They say necessity is the mother of invention. And given the climate at our house, the one with a kiddo who wanted to be an owl, it was definitely a mother f*er. From the ruins lack of readily available owl costumes, the super easy handmade owl costume was born, like a Phoenix rising from the shitty, ‘these are all that’s left’ costume ashes.

We’ve found the easiest way to actually make costumes is with a slightly-too-big zip-up hoodie, colorful fabric & felt and a glue gun if you don’t want to sew.

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For the owl costume: cut out felt and fabric into teardrop shaped ‘feathers’ & glue individually onto the entire body of the sweatshirt. You can also apply a 6-12 inch line of hot glue onto the sweatshirt and randomly press the feathers into the glue (if you work fast and use wax paper to line the inside of the sweatshirt so that the glue doesn’t seep through to the other side and glue the sweatshirt together).

For the owl’s eyes, beak & tuft: on 3 separate pin backs, hot glue 2 large buttons for the eyes, 1 oblong toggle button for the beak, along with a few real feathers for the tufts. Once they’ve cooled you can attach the pins onto the top of the hood. Using pin backs allows for the buttons and real feathers to be removed easily and makes the costume hand washable. Throw on some striped pajama pants, add a pumpkin bucket and try not to be insulted when people “can’t believe you could make that!”. 

hoodie: Target.  pumpkin pail: Target.

shoes: Converse No Time To Tie Nordstrom.

felt, feathers, buttons, pin backs, glue gun: JOANN.

Best, N+K