(EASY!) DIY Dinosaur Costume

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dinosaur-costumeMy boys are obsessed with dinosaurs. We read books about them at bedtime, we have dino figures, stickers, coloring books, and t-shirts everywhere. My oldest generally greets people with his loudest T-Rex ROAR instead of a polite “Hello.” I had no choice but to let them be dinosaurs for Halloween this year and I decided to make the dinosaur costume myself. You see, I have two big issues with store-bought Halloween costumes….1) they are so over-priced for something that will most likely be worn only once 2) they are generally made to keep kids warm – which works great for the rest of the country, but here in AZ it means my kids are a hot, sweaty mess while walking around the neighborhood.

 

Let me start off by saying that I am no Pinterest queen. I don’t have a sewing machine and my house is not full of intricate DIY projects for guests to admire. The only “tools” I used to make these costumes were a hot glue gun and a pair of scissors. I would estimate that it took me about and hour and half to make each costume from start to finish. If you are in need of a fun, EASY costume this year, look no further and follow along below.

Materials:
Baseball hat
T-shirt (or long sleeves/sweatshirt if it’s cold)
Felt (white for eyes/teeth, color of your choice for spikes, tail to match shirt)
Foam sheets (color to match rest of costume)

Tools:
Hot glue gun
Scissors

THE HEAD: I got the idea for the dinosaur head here. This part is really simple, basically you just cut out ovals for eyes, triangles for teeth, and then glue them onto the baseball hat. Option to add felt spikes that match the t-shirt portion (directions below).

dinosaur-costume-head

THE BODY: I needed a “no sew” solution for putting spikes on the shirt and found that here. First cut out some triangles from your felt color of choice. I cut the first one and then used that to measure the rest. I used about 16-18 triangles for each costume. Next, fold the shirt in half down the middle (so there is a crease where your spine would be). Glue a row of triangles down one side, then flip the shirt over and glue another row in the alternating spaces. The t-shirts I used had pictures on the front, so I also glued a felt “belly” onto the t-shirts.

dinosaur-costume-shirt

THE TAIL: My original plan was to cut a big triangle out of felt, but while at the store, I found red felt pennants that worked perfectly. I glued the triangles down the middle just like with the shirt, but left about an inch at the top to glue the top of the tail to the bottom of the shirt.

IMG_2264

THE FEET: This is the picture I used to come up with the feet. I measured out a rough shape of the foot using a shoe on the foam sheets and added some pointy claws at the end. Cut a hole for their foot to slide through and they can still wear their shoes underneath.

dinsosaur-costume-feet

That’s it! My boys love their costumes and I can’t wait to take them trick-or-treating.

Do you have any great (and easy!) DIY costumes? Please share below! 

7 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you so much for this brilliant idea! I understand that this is an old post, but still I felt the need to express my gratitude. I realized at the last moment that my toddler needed a costume for his day care’s Halloween event and he adores dinosaurs. This is an amazing idea and I accomplished it within an hour.

  2. We have to make a gecko costume for school 🙂 my son wants spikes but I think we will make some spots instead…I was panicking, but after seeing your post I’m very confident! Will attempt this week. Thank you so much

  3. Hi! Thank you for this! My son is going to have the best Halloween costume! And like you said, perfect for the desert! I’m having a hard time keeping my felt spikes up. Did you glue them together?

    • I’m so glad you like the costume! My boys wore them for like a year afterwards for dress up too! I didn’t glue the spikes together, they just slightly overlapped so that they kind of held each other up, if that makes sense? If they are falling over, they may be too big?

  4. my three year old just said he wanted to be a dragon for halloween and with the ZERO talent and close to zero budget, THIS IS PERFECT!!

    thank you pinterest!!

  5. Thank you! I used your tutorial for my 3yo son’s Halloween costume – I also am not skilled at pinterest projects & don’t even know how to fill a bobbin on the sewing machine, so this was a *perfect* DIY costume for me! Love!!

  6. Hey! We made this costume for my nephew and he LOVES it! Question: how did you wash it? Did it hold up well? (It looks like this is his favorite and he will be wearing it for a looong time)

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