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Totally Awesome Ninja Turtle Costume for a Little Boy

My son wanted to be Raph from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so I knew I would have to make something homemade. What is funny is that several years back my friends and I had dressed up like the Ninja Turtles and I too was Raph. The first step was to find a matching green shirt and pants, which proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. So I decided to go with a white sweatshirt and pants. Be sure that if you are dying clothing they are 100% cotton, the 50/50 blends are not dyeable. I ordered a white sweatshirt, stretch pants, hat (for actual trick or treating outdoors, not pictured), and a t-shirt.  I dyed all items green according to the package directions, this was my first attempt at dying and they came out pretty good.

Next I took yellow felt and hot glue gunned the chest together with stuffing for a little extra muscle. I took the chest piece and hot glue gunned it to the green sweatshirt.  I cut up strips of red fabric, I used a t-shirt for the arm, elbow, knee, and ankle pads and for the mask bands. I cut a mask out of red felt and put strips of the red fabric on each side, which was done by making a small slit on either side and knotting the end of the fabric so it would not slide back through the hole. I took another square of yellow felt and safety pinned brown balloons on it for the shell.  Be sure to use gel superglue on all pins to make sure they do not come open and prick your little man (or lady).

The yellow square was then pinned onto the back of the green sweatshirt, again use the superglue to hold pins closed. The hot glue gun would not work for attaching the shell unless you are extra careful not to come close to the balloons which is very difficult. For the belt I cut a 2 inch band of brown felt, cut out a cardboard circle which I wrapped in tin foil, and wrote an “R” with a black sharpie. The belt was hot glue gunned around his waste, the strips of red fabric were tied on his arms and legs and his mask was tied around his head.  Then only left to purchase was some weapons and green hair dye.  My little guy loved it!

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