A Spider and a Butterfly

It’s done…it’s finally done! Well, kind of. I have to tweak the web a bit which requires the patience of one little costume wearer, but for the most part, the spider costume is done. Whew! The costume was pretty simple to make and really cheap. I spent less than ten bucks for the whole thing.

Here’s what you need:

- Four sheets of 9x12” black felt (Hobby Lobby, .25 each)

- 1 sheet of 9x12” white felt (Hobby Lobby , .25 )

- Three pairs of black gloves (Target, 2 for $1)

- 1 black knit hat (Target, $1)

- 1 black turtleneck (Wal-Mart, $3.50)

- 1 pair of black pants (closet, free)

- Roll of white yarn (Wal-Mart, $ 1.47)

- Poly-fil (had on hand) If you don’t have poly-fil, you can use old trash bags.

You’ll also need either beginner sewing or expert glue gunning skills. :)

Step 1: Take the pieces of black felt and trim the long side of each piece so the felt measures about 7x12”.

Step 2: Fold each piece of felt over so the long sides are touching and sew or hot glue the edges together like so:

Step 3: Turn each tube inside out.

Step 4: Take two pairs of the gloves and stuff them until they are filled out enough to look like a hand.

Step 5: Sew or hot glue each glove to one end of each tube. Make sure the thumbs are all pointing in the right direction.

Step 6: Stuff each arm leaving enough space at the end to pinch the felt together and secure it with a seam or hot glue.

Step 7: Sew two arms to each side of the turtleneck, below the sleeves.

Step 8: For the web, have your child wear the shirt and hold out their arms. While holding out their arm, measure three pieces of yarn for each side that will be used to attach the two fake arms to the sleeve of the turtleneck. Here’s where I got a little lazy. I just tied the yarn to Finn’s wrist, wrapped it around the middle arm, and tied it to the bottom. I want to put a stitch in the string on each arm to hold it into place, but until he takes the costume off, I’ll have to wait. [I have a huge spider sitting on the couch, watching TV at the moment]

Step 9: For the multiple spider eyes, cut out six circles of white felt [two small, two medium, and two large] and six circles of black felt [smaller than the white circles]. Arrange the eyes on the knit hat and either stitch or hot glue them into place.

Step 10: Make your reluctant child go outside and pose for pictures. [He’s supposed to be wearing the third pair of gloves, but they’ve disappeared somewhere in the spider’s room.]

As for Audrie’s monarch butterfly costume, well, I’m not going to explain how I made it. It’s not that I don’t want to share, it’s just that, like a lot of my projects, I winged it [no pun intended], and any explanation would probably be more confusing than instructional. So I’ll just show you the pictures:

xo

nessa dee