No-Sew Cheshire Cat Costume

I don't remember how the conversation came up, but while I was running into a store one day, Robbie and Lily got to talking about what she wanted to be for Halloween. When I got back into the car, Robbie says, "Lily, tell Mommy what you want to be for Halloween." It took her a few seconds to stop giggling, but she finally said, "Cheshire Cat!" Robbie and I were both impressed and ecstatic! She came up with a Halloween costume idea all by herself. How cool!

We started talking about where we might find a Cheshire Cat costume, and Robbie said, "Well, you're going to have to make it. Mama always used to make our costumes." So he and I started talking about how this was going to come to pass. I said, "I'm going to get on Pinterest!" I get on Pinterest sometimes, but not as much as someone like me might seem like she would get on there. 

I turned into Miss Giddy Girly Girl when I started looking up ideas on making a Cheshire Cat Costume for my daughter. I never turn into Miss Giddy Girly Girl. For some reason, the prospect of making may daughter's costume seemed like a Mom Level Up somehow.

I was a bit disappointed with the ideas I found on Pinterest. Cheshire Cat Costume ideas that actually looked like the Cheshire Cat were severely lacking. Most of the ideas were more of an artsy representation of the essence of the Cheshire Cat. I decided I needed to remedy this problem. I wasn't going to make a big blog post about it. However, after seeing how few ideas there were floating around out there, I knew I had to offer something to the internet.

One of the challenges of costume making for someone like me is that I don't sew. I don't own a sewing machine, so anything that I was going to make was going to require that I didn't need to sew.

I came across this post on Pinterest, which was the only post that helped me in the slightest. I had an aha! moment. Hot-glue! This will work. I would hot-glue the pink stripes onto the purple background.

Robbie and I took a trip to Wal-Mart to pick out the necessary supplies:

One hooded purple jumpsuit
One extra pair of purple pants
Pink Ribbon (light and dark)
Hot Glue
Hot Glue Gun
Hot Glue Sticks
Face paint
Stuffing



Being the procrastinator I am, I didn't actually start assembling the costume until the day of Halloween. I began by gluing the ribbon onto the jumpsuit. There is no specific way to do this. Just get the stripes on there.

It might appear that I have smaller stripes on the arms of the jumpsuit. That's because there are indeed smaller stripes on the arms. That's because I bought two different sizes as I wasn't sure which would look better. I used both after all.

Once that part was done, I cut one of the leg holes off of the extra pair of pants and glued one end shut. I stuffed it and then glued the other end shut. I glued the stripes on after stuffing the tail.

I used a little bit of remaining material and ribbon to make the ears. I just glued them on, and I didn't really attempt to make them stand up. Easy peasy!

I gave Robbie the task of painting her face while I had to teach a few flute lessons.



We spent Halloween night with a few friends from church and were able to go trick or treating at a few houses once I came back home from teaching lessons. It was really late by the time we got started, so we ended up gathering a bucketful of treats at only five houses.


Lily loved her costume, and she looked as cute as ever as a little Cheshire Cat.