An easy DIY to make a macaw or any bird costume of your choice.
You can use this DIY to make any kind of bird you want!
There are tons of readymade costumes available but they are mostly a zipper top with pants and toddlers outgrow them in matter of months. I wanted to make my own not only coz I love to create but I wanted something that can be used for play, will be budget-friendly, and warm. So I designed my own unique solution I made a cape as my base. It has few benefits:
I want my DIY to be utilized to its fullest, This cape is one size fits all Bubu can use it for pretend play in the future. I believe if you are taking the effort think dual-use or long-term-use.
That way it will be budget friendly too.
As it's cold during nights around Halloween the felt cape will keep Bubu warm. And if wanted I can dress him in more layers underneath as it will not be visible.
Btw this costume costed only $10 including all the material. However it did cost me 18 hours of sleep so it's definitely priceless :)
You can use this DIY to make any kind of bird you want!
Let's make it:
You will need
Felt
Fabric scissors
Rotary knife
Self healing mat
Glue gun
Glue gun sticks
Ribbon and buttons
Process
Decide on a bird you would like to dress up as. I chose to make a Macaw. Bubu doesn't talk yet, mostly making noises aaa, coo, caa does remind me of a parrot, plus macaws are colorful. Also when he is an infant we will be holding him in arms most of the time due to stranger-danger-phase. So I wanted to make a bird or animal that is perched on a tree that way we can dress up as trees and he can be a bird, monkey etc perched in the branch (aka arms).
Refer to realistic pics of that bird and buy felt material of the colors you see in the pic. I brought red, yellow, green, aqua and dark blue + Black and white for eyes (small piece). The best place to find felt is Daiso you get 27in x 23in/single sheet for $1.50 or 7in x7in/5 sheets for $1.50. Walmart felt was thicker and a 72in x 36in/single sheet is for just $3.50 and 8in x 11in for $0.25/single sheet.
I started pretty late, October 20 and I had 3 costumes to make, phew! When I sat down to make the base of the Macaw I realized I do not have enough red so I made the base grey with red hoodie. For the hoodie grab a hoodie jacket of the person you are making this for. Turn it inside out. Flatten it so you have a profile view. Now take the felt you want to make the hoodie. Fold the felt so you can cut 2 pieces in one cut. Place hoodie on the folded felt and trace. Add 1/4 inch for stitching and seam. Stitch along the 2 sides to make the hoodie.
Bring out the best long sleeved tee that fits the person you are making this for. Measure hand seam to top of the shoulder x 2 + measure shoulder to shoulder. That is the width of your cape. Measure top of the tee to the end or more if you want it longer. This is the length of your cape. Now take the felt for the body. Fold it up-to the desired length of the cape. The fold will be where you measure the width. Draw a arc to join both width and length and cut to get a circle or oval shape.
Stitch the hoodie to the cape and ta-da your base is ready.
This base construction took me 2 hours (actually 5 hours as Bubu kept walking up and wanted me to rock him to sleep like every 15 mins)
Cut a template for feather on a piece of cardboard. I cut 2 types shorter one for body and the longer one for tail. Trace it on all the felt for feather. And cut it. Rotary knife and the self healing cutting mat helped a lot during this process.
This took around 5 hrs.
This is the therapeutic part. Put on something to relax like a favorite Netflix/Youtube series or meditation music and start sticking the feathers with a hot glue gun. Overlap the next row so there are no gaps.
Close off any gap between the hoodie and the neck, by sticking small versions of your feather ends.
This took me 8 hours to complete.
Now the head. Cut smaller feathers. I just eyeballed it. Stuck a white felt sheet so I have a base for the white feathers. Started sticking taking the hoodie curve and the eye round as a reference so the feathers look like they are in a circle. For the eyes I used spray-bottle caps to trace the circles. Then just cut circles in yellow, white and black felt and glue one on top of the other. Last is a little feather bunch on top of the head (optional). Just roughly cut edgy pieces in different heights and stick them in a roll.
You need to finish the cape by adding a ribbon for tying at the neck and you have a bird costume ready. You can add buttons to keep it contained and not flipping up and around especially with a toddler as they do not have patience with costumes.
Comments