MG and I signed up for the Disneyland half marathon, inspired by my sister and her boyfriend who ran the half at Disney World in January. We trained during the month of August (yup, in one month). We ran 5 miles the first week of August and decided that if we could run 10 miles by the third week, we’d be ready. And we were right!

Remember my last post (DIY costume materials)? Were you able to guess what our costumes would be? It’s from Monsters, Inc. Ming-Gih was Mike Wazowski and I was his counter-part, Sulley. We looked like this when running:

Sulley and Mike

It was a blast! We ran with our friend, Sang (he did the Dumbo Double Dare which means the 10k and half marathon). We got up at 3am to get ready because the race started at 5:30am. To make things fun, we took many pictures, with as many characters as we could. I’m a slow runner, but Sang stayed by my side and encouraged me the whole time (Thanks!). With all the water stops, character pictures, and my slow jog, we were close to where racers are cut off (you must keep a 16 minute per mile pace). If you past that time limit, you get picked up and cannot finish the race. Once we saw where the cut-off was, we would run from that point!

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^^^ Ready and not sweaty… yet. We’re all Pixar characters – Russell, Mike, and Sulley ^^^

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What we look like at 5am – ready to run!

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Lots and lots of people in our corral – we were the last to go ^^^

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About to run through the park

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So cute!!!

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^^^ More than halfway!!!

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We even ran through the stadium

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1 more mile to go!

And then we did it!!! The finish line!!!

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^^^ This guy is a beast! He ran the Goofy Challenge (5k, 10k, half, and full marathon in January at Disney World). And now he did the Dumbo Double Dare (10k and half). Look at all 10 of his medals – including the Coast to Coast where you must run everything within the year. Amazing!!!

We finished the half but with a small injury. MG hurt his knee by mile 8 and couldn’t run the rest of the way. With a bit of bio-freeze lathered on, he could power walk the rest of the way. But YAY! We finished!

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My knee was a little sore but more importantly, I was starving at this point! Sang knows me well… He motivated me by telling me that there were snacks at the finish line!

Teheh I even did my nails for the race.

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If you’re not a runner (I promise you, I am not), sign up for the Disney run. Characters cheering you on. Cheer squads encouraging you. Bands playing to pump you up… It doesn’t get any more fun than this! The Disney run will be a great motivator to work out and train. Plus, you get this shiny thing!

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Epic weekend is an understatement. Words can even begin to describe the memories I have from this past trip. Because of MG’s bum knee, we didn’t get to go to Disneyland after the race. But we went the next day! That’s a different post for different day!

Stay tuned…
Jay