Enormous Tic Tac Container Costume

My son has an affinity for orange, and has recently discovered Tic Tac candy.  He likes how the box opens and closes, and makes a cool rattling noise in his pocket.  So, I set about making a giant tic tac costume!

He won Most Unique costume in our local contest, and posed for more pictures than I could count. With the exception of a few tic tacs that escaped his container, it was a pretty solid costume and even lasted through a dance party!

You can make this costume within a day.  It took me a little longer than that, because I had to figure out what I was doing! But you can learn from my mistakes (shall we call them growing opportunities?) and make your Tic Tac costume within about 6-8 hours.

The total cost for this costume was about $30-$35. The most expensive part is the container ($13) and the eggs ($13).   If I had planned ahead (instead of waiting until 2 weeks before Halloween), I could have bought the Easter eggs for 75% off when they’re on sale during the holiday.  Unfortunately, I paid full price online!  Paint is cheap and you can use what you have on hand.

You’ll get noticed when you wear this costume, so attempt it only if you’re prepared to smile for lots of pictures and be the center of attention wherever you walk.

You’ll need:

• 1 square, clear storage container with straight sides.  Mine was an 80 qt one from the local do-it-yourself store (whose colors happen to be orange).
• 1 cardboard box that you can cut up.
• 13 (or so) dozen plastic eggs.  You can find these online or raid your Easter supply.
• 2 cans of colored spray paint. We used Krylon orange.
• 1 can of primer that can go over plastic.  We used Krylon.
• A computer printer, 3 sheets of colored paper and 1 sheet of white paper.
• colored acrylic paint (we used white, green, red, and orange)
• a small paintbrush and a toothpick for detailed painting
• 4-6 self-adhesive laminating sheets (optional)
• white duct tape
• clear packing tape (to seal the container)

1.  Make sure your kid (or you) will fit inside the container!  Or, find a really nice employee the do-it-yourself store who will offer to let you return the container if your costume doesn’t work.  This will give you confidence to plunge in and make this costume.  We did both….  Trust me, your costume will work.

2.  Turn the container on its side, so you’re looking at the short, deep ends.  Use a jigsaw cutter or a sharp box cutter and cut holes in both of these short sides so you can slide the container over your head and waist.  The head hole should be more narrow than the leg/body hole, so that it rests on your shoulders and doesn’t fall off.  If you accidentally cut the hole too big because you’re talking to your friend and not paying attention, don’t fret.  Just duct tape some stuffed socks or some sheets of foam to the edges of the container where it rests on the shoulders; it will make it more narrow. But you won’t make this mistake because you’ll pay attention right?

Cut arm holes on the two longer sides.

3.  Cut a long strip of cardboard from a box. Ours was about 6″ wide and 3 1/2 feet long.  Paint it white so it will blend in with the container.  Tape this painted cardboard to the inside of the box, around the four sides of your waist hole.  You are building an inner wall that will hug your body, so you can fit the tic tacs between the container and the wall. You don’t want them to fall out the bottom hole.  Fold the corners of the cardboard, make it as square as you can. See the picture I’m attaching to this post.

4.  Spray paint your plastic eggs whatever color you want your tic tacs to be. For us, this was orange. I put them inside a shallow cardboard box and coated them with white primer and then with orange spray paint.  It took a couple rounds of spray to fully coat all of the sides.  In hindsight, I could have separated the eggs and stood them on their ends to spray paint each half so they wouldn’t roll around while I was painting them.  Or I could have dipped them in paint.  Or painted them with a paintbrush.  But that would have saved me a lot of time, right?  So I spent a day babysitting spray painted eggs and explaining to my neighbors what I was doing.

5.  Make your tic tac signs!  Find a logo online, enlarge it on the computer, and print it onto regular paper. Then, paint the logo with acrylic paint (it covers better than washable paint and is dirt cheap) according to the colors of a real tic tac container.  You could also print it out in colored ink if you’re in a hurry.  I painted because I’m cheap and didn’t want to waste my printer ink that was already running low.   If you’re good at free hand drawing, go for it.

For the ingredients listing, type them up on the computer and just print them out. I used Verdana font.

For the UPC symbol, find one online or just insert vertical lines into a Word document.

6.  This is the fun part: assembling the whole thing!

First, use clear packing tape to tape your container lid to the container.  Use lots of tape, you don’t want it to explode as you’re walking around.

Wrap the entire top of the container (near your arms and head) with white duct tape, to look like the top of the container. This will also keep the lid on the container.

Figure out which side you want as your front. We used the bottom of the container for the front, and the top/lid side for the back.

Glue the signs onto the front and back of the container with really strong glue.  Alternatively, use regular strength craft glue and then cover the signs with self-adhesive laminating sheets. The sheets will act like tape and keep your signs attached to the container. They’ll also make it waterproof, so you can trick or treat in the rain!   I used about 4 sheets for the entire container. Clear packing tape would also work.

Insert your eggs into the little section you’ve made between the clear container and the cardboard wall. Fill the wall space all the way up to the top, so you can’t see any cardboard.  This takes a little time, you need to place them in so that you fill as much empty space as possible.  Be sure to marvel at how many eggs it takes to fill this space. I assure you, it’s a lot.  13 dozen should do the trick if you’re using a container my size (80 qt).

Your eggs will stay inside the container, as long as your body fits close to the wall. My son wore a thin tshirt for the indoor costume contest, so a few eggs fell out while he was walking around.  This caused a lot of laughter from the people around us, it looked like he was laying eggs.  However, when he wore a heavy sweatshirt, he was so stuffed into the costume that an egg couldn’t esc ape even if he shook his body!

7.  Put your costume on and head out into the world! Be sure to practice your smile, because you’ll pose for lots of pictures!

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