Amazing Homemade Light Up the Night Robot Child Costume

My son is obsessed with robots. My first idea was a classic cardboard box style costume. The problem is he’s two and picky and it had to be comfortable. So I came up with this robot child costume.

I got out my clunker of a sewing machine and some stretchy silver fabric and got to work making a basic pair of pants and long sleeve shirt. I found some snow boots at the local goodwill and spray painted those silver. I bought out the dollar tree in battery operated mini lights. Also, I bought a package of some mesh tubing there to make wreaths or some such.

Now What?

I knew I wanted to achieve the square look of the robot body but I wasn’t sure how I could do it. We had recently installed a new faucet and I had saved the pieces of foam that came with the packaging. (Because I’m weird like that, I think is also known as hoarding.) I cut out a square of the thick foam that already had some cutouts from where the faucet and parts were previously nestled. They were perfect for holding all battery packs for the lights. I then covered that in the same silver fabric and added grommets on the sides and top to bring the lights through. I made a back in thinner foam and attached the two along with some side pieces that snapped to keep it all in place.

The strands of lights went through the mesh tubing. This way he didn’t just look like some strange type of Christmas tree and I glued all those in place. I originally had more lights that came out of the body and would Velcro down the arms and legs. But it was just too lit up and too much hassle. It had to be removable for the car seat travels. I used pieces of vinyl and puffy paint to make gauges etc. He had a store bought robot helmet and some Lego hand type glove that are in some of the pictures too.