DIY Sesame Street Costumes: For less than $20 and in an hour

When I was little my grandma use to make our costumes for us. I vividly remember one Halloween asking to be a purple unicorn and how excited I was when my grandmother brought that costume to reality. I hope that one day B can look back on the fun we have had together just as I do now.

Always in favor of a photo op, I began thinking about Halloween costumes early (like maybe November of last year) and totally got stuck on the idea of doing a Sesame Street theme. After two years of purchasing costumes I decided I was ready to tackle a DIY project so I knew I needed ample time to prepare. I started questioning B about costumes a few months ago and we settled on Big Bird, lucky for me, my dear friend Sarah’s daughter is obsessed with Grover so I had a partner in crime to work with.

Please note Sarah and I are both bat Sh*@ crazy which is why we get along. We are somehow lucky enough to found ourselves a group of other ladies who are willing to be just as bat SH*@ crazy as we are, especially when it comes to holidays, play dates and photo ops. I am so thankful for this band of brothers who went above and beyond to make my dreams of a DIY costume year come true! To Sarah, Katie, Abra, Kate and Dana, thank you (and your adorable children) for rocking my socks off!

If you are looking for a cute, cheap and easy enough costume to make for your toddler (or yourself) check out our own DIY version of Sesame Street gone WILD!

What you will need:

1 Hooded sweatshirt in your color of choice (we ordered ours from jiffyshirts)

2-3 foam balls ( we used 2 inch ones from Michaels)

Felt (white and black for eyes and nose color of choice if needed)

Glue gun

Thread and needle

Scissors

·         Many of the costumes required additional items such as Abby and Ernie’s hair or Big Birds beak but Ill go through that later.

Eyes: Cut a square of white felt for each eye. Glue the felt to the foam ball using the glue gun, glue the black felt circles on to each of the felt covered balls and stitch the eye ball onto the hood of the sweatshirt. You could glue the whole eyeball onto the sweatshirt instead of sewing it but I wanted to be able to use the sweatshirt again and not have glue stuck to the outside of it.

Noses: If your character has a nose (Elmo, Grover, Abby, Ernie) cover your nose with felt and sew or glue it onto the sweatshirt between the eyes.

Additional Items:

Big Bird: for his eyes I covered the back half of each of the eye balls with pink felt and then drew a bright blue rim with a blue sharpie marker on each of them to create the effect. For his beak I used one yellow piece of felt. I folded it into a triangle shape and glued it together in a triangle shape. Once the glue was dry I stitched the beak to the underside of the hood trying to only get the thread through the inside layer of the sweatshirt so that the stitching would not show through. The biggest undertaking for this costume really was the legs. I found a pair of orange sweat pants for $8 on clearance at Old Navy which had me doing a happy dance. I purchased the awesome pink ribbon at Michaels and did a really easy stitch job to secure the ribbon to the pants. I plan to cut the stitches out after Halloween so that B can continue to wear those awesome sweatpants all winter. SCORE!

Ernie: Ernie’s mama (703 Mommy & Me contributor Katie) used a piece of black faux fur to create the hair. Fur like this is readily available at fabric stores and since you only need a 2 or 3 inch piece it is super cheap. Katie achieved Ernie’s striped sweater look using painters tape! How cool is that?? What a great cheap and easy to get the effect without having to do anything permanent to the shirt!

Abby: Abby’s mom Kate is a master crafter which is why her hair is simply BANANAS! Her eyes were accomplished by adding a fan of black felt to the back side of the foam balls to create her signature eyelashes. We used the same blue sharpie to line her eyes and then added a dot of white out to complete the look. Her pig tails are poms of yarn that were sewed into the top of the sweatshirt.

The basic level outfit cost each of us $15 for the sweatshirt and less than $3 for the other supplies. Each outfit took about an hour to assemble which means you all still have time to make your own custom costume for under $20!