My friends and I are not the type to go buy a pre-made Halloween costume. We like to be creative, original and more importantly, we like to dress up as a group. So the Homemade Peanuts Cartoon Costumes were a perfect choice.
We worked on our costumes for 6 consecutive days. The paper mache heads are the most difficult and time consuming part, definitely not for the lazy, but it’s very inexpensive to make. The clothing can all be purchased for less than $20 a person.
Making the Heads
Our base for the the Peanuts cartoon costumes was a 99 cent store beach ball. This has a rounder and more firm shape than a balloon. All the newspaper we used was free. My dad supplied most of it, but we also used free publications, like the LA Weekly, which we grabbed by the stack at several 7 Eleven.
The glue I mixed in my kitchen, super simple to make. Just add white flour to boiling water, and mix some salt in it, and voila. This can be refrigerated, but it works better if it’s warm when you work on your paper mache.
We did 2 layers of paper mache. When they were dry enough we popped the beach ball, and cut a hole for our heads with scissors. We primed and painted our heads with regular wall paint we bought at Wal-Mart. This was super inexpensive.
Since our heads were pretty big we decided we were going to see through the mouth. We hot glued sheer black fabric to cover the mouth opening from the inside. The eyes and nose were painted on.
For Charlie, Linus, and Pig Pen’s hair we used pipe cleaners purchased at the Dollar Tree. For Lucy, Sally, Marcie, and Peppermint Patty’s hair we used felt and pipe cleaners hot glued to the back for structure support. I used a hanger under the felt to give Sally’s hair the two spikes.
Peanuts Cartoon Costumes – Clothes
* Fallas Paredes (chain store in LA area)
Charlie – Yellow Collared T $3, zig zag hand painted with acrylic paint, black pants $8 (these were turned to shorts) Both where purchased at Fallas Paredes
Lucy – Blue hand-made dress. Fabric purchased at LA’s fabric district 2 yards for $4. Stripes on chest were hand drawn with a Sharpie. Oxford sneakers by Vans already owned.
Linus – Red collared shirt $4 at Fallas Paredes. Stripes were painted with acrylic paint.
Sally – Pink hand-made dress. Fabric purchased at LA’s fabric district 2 yards for $4. White shoes $14 at Wal-Mart. Polka dots hand drawn with a Sharpie. We used a quarter to outline the dots first.
Pig Pen -Grey shirt and pants $5 each at Fallas Paredes. # signs drawn with Sharpies, we used barbecue charcoal to dirty the mask and clothes.
Marcie – Orange shirt $6 at Fallas Paredes.
Peppermint Patty – Green T $4 at Fallas Paredes. Black Pants $7 (these were turned to shorts) Stripes and collar on shirt hand painted with acrylic paint.
These Homemade Peanuts cartoon Costumes were a lot of hard work but we pulled it off. We went to the West Hollywood Costume parade and we were a hit! We were even interviewed by channel 10 news!
You’ll find many more awesome homemade Peanuts costumes here…
Related costumes:
The Best Homeade Peanuts Gang Costume 
Awesome Peanuts Gang Group Costume 
Charlie Brown Gang Costumes Welcome Great Pumpkin 
Coolest Homemade Peanuts and Charlie Brown Costume Ideas 
65+ Coolest Homemade SpongeBob Costume Ideas 
Coolest Cartoon Movie Mix Maleficent Costume 
Homemade Kids Minion Costumes 
65+ Coolest Homemade Thomas the Train Halloween Costume Ideas
It’s the best Charlie Brown and the gang masks I’ve seen so far. You guys were very resourceful!Kudos!
Very Creative!! Loved the resources that were used.
Wow! I like how you made the masks!
Would you be interested in selling the costumes?
what size beach ball did you use we are having a hard time figuring it out and finding the balls! thanks
Our family is actually going to try this out for our trunk or treat at church this year!! :) Thank you for all the information!
We are doing this as a family this year. You guys did a great job on your costumes! Unfortunately in New England its hard to find beach balls at this time of year. I picked up a bag of punch balls which inflate to 12 -16 inches. There are 8 in a bag sold at walmart for $3. They are like balloons but are stronger. Hope this helps others…
I finally found the beach balls at the chain store called Dollar General. They are in the clearance section near all the summer toys, 70% off so they were .45 a piece- great deal. Make sure you get the 24 inch though 18 inches is WAY to small. Good luck I just started mine today!!
i just want to say you guys look amazing. I just want to say thanks for taking the time and explaining how you made your costumes. i cant wait to make mine. have a great Halloween
Hi!!
These costumes are so great, we would love to buy these costumes because we are lazy!! If so, please feel free to email me at sharyce01@gmail.com!
Almost done making Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty heads for my husband and I. They look great! Any suggestions on what we could put on the inside to keep them level on our heads? They are quite large and just fall forward. Thanks!
Love your peanuts gang costumes. I am doing this with my 6 kids for Halloween this year. They range in age from 3-12 years…..do you think the beach ball heads will be too small for my 6 year olds?? My littlest two are going to be snoopy and woodstock. Thank you so much for all your helpful ideas!!!
I have 5 heads made and ma making the dresses for Lucy and Sally tonight, I am struggling with the hair, but hope to have it done by the weekend
it is for our Trunk or Treat at our church, we also made an oversized dog house to sit at the trunk of our car, our grandchildren are going as Snoopy and Woodstock, (storebought costumes)
can’t wait for everyone’s reaction
Hello everyone! Thank you all for your positive feedback! To answer your questions:
– Unfortunately, the masks are not for sale :-( Some masks didn’t make it… and those that made it are too valuable to their owners. Sorry!
– The punch balls are a great alternative! You must show us how your masks turned out!
– The beach balls we used were 24 inches in diameter.
– We also struggled with stability. We looked for things to put inside the heads for support, but in the end cutting the hole just big enough to put your head in and cutting it at an angle was the trick. The mask just rested on our shoulders.
– Amy: I think an 18 inch beach ball will work better for your little ones. The masks get heavy! You gotta show me how your Snoopy and Woodstock turn out! Check out youtube for pinata tutorials for ideas on how to make their beak and snout. Those parts don’t need to be hollow so I would just use scrunched up paper and fasten it with tape. Then paper mache over it. Good luck!
– Trunk or Treat: Good luck with your event! Please send us pictures!
We loved these so much that we are in the process of making them for a contest that is this Friday. For those of you trying to find a beach ball, I called local pool and spa dealers. They had them! I’m sure that we are going to win. How can we not win?! You are so creative and thanks so much for sharing!
your group costumes are so awesome…my lil bro and his group thought bout a group ting and we he bumped into this idea we grab’d di idea immediately…..it should be awesome..thanks for the idea
well we did it, and just finished in a nick of time! I’m the one that used the punch balls and they worked great- we made:
Snoopy -(this was the hardest to make, used a half of a 2 liter soda bottle to mold the nose), bought white sweatshirt/pants at walmart, cut out a Woodstock out of felt that had a sticky side and placed it on the front of the sweatshirt.
Sally – did as you said, with the coat hanger to hold hair, used pink sweatshirt/pants(its cold here on Halloween!) used blue felt with a sticky side and cut out the polka dots.
Linus and Charlie Brown- also did just like yours or tried to any way! pipe cleaners for hair, red shirt with black stripes and a yellow collared shirt both from walmart on a clearance rack!
I didn’t think we could out due our wizard of oz costumes that we made last year but i’m thinking we did. Thanks for the great idea of paper mache heads
my super talented friend clau is the one who organized this whole thing. she is amazing!
Hi,
We are currently making a set of these masks for an elementary school Christmas play.
Using a round barbecue lid … couldn’t find beach balls up north in the winter.
We’ll keep you all posted with photos.
Wish us luck!
Your costumes came out amazing!!
I’m doing a report on Snoopy and the rest of the characters
How can I make it easily?
Your costumes are amazing!!!!
How did you make it?
I love it!
Would you want to sell it?
Thank you so much for putting the instructions with your pictures!! We just completed Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Linus, Marcie and Pig Pen for a costume party at work. They came out amazing!! I can’t wait to show them off on Tuesday! Thanks again :)
I only have a few days before Halloween to make a mask for Frieda hope this works.The work you did was great thanks for the inspiration and pointers on how to do this. Our group at work is doing Charlie Brown. Hope we win with your ideas I think we will. Great job.D
Wow…wow…wow…GREAT Job Looks awesome. How did you keep the heads on? Was it troublesome?
We used your idea here to make Peanuts “heads” for our office Halloween costumes-including Snoopy. We couldn’t find beach balls this time of year in Alaska so we used punch balls so they aren’t quite as smooth. Our U.S. Senator happened to come by that day and we became the backdrop for her introduction and greeting (posted on you tube. Thank you so much for the instructions-it saved us a lot of time.
How did you see out of these?? Wanting to make these if anyone can answer me soon??
Thank you for sharing so much detail. Your costumes are awesome! Can’t wait to see what you do this year.
Awesome! Great Job!
Did you buy a pattern for the dresses? I have been searching online for hours and can’t find one!