How to make an iPhone costume for your baby's stroller

I wanted to make a huge iPhone that could be used as a costume on Halloween by attaching it to a stroller or car seat. My daughter was my helper, so she got to be the first model for the finished product, even though she is too big for a stroller.

Materials needed:

Piece of foam core – sold at a craft store or office supply store, usually 30 x 20, about $5. I asked in the frame department at Michael’s and they had larger pieces in the back.
Box cutter – I call a big utility knife a “box cutter” but while I was working on this, my parents kept calling it an Exacto knife, so see the picture below to get my drift.
Pencil
Sharpie
Yard stick or large ruler/straight edge
Optional: Silver tape for metallic edge. Found at Michael’s or here.

When I set out on this project I believed that the key to the board looking like an iPhone was to get the ratio of height to width — and the proportions of the screen — exactly right, so I prepared to do some serious 7th grade math to figure it out for you. Once I researched the size of the iPhone and saw how many variations there are (iPhone 4/5/6) I realized that the exact measurements are not SUPER important, but you can just do what I did and it will certainly look like a recognizable mobile phone.

Protect your work surface with a discarded cardboard box and cut your 30 x 20 piece of foam core to 30 x 15.5.

In other words, simply cut 4.5 inches off the width. And then cut the corners to be rounded.

I drew my lines straight by using a Sharpie on the back side of the board and then used the box cutter to make the slices as needed.

Next cut the screen out.

The screen is centered on this type of phone, so it’s pretty easy. Measure 5.5″ from the top and the bottom and one inch in from the sides. Use a ruler again to draw a large rectangle for the screen on the back side of the board.

The edges may be a bit jaggedy because of the inner foam material. Hiding them with a border of silver tape helps.

Next, you need the details on the front of the phone. I used a short juice glass to trace a circle for the home button. The curved-edge box inside the round home button was made out of silver Duck Tape-brand tape that I cut free-hand. You could just use a pencil.

I modeled my camera lens and speaker details on my sister’s iPhone 4 after looking at my own iPhone 5 and thinking hers looked more iconic. The sideways thermometer shape (know what I mean?) that represents the speaker/camera is about 5 inches long. I did a practice drawing of that on the backside before drawing it with pencil on the front.

Now that your posterboard resembles a phone, figure out how you will attach it to the stroller. Zip ties will work, but once it’s on, it will be difficult to take on and off. I used a piece of ribbon on each side.

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Whitney

RookieMoms.com co-founder Whitney lives with her husband, son, and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she writes about parenting, crafts, and activities that moms can do with babies in tow. She and Heather also publish 510Families.com, a site for East Bay parents.