Archive: Thomas the Tank Engine Costume

Fumbling for a Halloween costume idea? You can easily make a Thomas the Tank Engine costume.

Last year, my little guy wanted to be Thomas, but wanted to wear real clothes. (Hint: Look for a post of this years bizarre costume request in the next week or so...) Anyway, I had to figure out how to make this happen. Always up for a challenge, I went to Pinterest for inspiration.

A lot of parents built a Thomas out of cardboard and while those costumes were fantastic, they still were not clothes.

I went to Walmart and found a blue hoodie and gray sweatpants. Next, I hit the craft aisle and bought felt and puffy paint. 

I lined the jacket with red puffy paint. Next, I cut out circles to make a train look for the legs. I cut a number 1 and lined the inside with yellow puffy paint. I tacked all the felt items onto the outfit and was able to remove the train look from the pants so he could continue to wear the pants after Halloween. 

Here is the front of the costume:

And here is the back:

To complete the costume, my son wore a white winter hat and red mittens. Looking back, I wish I would have designed the legs a little better, but I was pretty pleased with the results! 

Project Sixteen: Pumpkin Fruit Cups

This was one of the easiest projects ever! My son's daycare has their Halloween party coming up and I signed up for fruit. One could say, "Fruit? How can I be creative with fruit?" But I found a way!

I purchased a 12 pack of orange fruit cups from Target. The only other supply I needed was a black sharpie. About 5 minutes later I had pumpkins!

Voila! I have a healthy and fun snack. My little guy LOVED watching me draw jack-o-lantern faces on the snack cups. Have fun creating your own pumpkin fruit cups! 

Project Fifteen: Banner

When my girls were younger, I made them name banners for their birthdays. My oldest has a "monster" themed banner and my middle has an "Annie" themed banner (as in, the sun will come out). They hang in their bedrooms to this day and turned out super cute. When I made them, the whole name banner thing was still a pretty new idea. Now, if you search on Etsy, you can get banners in all shapes, sizes and colors!

My sister-in-law and brother recently came to stay and saw the banner in my middle's room. This sparked my sister-in-law to ask me to make a name banner for my nephew's room. I was really excited about making a cute banner in a baseball theme, until I realized how nerve-wracking it is to make something for someone else!

I pondered and pondered... I even went looking on Etsy for ideas to "borrow." I finally decided I was creative enough to walk confidently into Micheal's and begin to shop.

I wanted to make the background into triangles to give the pennant look and feel. I downloaded a cute, sporty font (courtesy of dafont.com) and printed the letters. (I do not own a Cricut, as I am truly not crafty.) I also wanted to have a cute image for the beginning and end of the banner. I found a vintage looking baseball image from Google Images and printed it too.

To make the pennants, I bought single sheets of scrapbook paper. I picked rough paper bag looking paper to go along with my vintage theme.

All that was left was what to hang the banner on and ribbons. I picked out a blue and white polka dot ribbon and a red ribbon. For the line, I purchased jute (hint: this is used in quite a few upcoming projects). I was ready to start creating!

Below, you can see my supplies:
- Glue, had in my cabinet
- Hole punch, had in my cabinet
- Ribbons, purchased from Micheal's
- Paper, purchased from Micheal's
- Jute, purchased from Micheal's

 

While I was printing my letters and baseballs, I printed a triangle to serve as the template for my pennants. I cut out all the triangles, letters and baseballs. Next, I glued the letters and baseballs onto the pennants.

The next step is the dreaded hole punch... where all the work you have done can be ruined with one wrong move. Luckily, the holes lined up perfect and I could cut out both holes in one quick action. Phew! It was nice not to sweat so much!

Once the holes were punched, I strung the pennants through the jute. The last step was cutting and tying the ribbon on either side of each pennant. Unfortunately, I could not get a big shot of the whole banner, but here is a little teaser below.

This project was super easy. And while it wasn't necessarily inspired by something on Pinterest, I felt it was an important project to highlight. The banner looked super cute, was super cheap and it did not require any sophisticated and expensive equipment. Go on, wannabe crafters, and make your own banner!