Coolest Roller Skate and Ruffle Sock Wheelchair Halloween Costume Idea

Roller Skate and Ruffle Sock Wheelchair Halloween Costume Idea:

Materials for the Roller Skate-

1. PVC Pipe for the frame around the wheelchair
2. Insulation foam board for the skate (holds up well over cardboard or styrofoam)
3. Glue (PVC pipe, super)
4. Chicken Wire
5. Caster wheels
6. Paper
7. Ruler
8. Paint
9. Glitter
10. Drill
11. Lights
12. Ribbon
13. Grommets
14. Foam Board Caulk

Materials for Ruffle Sock-

1. Tulle (the tulle on rolls is faster and easier to cut then hand cut fabric)
2. Large hair band
3. 2 smaller hair bands for the pigtails
4. Clothes
5. Makeup

Construction of the Roller Skate-

1. Build a PVC pipe frame to fit around your wheelchair so the costume doesn’t rest on you, but on your chair. We rested the frame on my push handles and put small caster wheels on the front of the bottom of the frame so it moved when I wheeled.

2. Draw a stencil of a skate of your choosing so they match on each side. I taped about 8 sheets of sketch pad together to make my stencil and it worked out well.

3. Stencil your skate onto the foam board. We were able to get both skates out of one sheet of foam board. It was 8’x5′. What we didn’t realize is the back of the foam board has indented markings. Once painted over you can barely see them, but if you don’t want the indents to be seen, stencil each skate on a separate piece of foam.

4. Use a razor or exacto knife to cut the skate out of the foam. This will take some time, but get some friends to help you and it goes by quickly and I’m sure there are power tools (which I don’t have) that can make the cutting go by faster. You will also need to cut out a back for your skate.

Disclaimer: Make sure not to make the skate too wide so you can fit through doors. I ran into my skate being too wide and had to get security to open a loading door for me to fit. Make sure where you are going has double doors or your skate can fit in a single door.

5. Paint both sides of the skate of the color of your choosing. I went with a white skate with fuchsia and black stripes with silver accents. The sky is the limit in what you can design your skate as or possibly go as a rental skate and put a number and stitching on the back. It is optional if you want to paint the inside of the skate. I chose to do so.

6. Once your main coats are dry, take a large ruler and design where you want your stripes or the design of your choice. Try and line it up as best as you can on the other side.

7. Paint your stripes. I used house paint for the main part of the skate and craft paint for the stripes. The house paint goes on much better and if I were to make a suggestion I would use that for the stripes. It would only take one or two coats for house paint as opposed to three or four with craft paint.

8. Give your paint at least 24 hours to dry. Once it is dry add your glitter. I decided to get a sparkly glitter and mix it with Mod Podge glue to make a glitter paste. This took a few coats, but is much cheaper then buying glitter glue or buying loose glitter and applying it on top of glue. Mixing it with Mod Podge allows the glitter to stay and not flake off.

9. Once all your design work is done and dry and it is now time to assemble the skate to the frame with foam caulk. First glue the back onto the PVC pipe so your sides have something to adhere too. Do one side at a time so you can weight each side down and allow the foam caulk to adhere to the PVC pipe.

10. We weren’t sure what to do with the front. It was hard to find materials that would bend to make it look like a roller skate. We chose chicken wire as we were running out of time. It worked for a quick fix. Attached it to the bottom of the skate and brought it up and attached it with wire through the foam. Staples did not work in this insulation foam. We then took scrap computer paper and did paper mache all around the chicken wire. I think fabric would be quicker and more unique and probably look a little better and if I could do it over, I probably would used that and attach that to the chicken wire. Once the glue dries paint the paper. You can do designs, I chose to just paint it the same color as the skate.

11. Mark and drill holes for your grommets. These will be your eyelets for your laces. Super glue the grommets over the holes. I used ribbon and a string of flat battery operated lights for my laces. Make sure you have a few rolls of ribbon to make sure you have enough lace to go through your entire skate.

12. Add a couple of caster wheels to the front bottom of the PVC pipe so the skate wheels with you.

13. I chose to be a roller skate as I wanted to build something that would incorporate my wheelchair and go with my personality. I also wanted to be something that no one else would be. After looking through numerous costumes I have never seen a roller skate and thought this would be fun and unique. It was a hit everywhere I went.

The roller skate wasn’t the easiest thing to get around in and too big for some doors, but with someone helping me push you can get where you need to be. I pretty much stayed in one spot due to the size and how it moved. With more time we could have constructed a better way for it to move so keep those ideas in mind if you are going to build a skate. Plan this out a couple of months in advance so you have time to build it and make changes if need be.

Ruffle Sock Construction
1.One large hair band. Make sure it will fit around your neck.

2.Cut your tulle into pieces about 20?-24? inches long.

3.Tie the tulle in a knot around the hair band to make a tutu. YouTube has great videos on how to make a tutu if you need some help constructing it. Continue this process and until the band is covered. You will need a couple of rolls of each color of tulle you chose. I did 3 pink, 3 black, and 1 silver around the hair band and it took 1 ½ rolls. You can buy a tutu if you don?t want to make it, but it?s quick and easy and far cheaper.

4.Take the left over tulle and make little tutu hair ties the same way.

5.For my ruffle sock outfit I bought a ruffle skirt, a tank top and some matching zebra print pink tights and wore my tall black boots. You can wear whatever you want to match your skate and your tulle colors.

6.Do your hair and makeup to match and you will look just as adorable as a ruffle sock as you do as a roller skate. Eventually you will have to take the skate off so make sure you dress the part underneath it too.

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