How to Make a Christmas Puppy Costume

Homemade costumes allow people to foster creativity while saving money on seldom-worn costumes. You can create a Christmas puppy costume by using a sweatshirt as the base of the costume. Attach some pieces to make it look more like a dog, and less like a sweatsuit, and complete your outfit with face paint. To make it look like a Christmas-themed costume, consider attaching some Christmas wrapping paper to the outfit, or letting the costume-wearer hold some crumpled wrapping paper in his hand, much like a puppy might play in the wrapping paper on Christmas day.

Things You'll Need

• Hooded sweatshirt and pants
• Fabric paint
• Fabric paintbrushes
• Felt
• Scissors
• Pins
• Sewing machine or needle and thread
• Hot glue gun with glue
• Big red bow
• 4-inch by 6-inch card or larger
• Black marker
• Face paint

Instructions

1. Decorate a hooded sweatshirt and pants so that it looks like a dog. For example, if you want to make a Dalmatian dog costume, paint small black splotches onto a white sweatsuit. If you want to look like a beagle, paint large brown splotches onto a white or light brown sweatsuit. Set the aside to dry, flip over, paint on the other side of the sweatshirt and set aside to dry again.

2. Cut two large floppy ear shapes for ears of your dog from felt. Make them slightly longer than you really want, since you will need to fold the end over to attach it to the hooded sweatshirt.

3. Fold over about ¼ inches of the felt ears and pin them to the hooded sweatshirt. Try the hooded sweatshirt on and adjust placement of the ears as necessary. Remove the sweatshirt.

4. Sew the ears onto the hooded sweatshirt for permanent placement. Use either a sewing machine or needle and thread.

5. Cut a large rectangular piece of felt for the puppy tail. Roll it into a cone shape. Pin into place, and seal it either with hot glue or needle and thread.

6. Connect the tailpiece to the back seat of the sweatpants. Put on the sweatpants and pin the tail into place. Sew the tail onto the sweatpants.

7. Create a tag for the puppy that says something like "To Tommy, From Santa." Hot glue the tag onto the big red ribbon.

8. Put on the sweatpants and sweatshirt and place a large red ribbon around your neck to complete the outfit.

9. Apply face paint, such as a brown nose, to look even more like a dog.

References

• Family Education: Puppy Costume Ideas