Trick-or-Treating with Wild Things!

When Sawyer turned one we had a gigantic Where the Wild Things Are themed birthday party. I am a children's book enthusiast and that is easily my favorite. So, of course, I expose my kids to it whenever possible. Anyway, for Sawyer's birthday we got him a pretty expensive Max costume from Etsy. It is beautifully made with high quality materials and the details, like the bright gold buttons just enrich the whole costume. Obviously I had to use this costume again!

That made this Halloween costume picking fairly simple. If Hudson was going to use the Max costume, Sawyer must be a wild thing!

I looked up wild thing costumes and boy, were they expensive! I couldn't possibly spend $80 for a costume this year and so, I decided to make it. 

I went to Goodwill and found a women's size small orange, chunky sweater, a purse with faux fur accents, and a pair of grey wool pants. I picked up some light grey felt from Jo-Ann's and got to work.

Despite being a small, the sweater was still huge on Sawyer. I cut off a large amount of the sweater at the bottom and at the sleeves. Then, I took the sides in and finally, I sewed the narrowest bits from the pieces I cut off to make a waistband and cuff. 

To get the yellow stripes, I just used yellow acrylic paint on the sweater. I liked the way the paint mimicked the illustrations more than sewn on fabrics stripes would have and I had the paint already anyway.

 To make the scales, I cut out pieces of felt in the right shape and hand sewed them to the grey wool pants. This was very time consuming but, I loved the final result.

For the tail, I cut the fur off the purse and simply glued it to the back of the pants.

The only other thing I needed was a mask or a hat and, it coincidentally came in the form of a belated Christmas present from my friend. 

Isn't that the perfect hat?

The Max costume originally came with a crown but we lost it the week before Halloween.

It was so cold, they both have so many layers on under their costumes!