Halloween- Making a Scarecrow Costume

This year Amara asked to be a scarecrow for Halloween.  She is a very independent and unique little girl who doesn't follow the ideas of others and I loved that she came up with this on her own!  And I figured I could make it myself rather than spending ridiculous amounts of money on an already-made costume that probably wouldn't be cute.

So I started checking out craft stores and looking up ideas online.  I was having trouble figuring out how to do the straw but got suggestions from people and decided on both raffia and felt for different parts of the costume.

We don't have "old" clothes but she has some jeans and Zachary had a button-down plaid shirt that no longer fit.  As soon as I got approval from Amara, those were the clothes!  Since she still wears the jeans and I wanted to pass the shirt on to Jonas I needed to be careful of how I made the costume.  I also don't have a sewing machine or the money to buy one, and I don't have the skills to hand-sew.  After some thought I came up with the idea to buy some fabric (I wanted some for patches anyway) to glue the straw to.  Amara picked out two different colors/patterns of fabric (I let her pick whatever she wanted since scarecrows are supposed to be made of whatever is lying around!) and she choose a purple floral and an orange floral fabric.  I also grabbed a purple bandana to tie around her neck to complete the outfit.  Because she was a girl scarecrow we needed to accessorize with a pretty sunflower glued to the bandana!  We also picked up some face paint to complete the look.

I bought two different colors of felt (brown and tan) and cut them in strips.  I cut strips of the purple and orange fabric to fit around her wrists and ankles then used a glue gun to glue the felt to the fabric.  When she was ready, we could simply pin the "straw" to the outside of her shirt and pants so that there were no "itchy" issues and it would look like straw coming out of her shirt and pants.  I used leftover raffia pieces, tied them together with fabric and pinned them inside her pockets and the openings between the buttons of her shirt.  A t-shirt underneath the plaid button-down ensured no trouble from the pins or the "stuffing" in her shirt.

For the bandana neck tie I cut pieces of raffia and hot glued them to the underside of the scarf.  I then cut off the head of a fake sunflower and glued that to the front of the bandana.  Again, a simple untie would remove this piece of costume from Amara if she was bothered by it or too hot and would make it easy for any adult to put it back in place when she was ready.

I then cut squares of fabric to use as patches on her jeans and I pinned them rather than hand-sewing to make it easier and because of the jeans being reused once Halloween was over.  I had plenty leftover to tie bows in her hair!

We had to get her ready twice- once for her school party and once for trick-or-treat and it didn't take long at all.  Throw her hair in pigtails, tie ribbons in her hair, pin the four ribbons around her wrists and ankles and a quick face paint job.  Once Halloween was over I easily removed the patches and raffia pinned to her shirt and pants and they were as good as new!  The scarf we are keeping for dress up or whatever :)

This costume was not only fairly simple to make but a good price.  For people who have some of the right supplies on hand it could be super cheap!

Raffia: $2

Felt: $.29 per sheet, I bought 5 sheets

Bandana: $1

Fake Sunflower: on sale for $.50

Face Paint: $3

Purple and Orange Fabric: $1.50 each= $3

Safety pins, hot glue gun and glue, clothing: on hand= NO COST!!

The look on her face when she saw the finished costume, and the looks on the faces of everyone who saw her: PRICELESS!

Not only was the costume pretty cheap to make (could have been cheaper if I had had more time and resources) but it is VERY easily customizable from kid to kid and would be perfect for a boy or a girl!  You could use overalls, an overall dress, jeans or a jean skirt, plaid shirt or plain, any kind of flower or no flower at all, felt, raffia or straw depending on the kid and the face could be done in many different ways.  There is no end to the possibilities when you put your mind to it!

(P.S.  I don't know how to resize the pictures in posts!  They are larger if you click on them in the slideshow.)