Coolest Illusion Costume: A Boy on the Toilet!

Our family visits coolest homemade costumes every year to see the amazing and creative ideas everyone comes up with. This year our 8 year old son decided he didn’t see the idea he wanted. He announced one night at dinner he wanted to be a boy on the potty. “An outhouse?” we asked. “No,” he insisted, ” A boy on the toilet“. My husband agreed he could do it and then went to work on it.

We already had a white toilet seat that we have had for years that we use for funny things, like hanging for a football toss. You could easily buy this at a Walmart or a home improvement store for about $10. We then took a clear rectangular plastic bin that was big enough for our son to fit in including his hips ( ours is approximately 15 by 11 inches and 6 1/2 inches high and we used this instead of a box to give the toilet more structure and to be more durable for him to wear) and cut the bottom out of it out. My husband used a drill to make two small holes in the top of the toilet seat (one on each side) and attached the seat to the bin with white zip ties (we find these to be extremely sturdy and great for attaching things for costumes).

We shaved away a little of the inside of the toilet seat to widen it for comfort while being worn and for walking. He then found a cardboard box to be the back of the toilet bowl (ours was 17 by 13 by 5 1/2 inches). Ours happened to be white but any cardboard box would work and you can just paint it white. We cut out a square out of the box the size of the side of the bin so we could slide it on and it would be the back of the toilet bowl (like the tank). Be sure it is a snug fit when you cut the hole. We shaped cardboard around the clear bin to make it rounded under the toilet seat and attached it to the bin with blue painter’s tape. We then used another piece of cardboard to shape the bottom of the toilet ( the stand) and attached it again with zip ties but this time to the bottom of the bin.

Now that we had the shape, we could add the finishing touches to make the toilet appear more real. We painted all of the boxes/cardboard with white paint. For legs we took pool noodles, cut them to a good size for legs and put socks over the noodles . We then wrapped the pool noodles with white cloth napkins to make them look thicker and then put thick, skin colored, footless tights over them). We put jeans on the fake legs and and put them into old sneakers. We zip tied the end of the legs and then zip tied them to the inside of the clear bin under the toilet seat.

Now it was time to secure a black harness ( almost like suspenders) to the inside of the lower part of the bin so it could be worn without being held. We then could pick our son up and put him into the toilet. He would pick up the toilet and we could get the harness on him over a regular shirt he wore. We then took a big shirt and put it over the harness so you couldn’t see the harness and it would also cover the top of the legs. We added a silver flusher bought at a home improvement store and it was ready to be flushed. This actually went up and down when you pressed on it. This was inserted into the box at the back of the toilet where you would typically see it on a toilet. As an added touch we took the newspaper for him to be looking at and had a free app of the toilet flushing he could play when people flushed his toilet .

So at the costume parties we went to it was a HUGE hit. Children and adults stopped him to take pictures and asked if we minded if they posted them online. Smiles and laughter came to everyone’s face wherever he wore it. When he took it off for a break, people wanted to look inside because they were so curious about how it was made and how did it appear so real. He had a blast being the boy on the toilet. It was fun for all! Guess bathroom jokes never get old!!