My husband wanted to be a cactus and since we always do a family costume, I decided to be tumbleweed. My 2 daughters are flowers and my son is a tree. My husband’s costume is made of felt. The head is lined with foam rubber, with green mesh over his face. The body is a simple felt tunic with foam rubber inside the ‘mittens’ at the end. There are slits in the wrists so he can pop his hands out when needed (for example to drink a beer).
I sewed on long strips of foam rubber and then cut small strips of foam rubber and sewed them on for the needles (I wanted to use something soft that wouldn’t poke anyone’s eyes out, especially at a bar).
The tumbleweed is a simple felt beige dress, and then I made a tutu out of light beige tulle and wore that over the dress. I simply Googled ‘how to make a tutu’ and found a ton of instructions on the internet on how to make a tutu – but basically you just tie strips of tulle to a strip of elastic.
Then I got some branches (since I live in the city I actually bought a wreath of branches from Joanns, but you could just use tree branches) and gathered them in small bunches and sewed the bunches onto a strip of felt that I tied around my waist over the tulle. Then I sewed bunches of tulle to the top of the dress and stuck on branches onto the tulle. For the branches on my head, I covered a headband with a tube of felt, and then sewed on branches onto the felt.
For the Flowers I got felt flower placemats from Bed Bath and Beyond. I cut out a circle out of the middle and then sewed them onto a headband that was covered with a tube of yellow felt. I made the tube extra long so I could tie it onto the girls’ heads. I made a simple green felt top and sewed yellow felt flowers to the cuffs. I made a skirt of green felt leaves with an elastic band, and then I made a green tutu underneath it to make the leaf skirt a little more poofy.
For the tree I made a simple brown felt tunic and sewed green leaves onto the cuffs. The head is a tube of foam rubber covered in brown felt with a hole for the face. I cut branches out of the top and sewed green felt leaves onto it.
Where did you find a tube of foam rubber? And how thick was it?
Hi Alice,
I actually made the tube of foam rubber myself, by taking one large piece of foam rubber about twice as wide as I needed the tube to be, and folding it in half and sewing it together up one side. I can’t remember exactly how thick it was but it was pretty thin, so that it wouldn’t be too cumbersome for my 3 year old to wear, I think maybe 1/4 inch thick? It just needed to be thick enough to provide some support for the trunk of the tree to be stiff enough to stand up straight.