Oh Dear? Oh Deere, My Little John Deere

First of all I think Halloween 2016, I will look for a costume that I can actually buy in the store. This is Logan. He is an enthusiastic 2 and a half almost 3-year-old little guy who is obsessed with not just tractors, but Green John Deere tractors.

When Logan told me that he wanted to be a tractor for Halloween I thought it would be simple enough to find the ever so popular John Deere tractor costume for toddlers in the costume stores. Boy was I wrong. There wasn’t a single place nor anyone online selling a John Deere costume. So I found some inspirational ideas on the Internet and of course Logan had the final say of what he wanted it to look like and let me tell you, I am so not artistically talented, if I drew a stick figure, it would it look as straight as it should.

In a nutshell, the beginning process of finding the perfect size boxes for his body and for it to actually look like a tractor and not a train was the longest part of the whole process. Very overwhelming, and stressful, I just came home from multiple stores with over 20 boxes ranging in all different sizes. In the end, I ended up using a target diaper box and a bankers box which still had to be trimmed down with a large blade and the flaps were folded and glued with gorilla glue, duct tape, and eventually I had to use an industrial staple gun. I loved using the tools especially the stapler, however, my parents were not to please that I ended up stapling holes in there wooden breadboard that I used as a table.

After constructing the body of the tractor, I found actual John Deere green spray paint at my local Menard’s hardware store and proceeded to coat the entire outer surfaces. And then for the outer trim decoration pieces for the body of the tractor, I used yellow duct tape , and 2 inch green alphabet letters and printed multiple sizes of the John Deere logo, laminated those and adhered them to the boxes.

Now for the wheels, instead of just cutting out circles, I decided to let my creative juices flow and found cardboard stock round plates in a baking section of the craft store, covered the surfaces with construction paper and then I bought a cutting tool to make the edges of the wheels but I didn’t stop there. I then took a drill, and made holes in the center of the wheels so I could place a plastic screw through the box onto the inside so the wheels could actually turn.

For the smokestack, I came across a small plastic piece in the plumbing section of the hardware store and of course by this time it was my fifth trip and all the employees knew me from all of my endeavors. For the tube I used a paper towel roll that spray-painted black and there was a hole in the bottom of the plastic piece so people could put candy into the smokestack and it would sit in the front of the tractor. For the rear of the tractor, I found red circular reflective light.

For that tube I used a paper towel roll that spray-painted black and then there was a hole in the bottom of the plastic piece so people could put candy into the smokestack and it would sit in the front of the tractor. For the rear of the tractor, I found red circular reflective lights that are made for a bicycle, and used a metallic red adhesive tape for the yield sign. And for the very front of the tractor, my favorite part had to be the LED headlights that would turn on by just pushing the outer surface. Logan loved that the most. And to make the look of a grill, I came across weatherstripping on the end cap at the hardware store.

At one of the multiple Halloween events we attended, one of them was a large business showcase in my city every body every single station table was asking to take his picture and he stood still, posed and loved the attention. As we proceeded up the aisles, you could hear the different vendors saying: “theres that John Deere tractor” before they even really saw us. I have to admit I felt like a very proud artist for the day Andropogon was especially happy because he receives so much extra candy just for being the coolest kid there.

In the end, it took a little over a month to construct the entire costume and I have to say majority of it was just the brainstorming and finding proportional sizes. If I did it again next year, I pray that he wants to be something more simple otherwise I’m just going to give him the option of any costume in the store instead of treating it by hand.

For the very front of the tractor, my favorite part had to be the LED headlights that would turn by just pushing the outer surface. Logan involved that the most. And to make the look of a gorilla, I came across weatherstripping on the end cap again at the hardware store.

All in all, the costume turned out much better than I anticipated and the only other struggle I had was finding a way to keep it on the body of a two-year-old. Again using the drill, I made holes in different areas of the boxes and ended up using an elastic bungee cord that we could just wrapped around his neck with the comfort of a handkerchief/bandanna so he would look like a farmer.

Related costumes:

Leave a Comment Cancel reply