Saturday, October 27, 2012

Homemade Robot Halloween Costume

If you are on the search for a last minute Halloween costume for the kids this is the way to go. It takes about 2-3 hours to make including paint and glue dry time. There really is something special about a homemade costume that a store bought costume doesn't quite have.

What You Will Need:
  • cardboard box, large enough to fit over your child's shoulders and cover his/her torso
  • scissors and/or X-acto knife
  • silver spray paint
  • large round flat metallic sequins will small hole
  • small square metallic sequins
  • plastic juice or milk bottle caps
  • Spare Parts brand vintage gears scrapbooking embellishments (optional)
  • white paper or cardstock
  • black permanent marker
  • red marker
  • clear glue (I used Elmer's gel glue.)
  • silver metallic pipe cleaners
  • small plastic headband

Copyright Kristin Duncan 2012
 This project is entirely customizable. If you have a little girl that wants to be a pink and purple robot... by all means, get that color spray paint.

  1. Cut a large circle in the top of the box using your X-acto knife. I used a bowl to trace a circle on the middle of the top of the box.
  2. Cut arm holes on the sides using your X-acto knife.
  3. Bring your box outside and place on top of some scrap newspaper, so you wont get paint everywhere. Remember to follow the instructions on the spray paint can, and paint the box. The paint we used had a dry time of about 10-15 minutes, but said not to handle it for 2 hours.
  4. After the box is dry and ready to work with, you've come to the fun part! Decoration time. Glue the small square sequins along the sides to look like bolts or screws. Glue the large round sequins down where ever you like to look like lights or buttons.
  5. For the meters, trace circles on white paper and cut out. Decorate with black and red marker. Use your car speedometer for inspiration.
  6. For power buttons, decorate juice or milk jug caps with permanent marker and glue on. Make sure you have plenty of glue and it is all the way dry before putting it on the kids! Our button fell off because he kept grabbing it. You may have to hot glue this piece.
  7. I also used Spare Parts brand vintage gears scrapbooking embellishments to decorate one of the robot costumes. Use what you can find around the house, or check out your local craft store. Maybe you'll find some neat stickers that look like electronics or buttons. It doesn't hurt to look.
  8. If you want, you can write on (or even print off with a futuristic font) a "name" for your robot. I wrote on one costume MiniBot 1.0, and for my little one MiniBot 2.0. Everyone thought it was hilarious. Be creative.
  9. For antennae, thread one of the pipe cleaners through the silver small holed round sequins. Though the hole is really, really small, it is possible. (I promise!) Twist the pipe cleaner around the headband and do it again.
  10. Wait for all the glue to dry and go trick or treat!
Copyright Kristin Duncan 2012
Copyright Kristin Duncan 2012


1 comment: