A Peek at Our Handmade Halloween Costume

I showed you our previous handmade Halloween costumes — a toddler-sized penguin (2010), and The Wizard of Oz scarecrow (2011) — and we decided to go handmade this year, too. (My fingers are crossed that the “Frankenstorm” brewing here in New York will pass in time for Halloween, because this costume is just too cute to go to waste.)

See how this Lorax costume was made, plus the cute little accessories that go along with it:

My son decided to be The Lorax for Halloween (the Dr. Seuss character), so my very talented sister got to work:

1. She hand-sewed this fabric onto an oversized 5T sweatshirt and sweatpants that we found really cheap. The fur fabric was too thick to go through her sewing machine, so she basically sewed it like a big stuffed animal. It took a long time — too long, perhaps — but the result is a furry, cuddly, and WARM costume. 
2. She found a Lorax mustache template, which she traced onto a piece of felt. She did the same for the eyebrows. I’m not sure the exact material, but it’s a little sturdier than typical felt.
3. My son is obsessed with wands, so she made him a Truffula Tree wand (below)! She painted a wooden dowel white, and then used a black sharpie to make the Truffula Tree bark. For the “bright-colored tufts,” she used a styrofoam ball, fuzzy fabric, and a hot glue gun.
4. And for the trick-or-treat bag, she found an orange fabric bag at the Dollar Store, and used online templates to trace the face onto felt.