My 4.5 year old son had decided to be a backhoe for Halloween, so I had to come up with a “sidekick” costume for my 11 month old. I wanted something relatively easy to make and upon seeing an actual traffic cone in our garage it dawned on me that here was my answer to a Homemade Traffic Cone Toddler Halloween Costume. I knew immediately that I would make a “dunce-like” hat for the top piece, the body piece would have arm holes and he’d wear an orange onesie.
I got the orange poster board (2 sheets), holographic sticker paper (4 sheets) and orange ribbon at the craft/fabric store and the orange onesie at Target (already had the grey construction PJs).
I began by making a template out of newspaper (using our actual cone as a form) for the hat, it took some trial and error (and some high school geometry/trigonometry) to get the fit right. I used the hat as a template for cutting the holographic sticker paper border and a hole punch for attachment points for the ribbon. The same general idea was used to create the body and even more trial and error to get it to fit over his shoulders and body. Unfortunately the poster board was not big enough to fashion a complete cone, so I did have to use some scrap poster board pieces at the bottom back to make the body wide enough to fit correctly.
Both hat and body pieces are completely covered on the inside with clear packing tape for added strength and pliability. And I cut a little bit of the cone away right under his chin so it wouldn’t stick him in the face. Each time he wore the costume we had to tape him into it — the back seam area had an extra tape layer to make the subsequent layers of tape easily removable.
Lastly, I found a CalTrans logo on the web, printed it out and glued it on the front of the costume for that extra bit of authenticity and recognizable.
Total cost: $14.50
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This is an adorable,unusual costume…I like the fact that is original and really works for a toddler. It is made of fairly common materials and looks relatively comfortable. It allows for good vision and sends a good message of “safety first!” Good work, parents!
This is awesome…I’m actually more excited to see a backhoe…my son is refusing to be anything but a backhoe for halloween and I’ve been raking my brain as to how to do it. Now I can….and have a little construction cone too (my boys are 3 and 1)