Heartwarming Grinch and Cindy Lou Who Costumes

EVERYONE wanted their pictures taken with us this Halloween! My husband is notorious for being the original “Grinch”! Every Christmas he wears his red Grinch shirt and his green Grinch hat, complete with tassels. It was an obvious choice for us to be the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who this year! Everywhere we went, my Grinch would strut his stuff, parading around the room and captivating his audience with his devious Grinch-like behavior! His voice was a perfect match to the Grinch as well!

Grinch Costume Instructions

• For his Grinch costume, I bought Mongolian sheep fabric in the olive green color.
• We traced a pair of his blue jeans for the bottoms, making them wide at the top for his bigger belly! I made them come up to his chest so that when he lifted his Santa coat to show everyone, his green hairy body with his plump belly (a pillow) looked like it was the real Grinch!
• Suspenders were used to hold the bottoms up.
• I cut a red sweatshirt down the middle in the front to give him more belly room.
• I used four inch fur and sewed it down the middle, connecting the two front edges of the sweatshirt. I also used the fur around the wrist cuffs and the around the bottom.
• I sewed a fur trim around the neckline as well.
• For the gloves, we traced his hands and I sewed them leaving the ends off the fingertips un-sewn to allow for the fur to pull through easier. Make the fingers a little larger to allow for the extra space the fur itself uses.
• We took a Santa hat and I sewed a cowl into it to border his face and cover his neck.
• We tucked it into his Santa coat, pulling a little green fur over the edges of the coat to make it look natural.
• We bought elf shoes and he cut out a harder sole from a pair of slippers and glued it to the bottom of the elf shoes for more durability, trimming off the excess.
• He wore a mask and used face paint to cover the exposed areas of skin. Yes, he had to shave off his beard!
• We glued  little bunches of the olive green fur on the mask for eyebrows.
• I used the left over fur to trim the cape I made for myself.

Cind Lou Who Costume Instructions

• My costume was a black and white checkered dress, a wig that I put bows on, and red tights with white lace ankle socks. 
• I had black pumps for my shoes and added two red bows to the backs to dress them up a little.
• I bought red material and cut a circle using a string and marker, just as I do when making Christmas tree skirts.
• I tied the marker to one end, held the other end in the circle center, and traced the perimeter of the circle while keeping the string tight.
• I cut the large circle out.
• I placed a bowl upside down in the center of the circle and traced around the bowl for the neck of my cape.
• For the cape opening, I drew a straight line radius up to the center on my large circle and cut up the line and around my neckline circle.
• Next, I sewed red binding around all the edges of my cape saving the neckline for last.
• On the neckline, I left about eight inches on both ends to attach the two white pom-poms.
• I took the leftover four inch wide white fur I used for my husband’s Grinch costume and cut it in half giving me two inch wide fur.
• I sewed it along the bottom of my cape and around my neckline.
• I attached the pom-poms to the ends of the binding.
• I criss-crossed the binding where it leaves the neckline and sewed it together so I wouldn’t need to tie it.
• It easily fit over my head to put it on.
• Finally, I added a matching bow to the neckline,
• I used red lipstick on my lips and to make my cheeks rosy.

And there I was, Cindy Lou Who!

I work in the Mortgage department of a bank, and some of us dressed in our costumes for work on Halloween. I love to sew, and I wish I had more time to do it. Being born with just a left hand, I’m so grateful to my parents who encouraged me when I was younger. I really had fun making these costumes and our Halloween weekend was a blast!

We actually won first place at our local Eagles club where there were over a hundred costumes in competition! We even had someone ask us to come to their home on December 21st as the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who.

My husband played the part of the Grinch perfectly. I don’t think we even had that many pictures of us taken the day we got married! He plans on dressing as the Grinch once again on Christmas day by riding his Harley through the streets of Warren spreading his Christmas bah-humbug!

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