The Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo

What you need:

PVC Pipe
Box cutter
Card Board (Refrigerator Size)
2 Battery Operated sticky lights
Metal Cake pan
Red reflectors
Tempera paint: Blue, orange, green & yellow & orange construction paper
Black permanent marker
Bolts
Painter’s putty or spackling paste
Wooden rod
2” C-clamp
Duck tape
Gorilla Glue
Old power wheels tires and steering wheel

Assembly:

We used huge card board boxes to form The Mystery Machine. We used PVC pipe to secure the van and several C-clamps to mount the van on Jacob’s wheel chair. I wanted to give his costume some more texture and hide all of the duck tape we had used to form the van so I used spackling paste on the entire thing! It gave the van a smoother look but it also made the van EXTREMELY heavy. If you decide to use this be careful because as it dries and the more you move it, it will crack.   We took apart an old Power Wheels and used the tires and steering wheel. We screwed the wheels onto the card board and PVC frame.  I cut pieces of construction paper into circles and glued them onto card board which I then glued onto each of the four tires. In the front of the Mystery Machine I used yellow spray paint to paint the round cake pan and glued the flower onto the front of the cake pan that we then screwed into the cardboard. We used two battery operated lights and large PVC tubes to create the head lights. We used a wooden rod in the back of the van to reinforce as well as balance the back of the van. Jacob really enjoyed this costume because the steering wheel would turn as if he was driving the Mystery Machine.

Wow, that's impressive. Seriously.

Buzz Lightyear

What you need: 

PVC Pipe
Box cutter
Card Board (Refrigerator Size)
4 Battery Operated blinking flashlights
4 blue bowls (dollar store)
Tempera paint: Blue, Purple, Grey, Red & white
Zip ties
Bolts
Painter’s putty or spackling paste
Gloves
2” C-clamp
Duck tape
Gorilla Glue

Assembly: 

This one was pretty tricky by far the most complicated costume yet! We cut the card board to form the rocket ship. We used the PVC pipe to create the frame on the inside of the ship. We then anchored it to Jacob’s chair using the C-clamps. We used left over card board to form the wings for the ship. We screwed 4 blue bowls on the back of the ship. I wanted to try something this year to give his costume some more texture and hide all of the duck tape we had used to form the rocket shape so I used spackling paste on the entire thing! It gave the ship a smoother look but it also made the ship really heavy. If you decide to use this be careful because as it dries and the more you move it, it will crack.  We used zip ties to hold the lights that blinked on the sides of the rocket ship. We had an old light necklace that we zip tied to the front of the ship; at night the lights looked amazing! Once the spackling dried (overnight) I drew the Buzz emblem using a pencil which makes it easy to erase. If you erase you may notice some left behind eraser marks but don’t worry because you can use white tempera paint to cover your mistakes. To Infinity and Beyond!!!

Seriously awesome! This one was definitely a labor of love and it came out fantastic. Thanks for sharing Clarrissa!

Thomas the Train

What you need:

3 blue foam poster boards

1 or 2 inch wide red tape

1 empty coffee tin (an empty oatmeal cannister would also work)

1 white poster sheet

1 yellow crayon

1 black poster sheet

1 black sharpie

Spider web from Halloween section (stretchy kind)

Hot glue gun

Glue sticks

Assembly:

Start by placing 1 blue board in between the wheel and chair, measure the height you will need as well as the length. You will need to cut off the excess.

Use the second blue board to measure the second side. Do this for both sides of the chair.

Using the third board, measure the width needed across the front of the chair to glue all boards together. Glue the right, left and front of the train and measure to make sure it will fit. Next, you will use left over board to measure, cover and glue the top of the train(where the steam comes out). Glue all boards together to form the sides, top, and front of the train. Fit on the chair to make sure everything is going fine. If no modifications are needed, remove train for next step.

Use a picture of Thomas the Train for drawing the red lines. I used a pencil for the rough draft and then started adding the red tape on top of the pencil outline.

Use leftover white posterboard to create the yellow "1"s hat will go on each side of the train. I used a yellow crayola crayon to color the board. Hot glue one "1" to each side according to rough draft.

Use the white posterboard for the face. I free handed the face and filled it in with the black Sharpie, a thicker marker will work faster. When completed hot glue face to the front of the train.

Last step will be to cover the coffee tin or whichever cylinder you are using with black posterboard. This will be the part of the train where the steam comes out. This will be hot glued to the top of the train behind the face. Place hot glue along the bottom edge. You can use spider web from the Halloween section for the steam. This does not need to be hot glued but you can glue it if you want. I stretched it out just a tad to give the smokey look.

To make the train stay in place we taped the back to the chair. Sorry I didn't take pictures of this. I used the same red tape since we already had red on the train and it just blended in.

The total time spent on project was 3 hours. Total cost was under $10 I bought most of the materials at Dollar Tree or a local dollar store(I already owned the hot glue gun and glue sticks). Best part of all was my son had a blast in it. 

Great job Olivia! Thanks for sharing your awesome creation. I love that it only cost $10! Proof that anyone can create these amazing costumes with some basic supplies and a few dollars.

Pirate Ship

What you need:

PVC Pipe
Box cutter
Card Board (Refrigerator Size)
Bolts
2” C-clamp
Gorilla Glue
Skull (party city)
Pirate lunch box
Pirate’s gold (party city)
Anchor chain (party city)
Black raven (party city)
Metallic link chain (party city)
Jute roll (party city)
Old carpet roll
Duck tape
Black curtain
Black and white felt
Brown spray paint
Brown Tempera paint

Assembly:

We shaped the cardboard box into a pirate ship. We used PVC pipe to make the frame and used bolts and gorilla glue to hold it all together. Once we made the frame we used c-clamps to anchor the ship to Jacob’s chair. I painted the ship with brown tempera paint and used a back and forth motion to give it that old wood look. We I spray painted the old carpet roll with brown spray paint and placed it on the back of Jacob’s chair in between some metal pieces that came out of the back end of his chair. We cut a hole through the carpet pole and glued it in. We then tied the black curtain to the PVC to make the sails. I draped the jute roll over the pirate ship and cut a whole big enough to sit Jacob inside of his pirate ship. I used gorilla glue to hold the skull on the front of the ship and placed pieces of gold and treasures on the top of his ship. Good Luck!

Another great costume from Clarrissa! We love it.

Motorcycle Rider

 Watch out for this guy! He's taking over the road!

What you need: 

PVC Pipe
Card Board
Battery Operated Light
Styrofoam for gas tank (we used an old bicycle tank)
Black spray paint
Metallic grey spray paint
Lawn mower tire
Zip ties
Bolts
Duck tape
2” C-clamp
Force pump plunger
Gorilla Glue
Harley Davidson Stickers

Assembly: 

We were pretty lucky with this design because we took a part an old motorcycle bicycle.  We bought several pieces of PVC pipe and made the handle bars and frame out of PVC. We spray painted the pieces while they were separated because once you start drilling and shaping your motorcycle you don’t want to take it apart. We screwed in the tire to the PVC as well as the tank. We used the zip ties to hold down the card board. You’re probably wondering what we used the plunger for but that was our make shift head light! We also cut out card board and made a speedometer. After we made the body we then attached the motorcycle piece to Jacob’s wheelchair using 3 c-clamps for a mount which is easy to remove the entire piece.  Most of these materials you can find at your local hardware store. Good Luck!

Awesome Clarrissa, thanks so much for sharing Jacob's costume with us!

Dry Bones Costume

Leave it to Caleb to choose an obscure character from Mario as his Halloween costume of choice. Dry Bones. You can't buy a Dry Bones costume. It doesn't exist. There are costumes for Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Waluigi, Wario and even Toad. But not Dry Bones.

"Who is Dry Bones?" you ask. Well the older folks out there might remember Dry Bones in his original form from Super Mario 3:

That's vintage Dry Bones right there.

He's basically a skeleton Koopa Troopa

(can I just say how much I LOVED Super Mario 3, man that brings back memories)

Dry Bones has changed quite a bit over the years. This is modern day Dry Bones...driving a car.

You can see how I had my work cut out for me in trying to make a Dry Bones costume! I scoured the internet looking for some other crazy moms who attempted to make a Dry Bones costume. I found one. I actually emailed this mom who made her son a DB costume several years ago. She gave me some basic direction on how to get started and I just went with it.

What you need:

Black shirt (long sleeve)

White felt

White beanie cap (I found one at Walmart for $1.50)

Black felt

Orange Felt

White foam board

Primer Paint

Black Paint

Something to use for a shell (you'll see what I used in a minute)

Here's how you do it:
I found this printable for Skeleton Arms. I used it as my template. I cut 4 bone shapes out of white felt. These will go on the sleeves of the black shirt.

Then I cute a bunch of white strips of felt to put across (horizontally) the front of the black shirt. Now I don't sew so I bought some of that iron on "no sew" adhesive. I attempted to iron on the felt bones and strips to the black shirt...I got poor results. Not sure why it didn't stick well, but it didn't. So, I had to hand sew (no sewing machine in this house) the parts that wouldn't stick down. 

I should mention that you can also add "bones" to a pair of black pants for a full outfit. I didn't do this with Caleb because I knew no one would be able to see his pants with his wheelchair costume on. Why make something that no one is going to see right?

Next I cut out 2 black felt circles and 2 smaller orange felt circles for the eyes. I sewed those to the white beanie.

For the shell I found a Captain America shield at Party City. I found the last shield in stock. The price: $15!! How these people can charge $15 for a round piece of plastic is beyond me. Anyway, it was my lucky day because the straps on the back of the shield were broken. So I did a little wheelin' and dealin' with the manager and got the shield for half price. I still think $7.50 is ridiculous for something that probably cost 4 cents to make but I had to have something.

I took Captain America's shield home and gave it a makeover:

I primed it and then painted it black.

Next, I cut out a bunch of hexagon shapes from white foam board and glued them all over the black shell.

And that is how you make a Dry Bones costume! Hopefully this post will help some poor mom years from now who has a kid that wants to be Dry Bones for Halloween. Your welcome.

Now for the wheelchair part of the costume.

What you need:

Cardboard, lots of it

Spray Paint (we stuck with black and white)

Hot glue gun

Whatever decorations you want to add.

I'm not going to give step by step instructions on how I made the wheelchair part of the costume. There really isn't a rhyme or reason to the madness. Glenn just brings home a giant cardboard box, I cut it up and then just play around with the pieces until they resemble a car.

This is what my living room looked like last Friday night. 

Somehow I turned all that cardboard into this:

I used black and white checkered Duck Tape for the stripes.

I used Glow-n-the-dark Duck Tape for the Dry Bones emblem (I cut it out with an exacto knife)

I got a styrofoam cone and painted it silver, added red tissue paper for fun.

If you are familiar with Mari Kart you know you get items (shells, banana peels, stars, etc). I printed the star out and added it to the back of the car. I thought it added a nice touch.

At the last minute I decided to do something with the wheels. I bought black poster board, cut big circles to fit on the hand rims and I added more bone shapes (cut from white paper) as the wheel spokes.

And there you have it. It looks hard and time consuming but it really wasn't.

I'm kinda proud of it. This may be my favorite wheelchair costume yet.

Circus Train Wheelchair Costume

What you need:
Large boxes
Paint
Box cutter
Long straightedge/ ruler
Glitter
Zip ties

I used one big box for the body of the train, but you could use a few pieces and glue or tape them together. Then I measured where I thought the train should sit on the chair. I freehanded the design for the top of the train and used a straightedge to make bars, leaving a gap big enough for him to get his arms out and wheel himself. Once I cut out the train, I fit it onto the chair and marked where the brakes hit so I could cut out a spot for them. Then the fun part! I spray painted the inside of the train, and decorated the outside with acrylic craft paints (I tried kids' poster paint first but it would have taken 100 coats to cover) and glitter.

For the wheels, I measured and used a big compass to draw the right size circles. I cut them out, painted them, and affixed them with zip ties. The smaller circles were hard to attach, but I managed with a couple of zip ties and a few extra pieces of cardboard. The exact process is probably different for every chair, so you may have to figure that part out on your own. :)

So cute! Thank you Lauren for sharing your costume creation!