Inspiration: a toddler Foofa costume

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!

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Whitney

RookieMoms.com co-founder Whitney lives with her husband, son, and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she writes about parenting, crafts, and activities that moms can do with babies in tow. She and Heather also publish 510Families.com, a site for East Bay parents.