The Cutest Little Conehead Zombie:

I promised you guys a second costume for The Boy’s halloween (you’ll remember he’s also doing Draco Malfoy, Death Eater), and here it is!

He’s a big fan of the Plants Vs. Zombies video game, and insisted on being a Conehead Zombie. We also considered buckethead, but we had the cone, so that sealed the deal.

This is easy to put together, and tons of fun. I think this would be a great group costume idea – everyone picking different zombies to play

Tutorial:
I’ve written an Instructable up, if you want to go make your own.

This has also been posted at Moms Rising! http://www.momsrising.org/blog/no-sew-halloween-costume-cone-head-zombie/

You can also create a card for your congressman:
Let Congress know that it takes more than a fancy Halloween costume for children to thrive.

Updated!!– New photos and instructions here for making it even better with EYES!!

Tutorial: How to make the Perry the Platypus Costume

Here are some basic instructions, pictures follow.

Body:
At it’s simplest, you can do this with a green hoodie and sweatpants. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t find a green hoodie, so I made a simple one out of fleece, by tracing around a current sweatshirt. (see pics below) I added a few pieces of ‘hair’ with black embroidery floss.
(In the updated 2010 version I add a drawstring around the front of the hoodie, by sewing a simple hem, and running a lace through it. This provides a better shape to the head)

Bill:
The Duckbill was very easy! 2 pieces of craftfoam, cut into a bill shape. The bottom piece is slightly smaller than the top piece. I used a hole punch to make breathing holes on the bottom, and to make the holes for the elastic cording. Just tie the pieces together, and they go nicely over the nose, or even over the nose and chin (which is how The Boy liked to wear his).

Feet:
Very simple. A webbed foot cut from craft foam. Then I slid a scrap piece of foam through the shoe lace on his shoe. I placed duct tape behind it (see pics) and pressed the foot shape on top!

Tail:
The tail totally made the outfit. I cut the tail shape out of brown fleece, and sewed it together, leaving an opening at the top. I then stuff it VERY lightly with a little fiber fill. Then use pins to mark the tail into equal sections, several inches apart (see pics). Then sew in a zigzag down the tail. At the end, repeat the process in reverse, making the quilted x’s. Attach the tail to the bottom of the hoodie.

Hat:
Um, is a fedora.

Eyes (New for 2010!): Updated!!– New photos and instructions here for making it even better with EYES!!

Here are some other pictures, and some shots of “the making of Agent P”! Click to see big/slideshow.

I’ll have a few pics of the halloween party and other Halloween links as a final wrap up of Halloween 2009 tomorrow!

Now, off to continue the Halloween party preparations! I’ll be making lots of stuff… and Tweeting along the way if you’d like to follow along: http://twitter.com/DotatDabbled

• The Swell life has a fun take on a Deviled Egg costume.
• A great tutorial on making costume armor out of felt! Perfect for your little knight… (via Craftgossip)
• Easy/Cute Baby Costumes (via Craftgossip)
• Homemade Exoskeleton
• A little Elvis! at Geekcrafts.com.
• Geekcrafts also brings us the ever popular Yip Yip Aliens from Sesame Street! (I actually like this version, which we saw at last years dragoncon, better — And there is an instructable to make your own, here.
• An adorable gnome, found at Craftzine
• And how to make your own sushi headdresses, also from Craftzine.
• Make quick homemade character costumes for kids (in this example Boba Fett, but good principles for any similar costume)
• Pippi Longstocking Braids
• Egyptian costume how to at Craftster
• Jeff sends us this fun list of 50 Cheap and Easy Halloween Costumes for Adults & Children – I love the idea of the Progressive Insurance girl!

If you missed it yesterday: Halloween Costumes, Star Wars Style!

From my own photo collection, here are some other great (mostly homemade) costumes from parties of years past, for your inspiration!  Click to see larger…

This easy and fun homemade costume was the hit of last year’s Halloween carnival–I love how the arms all move!–so I insisted that my friend Holly write up instructions to share with you guys.

Materials:

Black turtleneck shirt
Black pants or sweatpants
3 pairs of long black socks
Black toboggan
4 pairs of white gloves
3 small Styrofoam balls – cut in half
Square of red felt
Square of black felt
Craft glue or a hot glue gun
A spool of invisible thread
Sewing needle
4-5 sheets of newspaper or tissue paper
1 long black pipecleaner

Instructions:

For the spider body:

For the spider legs, evenly stuff each sock with newspaper, but don’t overfill. With the invisible thread, sew the open ends of the socks into the holes of the gloves to close them off and keep the newspaper enclosed. Starting under the arms of the shirt, sew or safety pin the non-gloved end of each sock to both sides of the shirt – each leg should be about 3” to 4” apart depending on how long the shirt is. String each leg to each other using about 6” of the thread. The idea is that each time the child lifts his/her arms, the spider legs lift, too. Double-up on the thread for reinforcement by winding a big circle between each leg.

For the spider head:

Cut 6 ovals about 2” long out of the red felt and glue to the half balls [Dot’s Note:  We asked why 6 eyes, not 8?  Well, he already has 2 eyes, duh!]. Cut 6 smaller triangles or block letter “Vs” out of the black felt and glue on top of the red felt. Surf the web for spider eye illustrations for inspiration. Put the hat on the child’s head and cuff the end to fit. Glue to balls about 1” apart, top to bottom starting at the top of the toboggan and taper the spacing of the balls toward the cuff of the hat so that the lined up balls resemble a “V.” One set of the eyes should probably be on the cuff. Center the pipecleaner on the cuff and weave it once — in and out of the hat. Twist the ends into antennae.

Here’s some shots of the spider in action… [Yes, that’s my child with him, wearing a STOREBOUGHT Lightning McQueen costume.  Yes, I’m embarrassed, but I promise I didn’t buy it!]

Hope you enjoy Holly’s tutorial for this very clever costume… and if you make your own, be sure to send pictures!
More Homemade Kids Costumes are coming tomorrow… Stay tuned!

The winner of last year’s Dabbled Halloween Contest was the incredibly creative Jen Straw, who designed a fabulous wobbegong shark costume for her son. She also sent me a writeup of how she did a wonderful Hammerhead shark costume for her son the following year, but I didn’t get it posted before Halloween was over. So I saved it until this year, and I thought it would be a great way to get everyone inspired and go make your own creative costume! I love how she explains her trail and error process… that’s so much of creating something new–you don’t always have to follow directions.

Jen writes:

The head has two pieces of very lightweight craft foam, and the body and fins are made of craft felt (we were on a budget this year! Both the front and back had two layers of felt, both for extra reinforcement (especially where the fins were sewn in) and to create a pocket for the head stuffing. The head was secured with a head ring from a batting helmet (as was Wobbe’s), but the neck was just a tiny bit too tight, so it didn’t sit too well. He ended up wearing it like a hoodie for much of the evening! And, since I made it to a generally large scale again, the whole thing is over 6 feet long from tip to tail. I had to tack it up in the back so that he wouldn’t trip.

The gills were hand sewn with black yarn (in a modified embroidery stitch), which also reinforced the arm slits (a happy coincidence!). The scallops on the head were just a single large stitch (from front to back) which was pulled tight to create the shape- a technique that I learned in 7th grade home EC when I made one of those crazy “Stumpkin” pantyhose dolls. Good times!

My biggest problem was with the eyes. I struggled to find a way to make them look right, and it took me several tries (it was also the very last thing to be finished, right before they left for Trick or Treat). I ended up using a large glass gem (a larger version of the glass gems that you might find in a glass vase with flowers), which I covered with felt and painted black. I tacked it onto the head, then added a round “ring” of white felt to accentuate the eye and make it more dimensional (plus it looked really weird without it!). I had tried to use the glass gem itself as the eye, but I couldn’t figure out how to attach it and still create some dimension (I was trying to “sink” into a makeshift eye “socket”, but it kept popping out!). So, not perfect, but it worked, and they stayed on. Well, almost- we lost one of the rings somewhere in the neighborhood.

On of my favorite things about this one is the mouth-I cut a rounded flap for the hole (the flap itself became the lower jaw), and I added teeth around the top and bottom, and a free moving “tongue”. Anatomically, the Hammerhead’s mouth is actually in the right spot for the head hole, but it ended up looking more like the shark had swallowed him.

… you can read more here.

And see a bunch more pictures of the costume here at the Flickr Set.

Last year’s Wobbegong costume:

Jen’s husband did a book based off the Wobbegong shark, you can check out the shark’s website here!

Thanks to Jen for sharing!

*Photo credit:   “Real” Hammerhead photo (CC licensed) by Kiwi Flickr.  All other photos by Jen Straw.