Halloween Makes the Whole Family Batty!

So, once upon a time, my friend Anna in her extreme craftiness, made her whole family cow costumes out of large sweatshirts and felt...

The extra genius here is that the costumes can not only be worn for Halloween, but also ensures the family a free meal at least once a year at Chick-Fil-a!!!  Brilliant!

My costumes don't come with a free meal, but when Noah said he wanted to be a bat family for Halloween this year I took a page from Anna's book and gathered up black sweatshirts and felt!

It was so simple to do that I thought I'd share my methods, just in case there are procrastinators out there in need of some costume inspiration!

Supplies Needed:

Black hooded sweatshirt

Black felt, sold by the yard at most craft stores (extremely cheap, I paid $3.50 for 3 yards and I had way too much!)

white crayon

white thread and various sewing supplies

Glow in the dark fabric paint

Step one involved laying a sweatshirt out on the felt, and stretching the arm out to create the full expanse of wing.  I then took a white crayon and traced along the arm from wrist to waist and outlined what I thought the edge of the wing should look like when fully extended.

I had the felt folded in half so that I got two wings in one fell swoop...small joke, HA!

I used a ruler to draw the connecting lines from the center of the wing out to the tips.

For the ears I looked at a picture of a bat and tried to mimic the shape, cutting a triangle out of the bottom (I'll show you why later)!

The white crayon rubs off pretty easily and I wanted the lines to be distinct, so I used white thread and sewed in the details.  This isn't necessary, however, white fabric paint would work just as well!

The next step is to pin the wing to the sweatshirt. 

Sweatshirts are made to be loose, so it doesn't hurt anything to pinch a 1/4" or so along the edge and pin the wing to it.  I started at the arm pit and pinned down the side and out to the wrist.

Then I sewed it in place making sure to catch both the felt and the sweatshirt all along.

Ok, now for the ears...

Remember that little triangle cut out of the base?  Well, now you will fold the ear in half and sew along that cut.  The reason for this is that it will help the ear to stand up and be three dimensional once attached!

Open the ear and pin it to the hood of the sweatshirt, close to the top and center, you will have to play around with it a bit to get it just right.  Then sew a triangle at the base to keep the ears from flopping over.

Tada!  Looks good, right?  Well, we are not finished yet!

I got to thinking that it might be a little difficult to see our fabulousness in the dark since the costumes are black...

So I picked up some glow in the dark fabric paint from Walmart...

Do you see where I'm going with this?!

Holy Glow Wings Batman!!!

Noah was properly impressed...

And Gigi loved hers so much she cried when we took it off!

She kept running over to daddy and yelling BOO! 

And I'm sorry but check out those adorably chubby little knees!

These costumes are so batty it kind of makes you want to say...

I'm BATMAN!

NO...I'M Batman!

No, No, No...I'M Batman!!!

Ok, will the real Batman please stand up?!!!

"We're just jokin, mom, it's me...NOAH!"

 



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