How to Make Animal Costumes for Children

Children enjoy pretending to be animals.

An animal costume may be as extravagant as your creativity and sewing and crafting skill level, but creating an animal costume for your child can also be a fun craft activity that can be completed together easily and inexpensively. By using your imagination and a handful of supplies, you can turn ordinary clothing items into a playful animal costume your child will be able to wear around the house, in a school program or on Halloween.

Things You'll Need

• Sweatsuit
• Felt squares
• T-shirt
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Safety pin
• Headband
• Face paint
• Black eyeliner

Instructions

1. Choose your animal. If the animal is not predetermined, as it is in most cases for class projects or school programs, decide which animal your child will be. Choose his favorite animal or an animal that you feel confident in creating a costume of. Costumes of animals like a tiger, cat or bunny may be easier to construct than more detailed animals like a dragon, dinosaur or shark.

2. Purchase clothing in the main color of the animal. For a tiger, look for an orange sweatsuit or a black sweatsuit for a cat. If the weather is warm, look for short-sleeved shirts and leggings, instead of a sweatsuit.

3. Add distinguishing animal characteristics. Cut strips or circles of black felt out of black felt squares and use a hot glue gun to attach to the back of the orange sweatshirt and sweatpants. Cut an oval shape out of a peach piece of felt and hot glue it to the front of the sweat shirt, as the belly of a tiger or other cat. Create a tail for a tiger, cat or other animal by rolling up a colored t-shirt and hot gluing the seam closed. Fold the ends under and sew or hot glue to securely close.

4. Create a headpiece. Cut triangles out of felt squares and use hot glue to attach them to the top of a headband to serve as ears. Add pipe cleaners with pompoms glued to the ends or Styrofoam balls attached to make antennas, if needed.

5. Assemble the costume. Attach the tail to the sweatshirt with a safety pin, place the headpiece on the head and paint the child's face, if needed. Use a black eyeliner pencil to draw a cat's whiskers or stripes on the face.

Tips & Warnings

• To prevent burns, do not let a child use a hot glue gun.

References

• Family Corner: Easy Animal Costumes