Space Shuttle

Blast off in this awesome costume!

What you need:

White Foam Board (approx 5 sheets)

Black Foam Board (1 sheet)

Exacto knife

Glue Gun

Black Duct tape

Black Permanent marker

Styrofoam cones

Black Spray Paint

Assembly:

Start off by finding a picture of a space shuttle.  You will likely learn more than you ever wanted to know about the contours of that machine!  Like any wheelchair costume, there will be some trial and error as you adapt the costume to work with your particular chair and child and it helped me to look at a few different ideas.

I started my making the sides of the shuttle.   Using two pieces of foam board, I played around with different ways to fit it between the sides of my son’s wheelchair and the wheels.  It was a little tight, but I finally settled on cutting a rectangular notch to secure the foam board over the brakes.  I also could have cut a notch to fit it over the axles, but felt it was secure enough over the axles.  I then trimmed the foam board down so that it would be low enough for my son would be able to reach his wheels.

I then cut a triangular wedge out of the top front end of each side to approximate the rounded contour of the front windows.  I measured and cut out another piece of white foam board to make the front window.  I secured it to each side with hot glue.  I made the black front window using the duct tape and wrapped it around a little to the sides.

The front nose was a little tricky.  I ended up cutting three triangles of black foam board.  Two of the triangles matched up the edge of the side of the shuttle and I then came together in the front.  The length of these triangles should be the distance that you want the nose cone to come out -  I suggest measuring for this step instead of eyeballing ;)  The third matched up the bottom of the front window and came down to meet the two triangles.  Using duct tape, I secured the side triangles first and the placed the top triangles.

Then I made the wings and rudder.   Initially, I made two fantastic to-scale wings that went almost the length of the shuttle.  However they would have blocked the wheels and part of the fun of having a space shuttle the ability to zoom around it in, so I had to drastically reduce their size so that they would fit behind the wheels.  (The little boy in my first inspiration picture looks like he was using a power chair, so long wings made perfect sense for his costume.)   Once I settled on a size, I decorated with black marker and NASA, USA and flag printouts.  For the rudder, I couldn't  think of a simple way to make the one rudder, so I settled on cutting out two trapezoids to approximate the look.  I colored in the details with the black marker and hot glued on.

The last step in the structure was to cut out a black piece for the back and secure it to the sides with duct tape.  I spray painted three styrofoam craft cones to make the after burners. I cut holes in the back piece and foam and secured with glue and duct tape.

I got the astronaut costume and helmet off of Amazon.  One of the unintended benefits of the helmet was that it gave my son, a preschooler, a nice place to hide when the attention got to be a little too much.

TMNT Assault Van

The inspiration:

What you need:

2 cardboard boxes
Cardboard rolls(wrapping paper & paper towels)
Paint
Glue gun
Tin foil
Zip ties

Assembly:
I used one box that fit perfectly over the wheelchair. I flipped the flaps up and glued the two shorter ends at an angle. This gave the me a little extra height with just one box. The other box I cut up and used it for different parts. I put two pieces on each side of the box to make the sides taller and then one on top the enclose he van. I cut a flap on top to make the opening, along with a circle for the top globe window. Once it was all glued together I painted the whole thing green.

I used the cardboard rolls to make the ladder, bar up the side of the windshield and for the wench. The lights, mirrors, wench hook, and tires were all cut from the extra cardboard. And painted accordingly. The tin foil is wrapped around the mirrors to make the mirror effect. I used a picture of a toy I found online to paint the details. Then I used the zip ties to attach it to the wheelchair.

Thanks Allison! This is amazing! Turtle Power!

Mr. Rogers Trolley

Major cuteness alert!

What you need:

One ginormous cardboard box.

Spray paint. Red for the inside, top, and front of the trolley.

Paint samples (Red, Yellow, & Black). 

Six thin wooden dowels (about 2 feet long each). 

Glue gun. You MUST have a glue gun for this project.

A caving headlamp for the trolley’s headlight. 

Assembly:

I cut the body of the trolley out, then the oval shaped roof and a strip of cardboard for the yellow sign on top. Then I cut two pieces for the front and the back (squares with a rounded top). I can’t give details on how I got it to fit on the chair. I really had to play with it and ended up using the wheelchair’s push bar to anchor the thing and keep it from flopping around. See what works. Measure a bit. You can do it. 

I wanted to paint the exterior by hand to get it right. I knew I wouldn’t need much paint so I just bought three samples from Lowes. I got red to match the spray paint, black for the stripe along the base, and yellow for the trolley seats and sign.

I used the dowel rods to stabilize the sides of the trolley. You can see them glued vertically on the inside. They kept the sides from bowing out (due to the weight of the roof and trolley sign).

Add your lettering and headlamp. Done!

Thank you Mary Evelyn for sharing this adorable creation! Simeon makes the perfect Mr. Rogers.

Jeep (aka Createrra).

I'm calling this a Jeep just to make it more generic...but it's technically the Createrra from Caleb's most favorite show "Wild Kratts".

This was my inspiration.

What you need:

Cardboard (lots of it)

Paper towel tubes/Gift Wrap tubes

Spray paint

Assorted craft paint (I used blue, green, and brown)

Reflectors

Black posterboard for the wheels

LED push lights (I found them in the night light section)

Paper plates or posterboard

Foam for the bumpers (you can use something else, I just happened to have foam)

Assembly:

First I cut cardboard to make the 4 sides and hood of the jeep. It's basically a rectangle shape, super easy design. I spray painted all the pieces before I hot glued them together.

I cut smaller/angled pieces of cardboard to attach to the hood so it has a raised look in the middle. I used gift wrap paper tubes to make the front and back roll bars. I cut them to fit together and then hot glued them to make a solid piece. I painted the front bars to match the jeep and the back bars I painted black.

I used a manila folder that I cut to fit over the angled cardboard on the front to complete the hood. I printed off the Wild Kratts logo and added it to the back and the top of the hood. I used reflectors for the back brake lights. I bought LED push lights for the headlights. I added a square of black paper to the front for the grill. The front and back bumpers were black foam pieces that I happened to have. I painted them silver. I added a small square of cardboard (painted black) to the rear of the jeep.

The wheel covers were cut from black posterboard. I spray painted the back of 2 plates silver for the rim of the wheel. I added some squares and circles cut from black paper.

Since this is technically the Createrra from Wild Kratts, I had to make it look just right. I used brown paint to look like mud. I used green and blue paint for the paw prints.  We had to remove the front roll bars...they were in Caleb's way :)

This could be customized so many different ways. It's a really basic shape that you can do a million things with!

I also made the costumes. I bought black v-neck tshirts and cut off the sleeves to make it look more like a vest. I used blue/green felt for the creature power suit design. I did the same thing for the gloves. I found the creature power discs online, printed them out and then laminated them. They stuck to the creature power suits with velcro. I made the small pouch for the discs out of felt. I made a creature pod using a piece of cardboard that I painted blue. I found the picture online and printed it out. Added a couple of buttons and a strap for the wrist. 

You can see more photos by going to our family blog. 

Captain America

What you need:
(Total Cost to create $15 and about two hours of time)
Red, white and blue crafters paint
Metallic silver crafters paint
Foam brushes
Hot glue gun
Poster board (5 sheets)
Red, orange and yellow tissue paper
Pinwheels
Zip ties
Scissors
Stapler

Assembly:

I used different sized pot lids to make the circles for Captain Americas Shield.  Traced the outlines of the circles and painted them according to photos of the actual shield I found online.  Painted each shield and then hot glued them to an extra larger circle to give them more support.  They were hole punched in three locations and secured with zip ties to the wheels of the wheelchair.

The exhaust pipes were made with rolled up poster board, hot glued to maintain shape and then stapled to the second tube.  I used two tubes on each safety bar and painted with metallic crafting paint.  The tubes were made wide enough to fit over the anti-tipping guards and the guards were turned up to attach the exhaust.  I them stuffed the tubes with the colored tissue paper to give it a flame appearance.

Behind the wheelchair I attached my sons real Captain America shield using ribbon to be able to take it on and off when he wanted to use the shield.

Lastly to add a little pizzazz, I added red, white and blue pinwheels to the front.  They were attached with hot glue.

I love the simplicity of this costume! This is proof that you can create something really fun and amazing with just a few supplies and a couple of hours. It's perfect Kerri, thanks for sharing Jarrett's costume with us!

Hello Kitty Car

Prepare for some serious cuteness folks!

What you need:

Cardboard
Posterboard (pink, white & black)
Hot glue gun & glue sticks
Spray paint (2 pink, 1 white, 1 red)
Zip ties
2 Dowel rods

Assembly:

First we sketched a design of one side of the car on cardboard (measuring approx length we wanted using wheelchair).  Repeat for the other side and measure to cut out pieces of cardboard for the front and back of the car.  We used small bowls to sketch circles on black poster board for the wheels & then cut them out.  Then sketched smaller circles on white poster board that were glued inside the black circles.  The cardboard was spray painted pink and was glued together.  The small red bows for the wheels, mirrors, door handles, tail lights were cut out of white posterboard and painted red.  The large red bow on her chair was cut out of cardboard and spray painted.  The eyes and whiskers on front were cut out of black posterboard. White posterboard was folded and painted pink for the ears. Use white posterboard for the nose & color it yellow.  We found pages in a Hello Kitty coloring book, colored them & cut out to glue on the doors and back.  The license plate was cardboard with a piece of posterboard glued to it.  A dash was also made out of a piece of cardboard and a steering wheel cut out of posterboard was attached!  White posterboard was used as the front fender and can be used for the bumper (we ran out of posterboard so painted cardboard for the bumper).  The car sat over the wheelchair and had a dowel rod attached to the cardboard to keep it in place in the back.  it was then zip tied to the handle bar.  A dowel rod was split in half, taped & glued to the cardboard and used to zip tie to each side of her wheelchair in the front.

A lot of this is up to you and what you want on it and have around the house to make work!

Seriously adorable! Thank you Casey for sharing Kinley's costume with us!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

What you need:

Foam mats (colored bottoms) *I bet you could also use cardboard for this*

4 yellow, 1 green

Colored tape (yellow, green)

Spray paint

Green, orange, blue, purple, red, silver

Black permanent marker

Foam glue

Red cups

Foam sheets

Light blue, dark blue, white

Assembly:

Trying to find colorful material that is also waterproof is a bit of a challenge. Old foam mats gave us a great surface that can be glued and painted and cut up. The back of the mat has a colorful and smooth surface that holds the paint very well. It is also the perfect size to fit on a walker.

The pieces of the mat fit together into a cube shape. Each side of a cube and held together with the top (green). The sides can be glued together, and the part that sticks out can be cut so that you can tape over a smooth surface. Yellow duct tape holds the sides in place without being too obvious on the mat. The wheels and the center part can be cut out.

The roof can be reinforced with green tape (duct tape or painters tape). The Shell Raiser is a subway car. So paint subway doors and windows, and I got wood-colored strips to cover the windows. The paint holds well on the foam, to make straight lines, tape up what you want to paint and spray over it. The whited needed 4 coats, and then silver two coats.

The subway car is covered in graffiti. The graffiti used the 4 turtle colors, and writing. If you put the graffiti on after you have taped it together then the graffiti will help to hide the tape. But make sure you have everything taped up.

To help the graffiti pop out, we outlined the words in black permanent marker.  We wrote “Turtle Power” on one side and “TMNT” on the opposite side. The turtle colors covered each corner of the car, overlapping to the front of the subway car, the colors were opposite on the other side so that all 4 colors show at the front.

The back has blue rocket boosters (with blue flames cut from foam sheets), and red bumpers, made from red cups that are glued together and taped on. The SHELL RAISER sign went on the back as well, with glue to hold in place. To help to hold the Shell Raiser in place, a hole was cut into the back to hold the basket of the walker in place.

The ramming bumper at the front is held in place with a wire and a cut up pool noodle, covered in white foam. The rocket launcher is a marshmallow shooter held in place by a cut-out in the roof. Wires also hold the front in place over the wheels

For some graffiti at the front I wrote Booyakasha and Cowabunga, both things that Michaelango yells.

TMNT Manhole Cover for Wheelchair

What you need:

Cake pan

Large aluminum foil

Letters

Foam

Grey paint (light and dark)

Assembly:

I glued foam strips onto a cake pan. I tried a couple of different designs to see what I wanted to use. I got a pack of letters to make up the NYC SEWER and glued them in place. I cut the edges off that overlapped.

The aluminium foil covered the cake pan. I found that the letters for the sewer didn’t stand out enough so I put on 2 layers of foil. Gently press between the foam and around the letters.

 

To help it to stand out more, use the grey paint. With the darker grey went in the middle and the lighter color went over the letters. It doesn’t have to be neat, and if the aluminum foil breaks, don’t worry.

The sewer grate sits over the wheelchair handles so that it overlaps over the head.

Another great costume for both walker and wheelchair by Amanda! Thanks for always sharing your awesome creations with us. I love the manhole cover. It looks awesome.

You can see more step-by-step instruction for creating a manhole cover by clicking here.

Ambulance

What you need:

27in TV box from U-Haul (or any large cardboard box or pieces of cardboard glued together)

Exacto knife

Foam rectangle sheets 

Pipe liner

Internet pics for dashboard and lights

White poster board or white paint

Styrofoam discs

Hot glue gun

Foam sticky letters

Lights of your choice (sticky LED night lights, panel lights, etc)

Assembly:

1.  Cut out the box panels, and slip onto sides of the wheelchair.  Cut basic side shapes allowing room for self propelling.  We just did one side, and traced it for the other side.

2.  Decide how you want to attach it to the chair.  We originally wanted it to go over his head, but it was easiest just to rest everything on his frame and handle bars, rather than affix it to the chair.

3.  Measure and cut the top, front, and back from other box flaps.

4.  Trace all of the pieces onto white poster board, cut them out, and hot glue them to the pieces.  OR If you are better at planning ahead than I am, purchase a large white box to begin with. Or you could use white paint to paint the entire box.

5.  Hot glue all the pieces together, We also reinforced all of the sides with another piece of cardboard folded in half and glued on the inside.  

6.  Decorate!  We used colored foam pieces for the cross shape (you could use posterboard or paint as well), styrofoam discs for the ambulance light on top, and printed the dashboard and lights on glossy paper and glued them onto the sides.  We also used a piece of cardboard and construction paper tilted and hot glued inward for the dashboard.  For the number, we used pipe lining.

Add some lights for an extra touch!

Thanks for sharing Kari, this is such a versatile costume. I love it.

Mario Kart!

What you need:

Cardboard and lots of it

Black poster board

White poster board or paper

Red spray paint

Black spray paint

Silver spray paint

Glue gun/sticks

Styrofoam cones (4)

Styrofoam circle

Black tape (we used electrical tape because that's what we had)

Zip ties

Assembly:

It's been 4 years since I made this costume....but I'm going to do my best to explain the building process from memory. The first thing we did was cut our design from cardboard. I usually cut the sides first and then add a piece of cardboard at the front and another at the back. I use hot glue to attach all the pieces so that I have one solid body. Later we cut a piece of cardboard to go on front of the kart...kinda like the front bumper with the sides. Again using hot glue to hold everything. The front bumper was attached to the main body of the kart. We also made a spoiler using a long rectangular piece of cardboard with square pieces on each end. That completed the body of the kart. I painted it red. I painted a foam ring black for the steering wheel and used zip ties to attach it to the frame of his kart. 

The styrofoam cones were painted silver to be the exhaust pipes in the back. Later I hot glued red tissue paper to them to look like flames. To attach the cones, we just cut holes into the back of the kart frame and shoved the cones through. I used hot glue to make sure they were secure. We cut a small hole in the spoiler so that Caleb's handlebar would fit through. We didn't attach the spoiler to the actual kart, it was just held on by the handle bar. 

We used black electrical tape to add our racing stripes down the kart. I traced a number "5" out of paper and added that to the spoiler. Caleb was 5 at that the time. I also cut out a letter "M" for the front of the kart. The wheels were just black poster board with a white circle added to the center. I also added smaller black pieces of paper to the white circle to make it look more like a wheel. 

The entire kart fit right over Caleb's chair. We didn't really have to do anything to attach it because it fit so nicely. 

If you have any questions or need more specific instructions, feel free to contact me using the button on the right side. 

Tyrone the Backyardigan

What you need:
Foam pages
Grey x3
Black x1
Orange x3
Light blue x3
Pink x3
Foam squares
Red
Green
White
Black
Orange
Brown
Dark blue
Foam glue
Green plastic table cloth
Plastic plates
Permanent Markers (black, silver, pink, red, orange, yellow, purple, blue)
Thick cardboard plaque-board
Popsicle sticks

Assembly:
My son’s favorite thing was the Backyardigans t.v show. His favorite character was Tyrone. Each Backyardigan character lives in their own house (with their own colour) and they all meet every day in the backyard. So we decided to surround my son in his ‘backyard’ with the houses around him. This turned into a much more ‘crafty’ project than I had originally anticipated, but he was very happy with the result (and the houses are used afterwards to play with.

Living in Canada the costume had to be able to withstand rain (and it did). Everything was made with plastic or foam. The houses were held in place with poscipcles sticks along the back (like an L brace) and then glued into a green foam square.

I used the foam glue to hold it all together. I was worried about the holt glue gun (and I don’t think I could find it). The roof sat on the bottom of the house and just folded over. I got extra long pieces of the black and grey. I used tape and glue on the back to keep it in place. The doors and windows and shutters all glued directly on, and the stairs are 3 layers of foam to make steps.

The three houses were mounted on a heavy cardboard board. A hole was cut into the cardboard so that it fit around the wheelchair and fit into the handle bars. The blue and pink houses sat on either side of my son in his wheelchair and the orange one was between the handle bars behind him. Everything was covered in a green plastic table cloth. It tilted so that my son came up between the houses.

(When we went out trick-or-treating we had a number of people who thought he was a reindeer flying over houses)

For the walker costume we did the same costume, only I wasn’t going to be making up more foam houses. I used plastic dinner plates and cut out the shapes of houses. I used permanent marker to colour the house in. The houses are held up with popsicle sticks glued together on either side and then glued to a cardboard board. I used green painter tape to hold it all in place. And covered it with a green plastic table cloth. 

Everything was tied in place underneath the cardboard and against the back of the walker.

Pirate Ship

What you need:

Black Garbage bags

Blue recycling bags

Large box

Duct tape

Black

Skull and crossbones

Glue gun and glue

White Foam skull decals

Orange foam roll (orange)

Foam squares (yellow, red, blue)

Broom handle

Wire hangers

Pirate flag (or pirate skullcap hat)

Black fabric

Pipe cleaners

Letter decals

Assemby:

Living in Canada, making a Halloween costume that is waterproof is very important. As expected, there was rain on Halloween night and the costume held up great. Looking for materials that could stand up against the rain and still pop with colour. Foam became my new best friend, it was bright, easy to cut and manipulate and could get wet. You can cut it, glue it, colour it.

We found a box that fit over the entire wheelchair and cut out a hole to fit over the seat, with space enough to sit. Covering the wheels meant that my son couldn't move himself, but at the time he didn't show any interest. The box rested on the armrests and sat just above the ground. It stayed in place without anything to strap it in. Cut open up the garbage bags and position the bag so that the top hangs along the bottom of the box. Tape the bags in place along the cut-out hole, we used skull and cross-bone duct tape to hold it in place (duct tape does have latex in it). I also used tape or glue the garbage bags down along the bottom.

I bunched up blue recycling bags up and glue them along the bottom of the box (so that it looks like waves). I used foam to decorate the boat. With a foam roll cut into the shape of the railings, and port holes as well as a skull and crossbones foam decal. I used glue to stick everything onto sides and front. I overlapped the railing so that it sits partly above the box.

With the foam I also cut out a captain's wheel, anchor from foam. I traced and cut out the design first and then outlined it in permanent marker. We had a treasure chest lunch box, so I got fake jewels from the dollar store (and an odd crown or so) and filled the lunch box. To complete the costume we also had a stuffed parrot and a sword.

For a name I added some stick-on letters. The Jolly Wheeler.

For the flag and mast I used a broom stick for the mast. When I first started making the flag we only had a pirate skull-cap I got from the dollar store, but by Halloween we had an actual pirate flag.  It was important for the flag to be ‘flying’ and not just hanging limp, so I used cardboard in the cap to hold it up, and then glued the cap together. 

I cut black fabric for the sails. I cut a hole in the middle so it will fit over the broom handle. The coat hangers, taped in upside down (with the hanger part cut off) held the fabric in place. 

The flag and past sat up against the back of the wheelchair, with a loop made from pipe cleaner that was taped into place.

My son preferred his walker for smaller areas, so I wanted a wheelchair and a walker costume. A lot of the extras from the wheelchair could be moved over and onto the walker ‘ship’. For the walker I cut up a cardboard box. I cut the bottom off of the box, and one end, then I cut a hole in the top of the box, leaving a slight edge. Then covered with black garbage bags, using tape and glue to keep it down. The front of the walker is left open for movement.

To keep the box in place over the walker I cut a line in the centre of the back to hold the lunch bag in place over the back. Using pipe cleaner, and tape I held it in place along the back of the handle and over the front wheels.

I cut out similar shapes to the wheelchair in foam to decorate. The anchor, captain wheel, flag and mast and treasure chest all moved from the wheelchair. I created a spy-glass from a paper towel roll and covered in construction paper. For water we cut up the blue recycling bags.

The Jolly Walker had a little loop from pipe-cleaners to hold the sword and also to help to keep the mast in place.

Wow, thanks for the thorough instructions Amanda! These costumes are great.