Coolest Charlotte's Web Girl Group Costume

Last October, my sisters and I decided we wanted to go to Salem, Massachusetts to celebrate Halloween. It was a few weeks early, but we were told that everyone in Salem was dressed up, all the time – so why not? We were looking for costumes that were easy, warm, unique, and that worked together as a group, so we decided to be the barnyard animals from Charlotte’s Web. Here’s how we made them!

For Charlotte (spider), I wore a black turtleneck, black leggings, and a black skirt. To make the legs, I sketched what looked like a spider leg to create a stencil. I then traced and cut out 12 spider leg outlines and sewed them together to create 6 legs that I stuffed with batting. I then created a spider “corset” to attach the legs to. To do this, I took a corset I already owned and laid it out on top of the fabric. I roughly traced the tops and bottoms of each panel of the corset, and connected the top and bottom outline with straight lines to give each panel a full outline. I cut them out and sewed them together, tucking the bases of three legs into each of the side-seams. Since the back was open, I cut a row of holes down the side of each of the two back panels, and threaded a black ribbon through. To put the corset on over my turtleneck, I loosened the ribbons, stepped into the corset, pulled it up, and then tightened the ribbons.

For Wilbur (pig), my sister wore pink scrubs, and then we made the snout and ears out of felt. For the snout, I created a short cylinder that I glued together, and placed a circle of pink felt on one end to close it off. I used black fabric scraps to create the nostrils. I also drew and cut out the pig ears from the pink felt, sewing each side together and stuffing with felt. I glued the ears onto a pink headband. I also made a curly tail out of felt, and a prize-winning blue ribbon out of navy felt and navy ribbon. Some pig!

For Templeton (rat), my sister wore gray leggings and a gray sweater, and we made the ears the same way we did the pig – cut out four ear shapes (in this case, circles) from gray felt, sewed them together, stuffed them with batting, and glued them onto a black headband. I also used the pink felt to make a long, skinny tail. She used lipstick to make the tip of her nose pink, and purchased the whiskers at a costume store.

When we arrived in Salem that day in early October, we found that we were, in fact, the only people dressed up – but that didn’t stop everyone from loving our Charlotte’s web costumes!