This post is from my first guest-blogger, and friend…Kayna. She did a fabulous job on her daughter’s Halloween costume and doesn’t have a blog so we thought we’d share her ingenious creation here. Hopefully all the other mom’s who are out searching on the Internet for a pattern will find this post!

Wall-E was the first and only movie that I have taken my daughter to see at the theater.  She loved it, and of course she wanted to be Wall-E for Halloween this year.  I searched online and found Wall-E costumes for $60, which was way out of my price range, and I wasn’t in love with any of the options available either.  So, I decided I would make it myself.  I had a lot of fun making the costume, and I’m really pleased with the end result.  And, it was so rewarding to see my daughter’s face when she saw it.

To make the body, I used two pieces of black foam core poster board that I cut to size using a box knife, and then taped all of the edges with masking tape.  To assemble the pieces I used masking tape to tape each piece together along the seems on the outside and inside.  Then, I used a scrap piece of card board within each corner on the inside secured with hot glue for stability.  I cut arm holes on the sides.  For the top of the box I used poster board that will go over my daughters shoulders with a cut out for her head.  This too was secured with hot glue.  I first tried to spray paint the body, but the paint did not apply smoothly and the black from the foam board was not covered completely, so I ended up painting with primer and then before it was dry, started painting over it with my orange craft paint, creating a weathered look.  I used a sponge to apply the brown paint around the edges of the body, and used the edge of a piece of cardboard dipped in the paint to create the lines and then smudged.  I found the Wall-E words online, copied the image, pasted in PowerPoint and made larger and then printed.  Since the image was fuzzy, I went over with markers, cut out the letters, and glued to the body.  I then went back over the edges with the brownsponge.  I made the “hardware” out of foam sheets, painted gray.  These cost about .30/per sheet at Wal-Mart.

For the eyes, I started with a pair of safety goggles I bought at the dollar store.  I cut out each eye from foam core and painted, and then cut out spaces around the eyes so that my daughter can see out of them.  I glued to the goggles using hot glue.  I purchased all materials at Wal-Mart with the exception of the goggles, and think I ended up spending about $20.We also made Wall-E’s friend, the roach, that my daughter calls “buggy” out of brown felt and pipe cleaners.  We’ll attach buggy to her shoulder once ready.  She will wear a black sweatsuit underneath.

At this point, I don’t think we will make the wheels, and we still need to decide what we will do for her arms and hands.  I think we will use the foam core and create black and white striped strips to Velcro to her sweatsuit for the arms and for the hands use a cereal box to cut into three strips for each hand and attach using a safety pin to her sleeve so that she will still have complete use of her hands.

I will provide a picture from Halloween after the holiday to show the finished product modeled by my daughter.  Happy Halloween!

THANKS Kayna for being my first guest blogger!!!! (Updated with picture of Kinsey & arms completed!)

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