My kids are totally in love with the characters from the bizarro TV show Yo Gabba Gabba. Enchanted by the pink teardrop-shaped member of the cast, Scarlett called herself “Foofa” for about a month and was actually more responsive to instructions we gave her if we addressed her as Foofa. I know she’d love to be Foofa for Halloween, but I also know that we have a perfectly good ladybug costume in our dress-up box and a cozy 2T tiger costume that she can choose from, so I’m not sure that I will go down this road.
I did buy most of the supplies from the craft store however, because I saw that Hey Jen Renee had made her own Foofa costume last year.
Jen made an adorable Foofa costume from a sweatsuit and felt. Her DIY technique could be used for a host of other animals or characters, so I asked her to share the technique with our readers. She explained her not-too-complicated approach to me:
I bought the pink sweatsuit last year at Target – it was the perfect Foofa pink. It was Hanes and I’m pretty sure that I saw the same colors there this year as well. The only bummer is that the sweatshirt had a graphic on the front, but I turned it inside-out and you couldn’t see it. I think I ended up turning the pants inside-out too so it matched and it was cute – she just looked fuzzy. You might even be able to find a hooded sweatshirt to make it super easy – I tried but couldn’t find one last year.
The pink sweatshirt was one or two sizes too big. I sewed it (just at the bottom hem) to an undershirt and put poly-fill stuffing down inside to make a round belly.
Then I bought two pairs of pink sweatpants – one was the right size for my daughter to wear, and the other was a larger size (like a 4T) – I cut one leg of the larger sweatpants and made a little pointy hat out of it. Then I cut a flower/round center out of pink and yellow felt, sewed them together to make a flower, and sewed the flower to the hat. I did the same for the light pink flower collar – I cut two pieces of felt and sewed them together with a slit in the back that closed with velcro (so it would fit over my daughter’s head.)
Super cute, right? I think you could make a Backyardigan costume, Winnie the Pooh, a pig, or a monster from Where The Wild Things Are using this stuffed sweatshirt approach.
Updated: I made my own version of this for Scarlett and she loved it. Plus, it was warm!
