When my two year old became obsessed with Elmo I knew that was what she was going to be for Halloween. So I decided that my husband and I would join in on the fun too!
I handmade Count Von Count and Big Bird, but bought Elmo at a thrift shop for 8 bucks.
To make Count, I started with the head. I took a lot advice from another costume on this site. We already had a foam ball head from a previous homemade costume(Jack in the Box) that I recycled. I cut a mouth opening with a knife, sprayed it with spray adhesive and wrapped it with purple fleece pulling it toward the back where I knew the hair would be to reduce as many wrinkles as possible. Then I made the nose and ears out of cardboard and also covered them in the fleece. For the hair, I bought black fur and made a sort of template out of paper to design the widows peak and sideburns. I cut the fur out and glued it on the best I could trying to trim and fold as needed. The eyes were made out of foam board. I glued everything on with hot glue. For the outfit, My husband just used his own dress pants, vest, shirt and shoes. I bought the cape on ebay for like $4. DONE:)
For Big Bird I knew I would need quite a few feather boas (10) so I ordered them from an ebay store in China for $1.99 a piece including shipping. I ordered them almost 6 weeks in advance to make sure they would get here in time and they did. I had a plain white spaghetti strap dress from H&M that I wrapped with the boas and hot glued all around the dress. For the head piece I wrapped a headband with yellow felt and glued a piece of round cardboard on top to give it some height. I got two foam balls and painted the blue and pink eye shadow and sharpied the black circles. I made the nose out of a foam board I just turned into a cone and then glued it all on. I filled it all in with a half piece of remaining boa. The orange tights were also ordered from ebay. To make the feet I followed a tutorial on youtube, but basically cut out two large pieces of fleece (4 total) in the shape I wanted, glued them together and stuffed with poly-fill. For the pink ribs on the tights, I got some pink fleece and cut out big rectangle and rolled them up into a snake and glued them into donuts making sure the stretchy part of the fabric went the right way so they would stay on.
We wore them to a family Halloween party and they were a big hit. Hope you like them!
Megan k! Can you help me with the headpiece? I don’t understand the cardboard part. My 6 foot son is big bird for a school play and I’m freaking out!
Nikkiantone@msn.com
What size did you use for the head?
Hello! Where did you purchase the foam ball head?
Thanks
Where did you find the styrofoam hallow ball for Count Dracula head??