Duo Ventures

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Easy DIY "Robin" Toddler Halloween Costume



Sami was only 18 months old last Halloween, so he had no clue what was going on of course. Honestly, I wasn't even going to dress him up in a costume until my dad mentioned he already had a Batman costume for himself....that got me thinking that Sami could be his sidekick - Robin!

I did not want to spend a lot of money on a costume, but I was also excited to get creative & DIY his costume like we usually did as kids.  My parents always helped us make our costumes when we were little & I have great memories of that process (again, not that Sami has a clue it's Halloween, but it made for some cute photos!).

First, I had to decide which "Robin" costume I was going to try & recreate.  Even though my dad's Batman costume was a modern version of Batman, I ended up making the original Robin costume that Burt Ward portrayed in the 60's:
After looking at some old photos, I realized that it actually wouldn't be too difficult to recreate.  This is a really cute & fairly easy costume to make for your toddler!  Here's how I did it....

MATERIALS:
-yellow men's button down shirt
-green onsie
-red t-shirt or long sleeve shirt
-white tights
-black, yellow, & green felt
-yellow ribbon (optional)
-fabric glue or hot glue



I bought the yellow men's shirt, red shirt, & green onsie from Goodwill.  Unfortunately, the green Goodwill onsie turned out to be too small.  Luckily, I remembered that I actually already had a green onsie that I had just packed away in Sami's "too small" clothes bin...so it was just big enough to fit him:

Obviously the green onsie is already good to go - you don't need to do anything to it except use it as reference to cut the red vest to size.  Just cut the arms & bottom off the red shirt, then round the bottom of the shirt like so:

I used felt & some yellow ribbon for the belt & other details on the vest.  First, I cut out a circle & a long rectangular piece of black felt for the belt and glued them right onto the red shirt.  Then I used the yellow felt to make the "R" and the belt details.  To make the "vest" look more authentic, I cut small holes down the middle & weaved some yellow 1/8" ribbon through (gluing the ends down on the inside of the vest).  You could obviously skip this step & just cut out thin strips of yellow felt:

To make the cape, I took the men's shirt & buttoned the top button.  Then I just started cutting away excess fabric.  I didn't have a pattern to follow obviously, so I just continued cutting little by little until I got the shape I wanted.  Before I cut the bottom of the shirt, I tried it on Sami first to find the best length for him:

The shoe covers were a total trial & error experiment.  I started by cutting out two triangle-ish pieces of paper & just kept repositioning them around Sami's shoes until they fit okay.  Once I got the general shape, I went back & trimmed down the "wings" on each side until it looked most the like the original photos.  Once I was happy with the paper templates, I used them to trace out my cuts onto the green felt.  I used glue to attach each side of the shoe covers.  Then I just slipped the covers onto his shoes (I did add a little tape underneath to keep it in place, but nothing permanent):

Lastly, I made a little black eye mask out of more felt.  Again, no template to follow - I just sort of played around with it.  I thought about painting an eye mask on, but Sami has such sensitive skin I worried about a reaction or the possibility of him rubbing it in his eyes.  Depending on your child's personality & age they may not wear the eye mask at all either - this is the one element of the costume that Sami would not keep on.  I got a couple photos of him with the mask, but that was it:



Batman Grandpa & Robin Sami:


I ran out of time to make my own costume last year, so I just threw on some black clothes & made a little cat ears headband by gluing black felt ears to a headband - possibly the easiest & laziest version of Catwoman ever?


So the total costume cost me about $10.00 to make.  You can actually buy a pre-made toddler Robin costume for less than $20, but where's the fun in that?!  Personally, I think my DIY version turned out even cuter & I love that we're keeping the tradition going of DIYing our Halloween costumes.

If you decide to make this original Robin costume for your little one, please send me a photo of the finished product - I would love to see!  Thanks for reading & Happy (early) Halloween!

Mel
:)

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