Saturday, November 3, 2012

How To Make A Monsters Inc Boo Costume :)


So I decided to post a blog specifically on how I made the Monster's Inc Boo Costume. First let's talk about how this even came to be, making the costume and all. I was going to have Alexis be a bumble bee or ladybug, but everyone kept telling us she looked like boo, so I decided to just make the costume :)

So my background in sewing was limited to a class I took my freshman year in high school. I made 2 quilts with different fabric and sewing patterns, a pair of shorts, a shirt, and a purse. I got an A in the class so I guess it wasn't too bad. So I searched the internet to see if I could find a tutorial on how to make the costume. I found this website. I followed this for the most part except for using a different purple fabric, making an undershirt, and I didn't make the hood as big. When I started this project, I thought that I would do my best and hopefully it would turn out ok, but I definitely surprised myself with how great it turned out :)

Here is how I did it:

First I bought the fabric, I went off of what I saw on the website, aside from choosing different fabric for the suit and the fabric for the shirt. The Fabric total as well as safety pins, velcro, pipe cleaners, styrofoam and thread came out to about $38.





There weren't any specific measurements for everything on the site so I measured Alexis and went off of that. I started with the fabric I measured out and pinned it into a rectangle with the batting and sewed around the edges. Then sewed 3 lines across the fabric to make the shape of the outfit. I cut arm circles into the fabric, I think I may have made them a little to big but I was winging it, it ended up working out fine. I also added the teeth to the body. Finally I added the velcro to keep the costume together.










After the body I made a shirt and pants. I just took one of Alexis' shirts and her pants an cut out a pattern. I ended up not using the paints, the body was long enough so that I didn't need them.


After being done with all that, which I did feel was the easiest part It took me a couple of days to get started on what I would call the "hood". I didn't want to make it too big or too small. I didn't want it to cover her face, I wanted it to just rest right above her forehead. So I measured her head across and went a couple of inches out. I cut the fabric in a crescent shape and stuffed it with some batting and sewed around the edges and sewed the teeth on. I wanted to stay as true to Boo so I made sure she had the right amount of teeth on there.



I took the styrofoam balls and using a sharpie colored in half of the "eye" and colored in circles for the pupils. I took 2 pipe cleaners,for each eye, and twisted them together and stuck it in the back of the "eye". I then took my dollar tree mop and used the mop hair for the hood. I sewed it on by hand, I wanted to put enough of it on the hood but not too much. After I finished the "hair" I sewed the pipe cleaners onto the hood, which was not easy, you can't really sew through the pipe cleaners, so what I did was sew the "hair" really tight around them and it worked :)







Finally I used elastic to sew the hood onto the body and it was done!



I had to use some safety pins; I had sewn the elastic a little too high so I used a couple of safety pins in the back to hold it down better. Here is Alexis at my work Trunk or Treat on the 30th. She was a hit!

28 comments:

  1. This is adorable! I wish I had the motivation to make it for my daughter :)

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  2. Alison, it's really not too hard. You should definitely try it :)

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  3. I want this for my daughter. I need to find someone to make it.

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  4. Carmen, it is really not too hard. If you have access to a sewing machine, you can definitely do it especially if you follow my tutorial ;)

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  5. I am attempting to make this costume this year too after all the comments I get that my daughter looks like Boo too! I am going to be 9 months pregnant so my belly is going to be Mike. I am so excited! This was pretty incredible for having such little experience! I could have never conquered something like this when I started sewing. Great job, she is such a cutie!

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  6. Thanks Ashton! I definitely didn't think that I could put something like this together. I really decided 3 weeks before Halloween, after several people telling me she looked like boo and after realizing that Disney didn't make a costume. I had some experience because of my sewing high school class. I found one person online who had a blog post about it, now I can't remember her blog but that gave me the inspiration :) Please let me know how it turns out I would love to see it! Good luck!

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  7. I'm in the process of making this costume for my daughter right now for this coming up Halloween! (I'm giving myself lots of time just in case it all goes wrong!) and everything seems so easy except how to see on the hood with elastic-I'm wondering if you can help me understand that part a little better. It "scares" me the most. And thanks for posting this tutorial!

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  8. Olivia, what I did was I put the outfit on and put the hood over her head where I wanted it to rest; I didn't want it to go over her eyes so once I got it where I wanted it to be I took some elastic and sewed it on the hood and the other end on the main piece. Honestly that part was not so fun, had I had more time I may have though of a more creative way to hold it in place but I ended up using some safety pins to hold it in place better. Let me know if that helps or if you have any other questions. How far along are you on the costume?

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    1. Im not understand the hood i made shape like yours but its not working

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  9. This is the best tutorial that i could find on how to make this costume. how did you make the hood though? thats really my only concern with trying to make this for my daughter.

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  10. Hi there! What is the fabric type called you used? I making this too! Thanks so much!

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  11. Thanks Allanna :) For the hood I just measured around her head and went out a couple of inches and measured out that much fabric. I folded the fabric first, measured that out and cut a crescent shape out and put batting in the middle and sewed around it. I used a dollar store mop and sewed that onto the hood. Does that help? Let me know if you have any other questions.

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  12. FrancisFamily, I don't know specifically what kind of fabric it is. I just looked for a purple sequenced fabric and that was the only one I found, it definitely is not felt. It is a thinner type of fabric, harder to sew with lol. I hope this helps.

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  13. I am making this costume as well.. I got to the body part and tryed it on her and its too small!!! I almost died.. but I found a way to make it work. The fabric I used that I got off a different sight was called Lamay (purple shiny material.. pain in the ass to sew with but looks exactly alike), and felt for the white.. cant remember the name of the grey soft material.

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  14. where can i get those fabrics at?

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  15. I got them at Hobby Lobby. The purple sequined fabric was the only one they had that was similar to what I needed. The white fabric is a stretchy fabric with the little circles on it. If you don't have a Hobby Lobby I'm sure Joanns or another fabric store would have similar fabrics.

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  16. Making this for my daughter tonight... ahh im so excited. Made my husband sully amd my niecw is gonna be mike and im gonna be celia

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  17. I'm down to the hood part but I'm confused on measurements n how long n high to make the cresent shape?? Help!! :)

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  18. brittanystapleton: It really is up to you how big you want to make it around. I just took a measuring tape and went over the crown of my LO's head and went out like 2 or 3 inches and the was the longest across it was, I folded the fabric over and just cut out a crescent shape.I put batting in it and sewed around it. Does this help?

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  19. Thanks for sharing this! I am not crafty nor have much experience with a sewing machine but hopefully with this tutorial, I can do it :)

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  20. Rosa: Even if you're not crafty you can definitely do this :)

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  21. I don't have elastic for the hood, is it necessary? Could I just sew the hood directly to the.body? This is my first sewing project so I don't know too much about what the elastic will do. :) thanks!

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  22. I used the elastic just because I had seen that on a tutorial that I went off of, the link is in the post, but I guess you could sew it on it just depends how low or high you want the hood to rest. So it's up to you. The elastic didn't work out to well for me because the hood did fall off a lot so I ended up having to use some safety pins to keep it down but you can try it and see if it works without it. Does that help?

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  23. Thanks you very much. My daughter and I had many many complements for the Boo costume I made her for her third Halloween tonight by following your blog. Of course, I did buy a Sully costume for me to walk around trick or treating with her (a couple of pillows ducked tapped around my waste under the costume made me huge). Her favorite movie is currently Monster's Inc. and she has been so excited for weeks to wear her boo costume. Thanks again.

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  24. No problem David! I am glad you got lots of compliments ;)

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  25. Can you explain how you did the arm holes better? Did you sew a circle and then cut them out or cut the holes and then hem? Thanks!

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  26. I cut the holes and hemmed. Sorry for the delayed response K.

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  27. I'm not sure you'll see this, but wanted to ask how much fabric you used for the body. My daughter is 15 months. 30 inches tall and 21 lbs. Trying to figure out how much to cut. We got 2 yards of material.

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