First DIY costumes of the Halloween season! The zoo crew

A friend of mine asked me on a Wednesday if we wanted to do trunk or treat with her and her family that frisay- of course I said yes! And when I found out they were all being animals I decided to run with the theme but I had to DIY all of it since I didn’t have time to order anything. We ended up being the cutest little zoo crew ever. Her family was a peacock, a lion, a gorilla and a deer. We were the zookeeper, an elephant, a swan, a panda and a butterfly!

Here’s my little swan in action! The swan was really costume I was most worried about- but it came out great! She had a white tutu dress from @iloveplum that I paired with tights and a white feather boa.

The wings we’re getting toughest part. I cut the base out of a cardboard box we had, then covered them in white fabric we had but spray paint, or white paper would have worked fine too.

I couldn’t find more than one small pack of white feathers ANYWHERE near me (like I said it was last minute) so I had to improvise. I went to dollar tree and got these white Christmas flowers that I cut at the base to make the feathers on the wings. I think it turned out great!

I cut a mask out of white cardstock we had and added the feathers, marker around the eye holes, gems and a crown! She loved her mask and still wears it for dress up!

Next up to make was this beautiful little butterfly! The tutu (also from @iloveplum) and leggings were items we already had so all I had to make were the wings, mask and antenna.

I started with some plain black fabric and measured from one of my daughters fingers to the next. With that measurement I cut the wings to tag length, since they were going to be attached to her fingers.

Then, I cut a template for the colors/shapes I wanted on the wings

Once I had my shapes cut out of the colored felt my daughter picked, I laid them on the black wings and glued them one by one

I added some sparkly gold touches to each shape for some pop! Then made the mask just like the swan. For the antenna I added pipe cleaners to a headband we had and added some matching felt colors.

To attach the wings to her fingers I glued a small

loop of black ribbon to each side and looped it over her middle finger

Next up was the Panda man! His was super simple. I cut a piece of white batten that I had on hand into a long oval and glued it to a black sweatshirt he was about to outgrow. Paired it black pants and a diy panda mask. Then I added some ear muffs from dollar tree for the panda ears. Glued some pink fabric in the middle of each ear and he was done! Easy peasy

For my mama elephant I glued gray cardstock onto a headband in the shape of giant ears. I cut fingers off some gray gloves we had and wore a gray shirt and gray joggers, with a little pink tutu (my daughters) and attached a little gray tail made of a scrap of fabric. Done and done

Last one in our crew was the zookeeper! All of it was items my husband already owned, a khaki vest, khaki pants, a safari hat, brown boots etc. I did make him a pair of binoculars and a zookeeper pass

I cut a paper towel roll in half, glued on black fabric leftover from the butterfly project then glued the 2 rolls together and added ribbon for the neck strap

It totally got the point across and cost zero dollars!

It was a super fun night for us and the kids and I had a blast diying all the costumes at the last minute! Here’s some more pics of us enjoying the fun!