Friday, October 14, 2011

Super Easy DIY Baby Lion Costume

Our family is going with old school Circus-y themed costumes for O's 1st birthday Halloween party, and I knew from the start that JD would be the strong man.  Hubby wanted to be the ring master, and I will be a tightrope walker.  I had a really rough time with O.  It had to be something cute because it's his party, and it also had to be something comfortable that he wouldn't mind wearing all day.  We decided on a lion, but any costume I found in a store was either a) cheap looking, b) super expensive, and/or c) thick fuzzy material that he would sweat his little butt off in.


So I decided to make my own.  A DIY baby lion costume was exactly what I needed to be working on instead of cleaning my house!  I used a pic from the Good Housekeeping's Halloween issue as inspiration, but didn't follow their brief tutorial because it just didn't make any sense to me (honestly, they lost me at turning over hems and abutting strips). I think mine came out cuter than theirs, and it seems to be much simpler.


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The ears are a little big, but so are O's, so it's okay.
Materials:
  • Brown hat with ear flaps 
  • Fleece (I bought a 1/2 yard of brown, tan, and gold and still have a lot left.)
  • Polyester fiberfill
  • Brown clothing (Good Housekeeping used a sleeper- I didn't feel like hunting a brown one down.)
  • Pinking shears
(Good Housekeeping also made paws on the feet of the sleeper & mittens, but O doesn't keep socks on & I wouldn't bet on him keeping mittens on either!)


I started with this hat from The Children's Place

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I turned it inside out (so you couldn't see the dog) and removed the tags.  After Halloween, I can remove the mane, flip it around, and use it as a winter hat.

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Liking it so far.
I cut 3-inch strips from the fleece and fringed it with the pinking shears.  Then I tacked it on to the hat, going from ear flap to ear flap around the face.

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Nothing needs to be perfect here, so I could totally watch Grey's while sewing.

I pushed the fringe forward and tacked the next strip on.  I alternated colors and put on 6 strips total to finish the lion's mane.


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Then I cut out 2 ear shapes from the brown fleece, tacked a smaller tan ear shape (cut with pinking shears) to 1 of them, turned them right side in & sewed them together.  I turned it right-side-out, pinched the bottom, and attached it behind the mane.  I repeated for the second ear.

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For the tail, I sewed a tube about 1.5 feet long out of brown fleece, stuffed it with fiberfill, and attached some fringed pieces of the three colors to the end.

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His brown shirt had a design on the front, so I made him a tan belly out of fleece. I cut the edges with the pinking shears so it went with the hat.

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ROAR

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on the prowl

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It's the cirrrrrrrrcle of life.....

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All that picture taking wore him out. Time for some lion around.  haha
He wasn't a big fan of the hat at first, but once I distracted him, he forgot about it.  I'm going to put it on him as much as we can leading up to Halloween to get him used to it.  And I'm going to fix the ears.  This homemade lion costume is perfect for him because it's comfortable, easy to crawl in, and really brings out his little personality.

18 comments:

  1. I just LOL'd at the Circle of Life picture. ACTUAL LAUGHING OUT LOUD. I kind of want to pin it to Pinterest too.

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  2. Hi Kim! Thank you so much for your kind words. Your blog actually inspired my blog. I have read yours for a while and thought that you had some great ideas for capturing memories. I am still trying to figure out the ins and outs of the blogging world.Your boys are adorable. I aspire to be as active and do as many fun things with Kellen that you do with your family!

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  3. now that is impressive, you are all dressing up? kudos!

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  4. Do you by chance have pics of the entire family? We are doing this theme this year and searching for ideas!

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    1. I went through EVERYTHING and could not find a pic of the entire family all together :( I emailed you pics of what I did have.

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  5. This is awesome!! Actually did an older child version of this for my 9 yr old daughter but used your tutorial!! So thankful because we aren't into scary and inappropriate costumes !!

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  6. This might be the best DIY lion costume I've found yet!! I'm making one for my toddler and will link once I'm done. :) Thanks for sharing!

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  7. Thanks for sharing, I will bookmark and be back again.

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  8. That is the cutest darn thing I have seen

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  9. Great job for publishing such a beneficial web site. Your web log isn’t only useful but it is additionally really creative too. Baby Jumper Walker

    ReplyDelete

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