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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ROAR

on the prowl

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

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.