My daughter loves Easy Mac and wanted me to make a Macaroni and Cheese costume for Halloween. I started with an old laundry basket I had lying around and cut a hole in the bottom for her to step into and wear around her waist. It was a nice fit, so no straps were needed at all.
I covered the basket with cardboard recycled from old Christmas shirt boxes and painted it to look like the Easy Mac bowl. Then I took another piece of cardboard and cut it to fit inside the bowl in front of her. On this piece I glued lots of macaroni made from recycled paper towel tubes, toilet paper tubes and wrapping paper tubes painted a very cheesy yellowish-orange. I connected more tubes with clear elastic to make the “hat”.
The fork is made from another wrapping paper tube and cardboard covered with duct tape and spray painted silver. Believe it or not, all of these supplies were on hand and I did not spend a dime on this costume.
She won “Most Original” at her school Fall Festival and got lots and lots of compliments!
Related costumes:
Coolest Homemade Franks and Cheese Couple Costume 
Yummiest Homemade Mac and Cheese Costume 
Coolest Macaroni and Cheese Costume 
Delicious Homemade Macaroni and Cheese Costume 
Coolest Easy Mac N Cheese Costume 
100+ Cool DIY Cake and Cupcake Homemade Halloween Costume Ideas 
Coolest Homemade Salad Bowl Original Halloween Costume 
Sleazy Macaroni and Cheese Costume
omg…
i totally love this costume.
its so unfatigued and I’ve never seen anything like it.
nice job mom. lol
Wow,I am impressed!! That took some effort – lucky kid!!
That is the coolest! I love it so much – what a great idea!
This is great…I am making it for my daughter. My question to you is how did you paint this so perfect? it looks just like the label?
In order to get the proportions correct, I scanned an Easy Mac bowl into my printer and blew it up as large as I needed for the bowl to be. You may have to print it as a poster which will come out on several sheets and then tape them together. I then cut it to fit the laundry basket shape and sketched it on to get everything in the right place. If you aren’t comfortable painting the words as I did, Sharpie markers would do just fine. Paint is best for the blue and macaroni though. I used yellow for the noodles and then went back over it with orange to give it a more cheesy look and to divide up the noodles a bit.
Let me know if you need any more help. Good luck.
Amazing! Just amazing! My only question is how exactly did you make the hat?
To make the hat, I took some of the tubes and made a basic ring out of them, stringing them on some clear elastic cord to fit my daughters head. Once I had the ring fitted, I hot glued more tubes to the top of the ring to give it a hat shape. When I put it on her head, I pulled her ponytails through openings on both sides which helped the hat stay on with out any kind of chin strap. You could probably make a hat by gluing tubes to a knit cap as well, just make sure you stretch it to the right size first before attaching them or the tubes might pop off when they put it on. GOOD LUCK!
My son’s kindergarten has a “no scary costume” restriction for the little ones. He’s a big macaroni & cheese fanatic, so this will be perfect for him!
WOW! And I thought my costumes were great! (Well, they still are but…). That is SO creative! I love, love it!!
This is so creative and well done! It’s one of the best on the site!
My daughter just won the most original costume at her school’s Spookin Fun Night. Thanks for the wonderful idea and helpful hints. I tweaked it a bit but still basic concept. LOVED IT
My daughter is soooooo excited to be this for Halloween!!! We started last night. Just have to paint the cheese on…
I’m not very artistic and wanted to know if you enlarged and copied the label then went over it in the blue, yellow, and orange colors or did you actually draw/sketch it from scratch? There’s no way I will be able to draw/sketch the label myself.
I actually sketched the label but you could take a label to Kinko’s or a photoshop and have one enlarged and printed out if you don’t feel comfortable doing it freehand. Good luck with it!
Your costume is the best. Nicole Larson
I have an old overhead projector and I used that to paint images on my kid’s walls. I think I could hang up some cardboard and project the image of the Mac ‘n cheese up there and outline it. Then paint it. That is idea for anyone that doesn’t want to do it free hand.
What did you use to cut the hole in the bottom of the laundry basket? The plastic is pretty tough.
Jenni Heath you are my hero
HI! I love your costume, making it myself! However, the only thing stopping me is the label. My father tried printing it onto paper (like you had said) but that didn’t quite work. He doesn’t want to take it anywhere to get this done, so if you have any other ideas,that would be great!
My daughter is making the costume for a project and we took t he label from a easy mac container to Staples after she cut it into three sections: the easy mac label (front), the nutrition label and direction label. The cost was only $3.00 plus tax. The paint is the most expensive piece, so we decided to use orange bulletin board paper; roll it up and hot glue to make the macaroni. She’s still working on it, but I think it will turn out great!
Pretty cool idea for the costume. Might want to cut back on the easy mac before your girl has a heart attack…
Im an adult.. totally going to make this my costume this year,
Anyone willing to sell their old mac and cheese costume or make one to sell?
how many toilet paper rolls did you need for this?
omg!that costume is sooooo awesome!I give the maker my regards.
I don’t know for sure how many rolls I used. I didn’t just use toilet paper rolls, I also used paper towel rolls, cut in half, as well as wrapping paper rolls, cut up. Someone had a good idea of using yellow paper and rolling it up and making your own tubes. Would save time since you wouldn’t have to paint. The painting was the most time consuming part of this costume for me. Good luck and hope yours turns out well :)
I wasn’t sure how to get ahold of you. Would you be interested in posting your instructions on Instructables? Is there a way for me to contact you?
I love it! I’m making it for my 3-year-old son, who is obsessed with easy mac. I’m using blue tape instead of cardboard to wrap around the clothes basket, and I printed a big label. I am sure it will win most original costume! Thanks for the awesome idea!!!
This costume is perfect! She done an awesome job! What creativity!!! way to go Mom!!!!
Awesome started making mine for Halloween today
Wow, let me just say kudos to you for thinking outside the box…..no pun intended!!!
Omigosh, that’s the coolest thing, I liked it so much that I’m doing it for Halloween Wish me luck!
Your costume is just so adorable and I can’t believe you didn’t even spend a penny!! Love it!!
What did you use to cut the bottom of laundry basket? It is really tough and I’m having trouble making progress. :(