Our five year old, Chase, wanted to be Bulbasaur. Now, I did see that there were Bulbasaur costumes on Amazon; however they literally consisted of a hat and a backpack. I wanted him to have more of a full effect of Bulbasaur. So, I consulted Pintrest to browse ideas.
To make Bulbasaur work, I first went to Target and purchased a girls light green hoodie with matching sweatpants. Luckily for me, these pieces happened to be on sale for $6 a piece. The hoodie however wasn't ideal because it had a giant raccoon face on the front. The color though was perfect so I had to make it work. I then went to Hobby Lobby and purchased some dark green fleece (I almost always use fleece for costumes because I love the softness of it).
I used the dark green fleece as patches for Bulbasaur's
body. I did not measure my patches or use any kind of template (I hate
measuring). I cut each of my spots freehand so that each spot would be unique.
I did have to make one big spot though to cover up the raccoon face. I used my
sewing machine to sew as many of the patches on that I could. Some of the spots
on the sleeves and pants legs had to be hand sewn since the area was too narrow
to fit over my machine. 
For Bulbasaur's ears, I purchased a remnant of light
green fleece that came pretty close to the color of the hoodie and pants. I
made sure to measure each ear so that both sides matched in size. I also
measured the distance from the seam on the top of the hood, so that the ears
lined up correctly on both sides. Once I had most of the ears sewn on, I filled
each one with a little bit of fiber fill to give them some bulkiness and depth.
Then, of course I sewed up the remaining gap on each ear. 
Once, the spots and
ears were complete, the only thing left were the eyes. I used a piece of red
felt that I had on hand to cut each eye. Once again, I did not measure. I
simply cut out the eye shape and set it on the hood to make sure it appeared to
be an appropriate size. Once I had the right size, I then used some white felt
to cut out the shading and center of the eye. I made adjustments to my sizes
until all my pieces seemed right. After, I had my eyes cut out, I sewed the
white felt onto the red and then the entire eye piece on to the hood. I did do
some measuring again from the seam as well as from the front edge of the hoodie
to ensure that they eyes lined up correctly. Once the eyes were sewn on,
Bulbasaur's body was complete. 
For Bulbasaur's backpack, I used the dark green
fleece. I folded the fleece in half and I cut out half of a leaf shape. This
way, when I opened the fleece up, I had a full leaf shape that was equal on
both sides. Once, my leaf looked good, I used that leaf to trace and cut out 5
more leaves. Once, the leaves were cut, I sewed them all together by only
sewing one side of each leaf to the next until they were all attached to
another (be careful not to sew all the way up to the tip of the leaves- at
least an inch or two will need to be used for the bulb). Then I flipped the backpack
over so that I could sew up the backside or the bottoms of each leaf. 
For this part, I pulled two sections of leaves together and sewed a bottom seam. I did this until all the sections were sewn and the back was completely closed. After, the back was closed, I filled the backpack with some fiberfill. After, the filling was placed, I took the tips of each leaf and pulled them together in the center. I then used a string or rubber band (I actually ended up using a hair tie) to secure them. After the pack was sewn and secured, I cut 4 long narrow strips to use as the backpack straps. I sewed 2 strips together for each side. Then I sewed both sets of straps onto the backpack at the top and bottom of each strip (a different material may be more suitable for this step since the fleece does stretch).
Out of all the costumes that I have made over the
years, this costume is my favorite. Chase looks awesome in it and he has
already received so many comments on it. We've definitely caught ourselves a
Bulbasaur!! 
No comments:
Post a Comment