Cowboy on his horse wheelchair costume

What you will need:
A box large enough to fit over wheelchair
a box to cut the legs out of
a horse head on a stick
black paint
spray paint to match the horse head
yarn to match the color of the horse's hair

Assembly:
It was pretty straight-forward. Cut the box to fit over the wheelchair and then make two cut-outs for his arms. Using the second box, cut out shapes for the horses legs. We also used a smaller box as the horse's neck. Once all pieces are cut, spray paint them all the same color as the horse's head. Once the spray paint dries, pain the horse's feet and saddle black. Assemble all pieces, and stick the horse on a stick through a hole in the main box. That's it!!

Thank Leigh from "Our Little Gibblet" for the great idea!

Batman Wheels

I used vinyl peel and stick sticker material (like for the cricut machine) but anything would work fabric/paper/durable plastic/painted cardboard...I just cut out the pattern and stuck it on!

This is great Dawn! I love how simple and easy this is. A wheelchair costume doesn't have to be complicated or hard. Thanks for sharing!

Batmobile Wheelchair Costume

You need:

Cardboard

Black Spray Paint

Half sphere styrofoam shape

2 Styrofoam circles (one small, one bigger)

Reflectors

Red and orange tissue paper

Hot Glue Gun

Batman symbol printed out

Dashboard decorations (optional)

Here's how we did it:

First we cut out the cardboard into the shape we wanted for the sides of the Batmobile. I cut out a rectangle for the back of the Batmobile and a square for the front. I spray painted the cardboard black, at least 2 coats of paint.

The smaller styrofoam circle was painted silver. The larger one I painted black. I also painted the half sphere black.

Then I glued the front square to the sides and finished it up by gluing the back rectangle. That gives you the Batmobile shape. It only takes 4 pieces of cardboard to make the Batmobile. At the last minute I cut out a thin rectangle shape, painted it black, and added it to the front of the Batmobile to make a dashboard

I clued the large styrofoam circle to the front and glued the half sphere in the middle.

For the dashboard, I printed out a MPH gauge and a smaller batman symbol. I glued those to the dashboard. You could also add a small steering wheel if you want.

For the back I added 2 reflectors (bought at Walmart). I glued the smaller silver styrofoam circle in the center and added red and orange tissue paper to look like flames. I added larger Batman symbols to each side of the Batmobile.

The Batmobile fit really nice around Caleb's chair so we only had to add a little string to tie it to his back seat bars.

Front Loader/Backhoe Wheelchair Costume

You need:

Yellow spray paint

Black spray pain

5 gift wrapping paper tubes (paper towel tubes aren't long enough)

cardboard

white poster board

Hot glue gun (that baby is your friend)

zip ties

Here is the basics of how I made it:

The big yellow circles covering the wheels is white poster board that I spray painted yellow.

The sides of the front loader and backhoe are cardboard, painted yellow.

The scoop part of the front loader and backhoe are poster board because is it flexible enough to form the scoop.

I spray painted 4 of the gift wrapping tubes black, 1 I painted yellow.

The canopy is a lid to a copy paper box, cut at an angle.

The front loader is hot glued to 2 wrapping paper tubes. I zip tied the front loader to the foot plate of Caleb's chair.

The canopy is hot glued to 2 wrapping paper tubes and then zip tied to the back rest bars on Caleb's chair.

The yellow wrapping tube is used to attach the back hoe, I cut it in 2 pieces to fit over Caleb's handle bar. I think I used a small brad to attach the two pieces together so the backhoe could bend.

And that's it. It is actually a pretty easy costume to put together and you really don't need a lot of supplies. 

Here is another Front Loader/Backhoe Wheelchair costume:

I think we pretty much followed the directions above using cardboard, posterboard and zip ties. The only deviations were using small wooden dowels we bought at home improvement store (spray painted black) and attached the digger and overhead canopy to. We poked holes in both (reinforcing the holes and the diggers edges with yellow duct tape) and attached the dowels with zip ties.

We also used double sided velcro regular to help stabilize the dowels to the back of his wheel chair for the canopy. We attached the wheel "covers" with zip ties to the spokes and cut slits in several places after they were assembled to help them lay flat, just using a glue stick on those slits. We also used yellow latex yellow paint for cardboard. Lastly, we used regular old duct tape to be the reflector on his sweatshirt :)

Thanks Holli from "Our Double Blessings" for sharing Alex' costume!

Police Car Wheelchair Costume

You need:
Cardboard
Spray paint (with primer)
Gray pipe insulation (for the bumper)
Hot glue
Construction paper

We cut the cardboard in the shape of the car and then assembled the pieces together using a glue gun. We cut pipe insulation and glued to the front and back for the bumper. We used thick cardboard covered in yellow paper for the headlights. White construction paper lightly colored with blue chalk for the windows. We attached the car to the wheelchair using garden twine. It kind of rested on the wheel rims and we just tied it in several different places to stay put.

Thank you Michelle for sharing Brendan's costume!

Pirate Ship Wheelchair Costume

This was my first attempt at a wheelchair costume. You could describe this as a crafty creation for the extremely uncrafty. Very low difficulty!


You Need:
a big box that will fit over the wheelchair and extends out in the front and back
exacto knife or awesome scissors
black duct tape (or a hot glue gun)
a thin and a thicker dowel (round pieces of wood)
black cloth
brown spray paint
black and yellow construction paper
berry basket or other plastic container
zip ties and/or plastic bottle
drop cloth (to paint on)
pirate costume
parrot, chains, etc (optional)

We are in the process of packing up our house, so boxes were easy to come by. We found one that was roughly the width of Kingsley's chair, on the inside of the wheels and twice the length, which was perfect.

1. Cut off the bottom of the box.
2. Tape the side flaps on the end of the box so that they form a point in the front and back. Trim the top flap to make a triangle and tape it to the point.
*I had to trim the length of my box first. I wanted it the length of my van trunk so that it would travel easily.
3. Put the box on the wheelchair, go underneath and draw where the handle bars and seat are or whatever you want cut off the top. Cut that out. We made two holes - one for the handles and one for Kingsley to go in and out without having to take off the costume. Making two holes instead of one big one allowed it to rest on the back of his seat for more support.
4. Trim the bottom to fit over the chair. We trimmed around the wheels, the brakes, and the foot rest so that the box rested on these things and didn't need to be strapped on to the chair at all. It was a lot of random trimming and guessing.
5. Put your kid in and see if they can reach the wheels. If not, trim the sides so they don't get underarm chaffing. Make sure you can do up the seat belt, brake the brakes, push from the side and whatever else is important for you. Trim as needed.
6. Tape all the edges if you are a lousy cutter and it's all jagged and uneven... which mine was. I also added tape inside to reinforce where the sides of the chair rubbed the inside of the box.

7. Cut the thinner dowel to be just a big smaller than the width of the black cloth (we used a bandanna). Tape the short/thin dowel to the long, thicker dowel to make a cross (a t, not an x). Snip a small hole in the middle of the cloth and slide it on to look like a sail.
8. Cut a hole in the bottom of the basket so that it can slide onto the thicker dowel. Decide where you want the crow's nest (the basket)... probably somewhere above the bandanna/thin dowel. Tape a ring below to keep it from sliding.
9. Go outside or in an open garage, put down the drop cloth, spray paint the mast (the dowel creation) and the big box ship.

10. While everything is drying, have a cup of tea. You've been working hard.
11. Get your black construction paper and cut out some big circles. Get the yellow and cut slightly bigger circles or rings.
12. Google "Jolly Roger" and print out a flag or free hand draw if you're a rockstar.
13. Dig up some of those cardboard box scraps and cut out an anchor. You might want to google so you can remember what they look like.
14. If you have time, you can do another coat of spray paint on the box. If you've maxed out your craftiness at this point, no worries, everyone will be so amazed that you made it this far, they won't even notice.
15. Raid your kids craft bin and find some glue or just use that tape you still have to add the portholes (those circles you cut out) and the anchor to the side of your ship (put it on the wheelchair first so you don't add them to where the wheel is), and the flag to the top of the mast.
16. If the costume is going to be a one-shot deal, zip tie the mast to the back of the chair and you are all set. If you'll be transporting it and need to remove the mast to fit in your vehicle, get a waterbottle, wedge and/or zip tie it behind the chair. Drop the mast into the bottle. Remove as needed.
17. Teach your kid to yell AARGH!
18. Break open the Halloween candy and indulge. Well done.

Thank you Jill from "The Little King" for sharing this arrrgghhsome costume!

Astronaut Wheelchair Costume

You Need:

a large box big enough to fit over wheelchair
a smaller box to use as the front
2 pieces of cardboard to be used as the wings
2 toilet paper holder to use as the jets
paint
tissue paper
duct tape or hot glue

To assemble the spaceship, we had it pretty easy. The box we found to fit over Grey in his wheelchair fit perfectly, so we just needed to make cut outs for his arms. With the second, smaller box, we made the front part of the ship. We cut some extra pieces of cardboard out as the wings and spraypainted the whole thing silver. We then added the two toilet paper holders (that were already spray-painted) to the back. Once the ship was assembled and spray painted, we used blue, red, yellow, and white paint to add the design on the sides. Finish up with a little tissue paper as first and ta-da...a spaceship!

*side-note this was our first try at a wheelchair costume and I learned that it is best to put the duct tape on the inside of the box, or use hot glue. Even when spray-painted the duct tape shows up.

Also, I had to remind myself that this costume was only going to be used for one day and it was just for fun...it's ok if it's not perfect!

That year we also decided to make a jet-pack out of his walker. We spray painted two 2-liters silver and added the tissue paper as fire. We then hot-glued them together and tied them to his walker.

Thank you Leigh from "Our Little Gibblet" for the great costume idea!

Wheel of Fortune Wheelchair Costume

I made Hayden a Wheel of Fortune costume using mat board and temper paint. I used stencils to make the dollar amounts on each wedge and then attached it with fishing line to the wheels. we put a little folded up piece of thick paper on it so that with each turn of his chair it made a "click click" sound like the sound the wheel makes when it turns. We also used some plastic tubing pieces on each color wedge to represent the things you grab to spin the wheel. Then I also made him a $5,000 wedge to wear on his body and that I painted with glitter paint and glued those iron on numbers on (since they were larger size than the small stencil I had used on the wedges.) I attached fishing line to the $5,000 wedge and he wore it like a necklace

Thank you Johnna for sharing Hayden's costume!

Superman Wheelchair Costume

You need:

A very large cardboard box, the box we used was big enough to surround Caleb's chair completely.

Poster board

Fluffy stuff, like the stuffing for pillows

Blue spray paint

Silver spray paint

Superman costume

And of course, a hot glue gun

Here is the basics of how I made it:

*We used the four sides of the box, we cut off the top, bottoms and all but one folding flap. We kept one folding flap of the box in the front. We cut a half circle out of it so that it would sit around Caleb (see picture). Paint the box blue for the sky.

*I cut very basic building shapes out of poster board and then spray painted them silver.

*I used double sided sticky squares (used for scrapbooking) to attach my building shapes to the box, that gives it a more 3-D look.

*Glue some fluffy stuff for the clouds.

*We cut 2 circles out of the back of the box and stuck superman's legs through the holes to make it look like he was flying. I think we shoved some styrofoam in the legs to keep them straight and added some fluffy stuff to make them look fuller.

*The box fit all the way around Caleb's chair and we attached it with twine. We ran the twine through the box and attached it to Caleb's back rest bars. 

*Because the box surrounded the wheels, Caleb couldn't push himself, so we did all the pushing that night. He was only 4 at the time so he didn't mind it.

And that's about it. Hope that helps someone!