Coolest Box Fan Costume

My five year old son has had an obsession with fans most of his short life. When asked what he wanted to be for Halloween, he said he wanted to be a fan with a blade that really worked. I promised him that I would try and then proceeded to create what I thought he wanted.

Using a Costco size diaper box, felt, foam, cardboard, wooden dowels and tons of hot glue, this Homemade Box Fan Costume is what I made.

Materials used:
Extra large box
2 large sheets of red felt
White poster board cut into a circle
4 sheets of red foam
Cardboard pieces
2 CDs
4 dowel caps
2 wooden dowels
1 sheet of white foam
Self-adhesive white letters
2 self-adhesive black letters (cut into straight lines)
1 white pipe cleaner
Adhesive sheets
1 popsicle stick
White acrylic paint
Hot glue
Leftover sheet of batting from some project that I don?t even recall
Piece of round, black plastic top from some long lost toy
Sharpie pen

How it was made:

Having my kid hold the box with the closed side on top of his head, I marked an area that I thought would fit his head. From there I cut out a square hole and had him try it on, repeating this until the hole was the best fit for him. Next, with him in the box, head out the hole, I mark the sides of the box where his arms would fit. I cut long, rectangular holes here.

With the box a good fit for him, I measured out the felt to cover the back of the box since the sheet weren?t quite big enough to cover the whole box seamlessly. I cut it to a size that would cover the entire back, about an inch on the top and to the back of the arm holes. Using hot glue, I attached the first sheet to the box.

Next, I cut the second sheet of red felt to remove the excess that would have just been tucked inside the box anyway. I attached this piece with hot glue, going to the back edges of the box. I cut a square smaller than the actual top hole in the felt in that area. Cutting slits at the corners of the felt for ease of folding. Again, hot gluing to the underside. I also cut slits in the felt where the arms would go.

After trying it on, my son complained that it was uncomfortable at his shoulders, so I added some batting (hot gluing, of course) to the underside where the box would rest on his shoulders.

To make the blades, I used a piece of cardboard to draw a template. Using the template, I marked the red foam sheets and cut out the blades. The foam blades were flimsier that I wanted so I cut more cardboard pieces to match and glued them to the backs of the foam pieces. I glued the foam blades to two CDs ? the blades were sandwiched between them. The one on back was unaltered but the front one was painted white. I added a dowel cap, painted white, to the center of the white CD ? this would hold the end of a dowel.

Next, I cut out a large circle from a piece of white poster board and glued it using adhesive sheets. I measured and found the center of the circle, marking it for the hole that would be punched for the dowel that would connect the fan blade to the handle inside the box.

To make the spinning apparatus, I cut a dowel down so that it would hold the blade piece, go through the box and through a dowel cap on the inside of the box. I glued (like crazy because my dowel caps were a tad too large for my rods) one dowel cap to one end of the dowel, pushed it through the center hole, the blade piece and glued the end of the dowel to the dowel cap attached to the CD. I later painted the end white to match the rest of that area. (Twisting the dowel cap on the inside allowed my son to spin the blade on the outside (success)!

To make the controls on top, I painted two more dowel caps white and added some cut self-adhesive letters in black for markers. I then used white self-adhesive letters for the “on”, “off”, “hi” and “lo” control markers. My husband, going off the Vornado fan icon, created a sticker for my son?s (Vincent) brand, Vincento. We added that to the corner of the box.

As kind of an afterthought, I wrapped a cut dowel with white pipe cleaners and then glued it to a piece of white foam that my sister had made into a power outlet (this is where that leftover black top to something was attached). I then glued that to the back of the box. It didn?t hold up too well on its own so I slipped in a popsicle stick that could go underneath the edge of the box without showing. This worked beautifully.

And that is how we made my son a box fan for Halloween!

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