These No-Sew Cupcake and Dinosaur Halloween Costumes are easy to make with common store-bought items and keep the kids warm and cosy on chilly autumn nights.
Never quite got the kids DIY Halloween costumes up on the blog last year. Their No-Sew Cupcake and Dinosaur Halloween Costumes were some of my absolute favorites evah! I love how colorful they turned out and that they were pretty easy to make too.
These Cupcake and Dinosaur Halloween Costumes sum up their personalities perfectly! My sweet, sassy cupcake and her Dino(mite) brother, always hot on her heels. I believe there is a kid’s tv show of the same name but the kids told me repeatedly t that they were NOT THAT Cupcake and Dino. They are their own creations.
This is why I love #DIYcostumes so much —they choose their heart’s desire and we work together to bring them to life.
More Costume Inspo
Scroll down for a quick summary and links to detailed resources outlining how I brought their No-Sew Cupcake and Dinosaur Halloween Costumes dreams to life. And for more DIY inspiration, check out our costumes from years past:
Easy DIY Dragons Love Tacos Costumes
Vintage Gumball Machine Costume
Vintage Race Car Driver Costume
Cupcake Costume
For Lillian’s DIY cupcake costume, I did some research online and used the instructions from this tutorial on Women’s Day for the bulk of my inspiration. Here are the items we used:
Materials
- Round plastic laundry basket
- White duct tape
- 2 pairs adult-size white tights
- Fabric Batting
- Hot-glue gun and glue sticks
- Multicolored craft foam
- Wrapping paper
- 2 pieces of poster board
- Red pipe cleaner
- Round foam ball
- 1 large piece of red felt
- Safety pins
- White cotton headband
- White child-size leggings
- White shirt or sweatshirt
- Red, white or silver boots or shoes
Instructions
First, cut the bottom out of the laundry basket. Fashion suspenders out of the white duct tape and secure them to the top rim of the laundry basket with more duct tape.
Cut legs off adult tights and reserve the “bottom” of one pair for later use. Stuff each leg with batting and knot the open end. Hot-glue legs together, end to end; let dry. Line a few inches of the laundry basket rim with hot glue and begin winding the tights along the edge, creating a coil or swirl with the tights as you go; repeat until tights are glued around basket rim to resemble swirls of frosting. Continue on top of first tight layer, working section by section and layer by layer. Be sure to leave gaps in the glue on each side of the costume between the final two layers of “frosting” tights. This will create holes for your child’s arms to go through.
Next, cut pieces of craft foam into strips to resemble sprinkles and hot-glue to the layers; let dry.
Measure height and circumference of basket; triple the circumference. Measure and cut poster board to the same measurements. If desired, glue decorative wrapping paper to the front of the poster board to create a more decorative “cupcake liner”; fold the poster board accordion-style and hot-glue to basket, working one section at a time.
To make the hat, hot-glue together one end of the “bottom” of the tights that you cut off. Stuff with batting and then glue the other end closed. Hot-glue this piece to a white headband to resemble one last dollop of frosting. Hot-glue the red felt around the foam ball and hot-glue pipe cleaner end to top of the ball to create a cherry. Hot-glue the cherry to the top of the headband. Dress child in leggings, shirt, shoes, cupcake costume and cherry headband.
Dino Costume
For Max’s dinosaur costume, you have a choice of either attaching the dinosaurs spikes with hot glue and safety pins, or sewing them on. For his costume, I consulted with several tutorials but found this one to be the most helpful.
I purchased both the hoodie and the sweatpants from Primary.com (which I highly recommend for durable kids basics in a variety of colors — no relationship there, I just like them). I actually also ordered a pair of blue leggings in a matching shade of blue and used them to create the dinosaur tail! Here’s a summary of what I bought and what I did:
Materials
- Hooded sweatshirt, sweatpants and a pair of leggings all in matching colors (Primary.com is a great resource)
- 13 sheets of your choice color felt
- 1 roll Heat & Bond iron on
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks and/or sewing needle and spool of matching color thread
- 20 Safety pins
- 1 bag of fiber fill
Instructions
Follow package instructions to affix Heat & Bond iron on glue to the back of each sheet of felt.
To make the spikes, fold 12 of the felt sheets long ways and trace triangles approximately 3″ in length. Cut the triangles out and make sure the folds are at the bottom of the triangles (When opened flat, they should create diamonds). After they are cut out, align 8 of them along the seam on the hood of the sweatshirt and all the way down the back with the Heat & Bond paper facing OUT (align the center fold with the seam). At this point you should have a bunch of sideways diamonds lined up with the seam on top of the hood and running all the way down the back. Attach the middle of each diamond to the sweatshirt with a safety pin pushed through from inside the sweatshirt or by sewing down the middle of the felt all along the hood and back. To finish the spikes, tear off the heat and bond paper and iron the two sides of each triangle together so that they stick straight up.
To create the tail, spread the leggings out flat and fasten the remaining 4 tail spikes to the outer edge of one of the legs with safety pins or by sewing them on. Remove the Heat N Bond paper and iron the triangles shut to create the spikes. Next, sew or pin the bottom of the leg hole closed so that the seam is on the inside of the leggings. Stuff the leg with batting until it resembles a tail shape. Pin the top two corners of the waistband together and pull the extra leg through the hole created by the pin.
Cut the remaining sheet of felt into circles of various sizes and shapes, remove Heat N Bond paper from back and iron them onto the front of the sweatshirt give your Dino some “spots”.
Finally, dress your child in the sweatpants and sweatshirt. To put on the tail, use the extra legging leg as a belt. Position the tail at your child’s bottom. Wrap the extra legging leg around your child’s waist and use a safety pin to fasten it to the tail on the other side.
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