{crafts} Owl Halloween Costume

Happy Halloween! Here is the full tutorial of the crafted Toddler Halloween Owl Costume.

My 22 month old son loves this adorable Twinkle Twinkle Little Star video on youtube.

He watches it over and over and sings along. It has a cute little owl singing to a star. The owl is his favorite character, so I decided he should dress up as him for Halloween.

To start the project I am crocheting an owl hat. I figured this would work best because he would never wear any kind of mask, but he may keep a hat on. This project will be posted in

steps, the base of the hat will be the first step.

I found this very clear tutorial and was able to make the base of the hat in just a few hours:

Art of Crochet by Teresa - Baby Crochet Cap with Earflap Option -

After creating the base, I then added the ear flaps, colored trim and the tassels. I am using this video by Brooke Till for the details, but I found the previous video to be a little bit easier to follow when it came to

the basic hat.

Here is my basic hat, ready for the facial details:

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The next step in creating the owl hat is to create the eyes. I have used the brown and green to match the hat and added white for contrast. This was fairly easy to do because it follows the same pattern as beginning your hat. I now need to sew on the eyes and then move on to the beak and ears. Here is the video tutorial:

After creating the eyes, sew them on with a large needle. Following the video tutorial, sew on the beak. Then you will create the tassels for the ears using the same colors in the braided tassels hanging from the ear flaps. Here is the video tutorial:
Once you are done with the hat, we can move on to the body. I am going to use an old, long sleeved onsie. I found one that is the same color as the green in the hat. I put it on my son and marked where it will be tucked in, only on the front.

We are going to use the back flap of the onsie to create the tail. The next step will be to create the feathers. You will need dark brown fleece or felt, and tan fleece or felt. I got 1/2 yard of the dark brown

and 1/8 yard of the tan.

I created a template for the feathers. There are many different sizes on this template, so you can print and use what will suit your needs.

I started at the bottom of the onsie, using the larger sized feathers. I cut enough to fit around the front and back. I used a hot glue gun to attach them.

On the back, I filled the onsie flap with feathers to create the "tail" of the owl.

I worked my way up the front and back, gluing the feathers so that they overlapped each other. I made the feathers a bit smaller as they reached the top. This made the process longer, but the results were worth it. The change in size helped create a more realistic look. I used the lighter tan fabric for the belly. Here is a final image of my son in the costume, photos courtesy of Kit Abeldt.

I then took the photo and placed him into a screen shot of the Twinkle Twinkle video. I can't wait to see his reaction to this photo. My final step to the project was creating a star for him to carry around. He would not wear the hat at all leading up to this weekend. When the star was complete, he understood the costume and then would not take of the hat! Sometimes things just work out!

{crafts} Owl Halloween Costume - Part 3

After creating the eyes, sew them on with a large needle. Following the video tutorial, sew on the beak. Then you will create the tassels for the ears using the same colors in the braided tassels hanging from the ear flaps. Here is the video tutorial:

Once you are done with the hat, we can move on to the body. I am going to use an old, long sleeved onsie. I found one that is the same color as the green in the hat. I put it on my son and marked where it will be tucked in, only on the front.

We are going to use the back flap of the onsie to create the tail. The next step will be to create the feathers. You will need dark brown fleece or felt, and tan fleece or felt. I got 1/4 yard of the dark brown and 1/8 yard of the tan. Stay tuned for the next steps!

{crafts} Homemade House for Toddlers

Here is a fun activity to do with your little ones. All you need is a few empty boxes, an egg crate, toilet paper roll, washable paints, old magazines and glue.

First I helped my 19 month old paint the insides of the shoe boxes. He enjoyed having globs of paint to brush around on the insides of the boxes. This is all we did on our first day. We usually paint on weekend mornings, before having a bath or going to the pool since it gets pretty messy. The following weekend we painted the egg carton and toilet paper roll. Again, he enjoyed getting the paint in the crevices of the egg carton. He also enjoyed putting his paint brush through the toilet paper roll. Then we looked through some magazines and cut out a few decorations for our house. We ended up with a cow jumping over a moon, which turned out to be his favorite part of the house. We also added a car and a dog. I cut up the egg carton to use as chairs, a table, a bed and a bath tub. Finally, I brought the pieces inside and used my glue gun to put it all together. Aaron enjoyed playing with the house with his little people.