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Halloween Costume Contest
"Tarantula Spider Costume"
Submitted by: Dawn_NY
NY
Category:
Most Unique Halloween Costumes
This costume is of a Tarantula Spider. My 5 year old insisted on being a Tarantula Spider for Halloween. Unfortunately for me, a mom who works full time, I could not just go out to the store and buy one because they don't make them or at least I couldn't find one. My mom used to make our costumes when I was little and I thought maybe I could do it...however I don't sew, just ask my husband. But, I didn't want to let my son down and I wanted to encourage him to be whatever he wanted to be so I started to think and plan how I was going to pull this off. The first step was to get a picture of a tarantula spider and sketch what a costume would look like on a little boy. I'm a graphic designer so I have some good drawing capabilities that helped me to envision what I was about to create.
Costume Instructions
Prep Time: 25 hours
Costume Materials
1 yard of brown furry material
Clear nylon sewing thread
Black buttons (for the eyes)
Velcro (black)
Costume Instructions
I got a large sheet of paper, layed it on the floor and had my 5yr old lay on top of it, then I traced his body. I then drew the shape of the spiders body around his body and used that to cut out the black material for the body. I cut 2 out and sewed them together leaving holes for his head to fit through the top, bottom for his legs and sides for his arms. I also used the tracing of his arm to determine the length & width of the spider arms. I would make sure the arm would have extra room and double that dimension. I sewed sections of the arms separately alternating between black and brown, then ultimately sewing the sections together to create the arms. I had to sew 6 of them. 4 of them were filled with stuffing and the other 2 were empty for the child's arms. All of the arms were sewed to the body and strung together with clear nyoln thread so that when the child moved his arms the attached arms would move simulataneously. The top two arms that had the child's arms in were open at the ends where the black section met the end brown section to allow the child's hands to come out. The head was challenging, wasn't sure how to start but this is what I came up with. I started with an old winter hat the kind that straps around the child's chin. I started sewing the material to the shape of the hat, then attached the feelers by sewing them on. The feelers were made by using the same technique as the arms only a smaller scale. The feelers also had a thick wire in them so you could bend them if you wanted to. I used a wire hanger for that. The mouth of the spider was made from a shape that I drew and sewed to the top of the had. The finishing touches were the black buttons on the top of the head (hat) that were the spiders eyes. After it was done I was happy with the way it turned out and best of all I had one very happy little spider!
