I want to share with everyone the product I use that has truly changed my Halloween costume making and has made anything possible.
After years of experimenting with paper mache (too heavy), wire and fabric (not stable enough) and many other methods, I finally found plumbing pipe insulation. This is extremely light weight, bendable, sturdy when glued into forms and is really inexpensive. All you need is a little imagination, some pipe insulation, lots of hot glue and time!
My grandson, Aidan, wanted to be Spiderman for Halloween but as we always do costumes that are Halloween related, I had to think of something that would fit but would also make him happy. I finally came up with an exterminator escaped from a spider’s web. This is our Homemade Insect Catcher Costume.
I sewed a quick overall costume and painted a “bug buster” logo with acrylic paint onto it. Next I used hot glue to form webs and attached a few pieces of Halloween decor spider webs, to thicken the webs in place.
Using strips of insulation I began to form two dome shapes for the head and body and attached them together. I made the legs from uncut pieces of insulation and using the glue gun tip melted away the insulation a little at the joints to create bends. I attached the legs and feelers and covered the whole thing in fun fur. I painted it with black acrylic paint and used orange and yellow on all of the joints and on the body.
I finished with eyes made from Styrofoam sliced from a Styrofoam ball. I used Velcro to attach the spider’s legs to the coverall costume to make it easily removable when necessary.
The whole spider barely weighs anything. This costume cost about $15.00 for fabric and insulation and took four evenings to make.
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WOW how original. This costume is truly amazing, the spider looks so life like. You are very talented and have a great imagination. Your Grandson is a real cutie. 100% AMAZING WORK!
Another great costume…
Now I see why my mom would never let me have a pet tarantula.
I really like your idea and would like to make it but I’M having trouble attaching the legs{how did you do that}please write back soon!
My apologies for not seeing your comment and responding in time. For possible future reference for others I just used Velcro covering the entire foot of six of the legs and placed Velcro on the suit. This held really well but was removed easily for car rides etc. I really hope you worked it out hurricane and once again am sorry for lack of response.
I hope you see this comment soon, I’m trying to make a tarantula costume for my baby using your design, how to you get the legs to STAY bent, and how did you attatch them to the spider body?
Hi Larissa, To get the legs to stay bent you have to use the tip of your glue gun to melt the joints a little before you cover in your fabric. You can then use a little more hot glue in the joint after it’s covered but clamp it into a bend while it dries for a minute. I glued the legs onto the body with the hot glue before I covered it. It’s a little tricky but if it’s not completely attached it doesn’t matter because when you attach the fur, it will all hold in place. Hope this helps.