Kid's Nintendo Fire Flower Question Box Costume

I have been building Halloween Costumes for many years, but took a bit of a hiatus when my daughter was born and free time was at a premium. Now that she's 7 years old, she's really into Halloween and we decided to build her a unique costume. I used to start building my costumes months in advance, and this year, although I started mid-october, I managed to complete my own build to complement her costume. Check it out in my other instructables. What a pair!!!

Step 1: The Idea

The idea for this year's costume came to us because of these fridge magnets we have. I sail to Alex, "What if you were the fire flower coming out of a question box?" She said, "Yeah, that's a good idea." I drew a quick and dirty sketch to communicate the idea and the two of decided to go ahead with the plan. After checking the internet for some reference pictures, we decided that the newer, less pixelated version of the question box would be the best. I ordered a white hoodie with the intent of building the fire flower around the hood. We then used a cardboard box to mock-up the size of the costume.

Step 2: Let's Get Building

Many of my previous costumes have been built using 1" styrofoam insulation. It's easy to work with and it's light weight. Unfortunately, it's much more expensive than the last time I bought it. The 2'x8' sheet was $27.99. Yikes!! I cut up 4 mitered pieces on the table saw and used double-sided tape to stick them together. I've done this in the past, and now I remember that it's not a great solution. Hot glue seems to work, but if the glue is too hot it will melt the foam a little. Some tuck tape or duct tape isn't a bad solution either. Specialized adhesives like PL Premium will also work quite well, but I was being hasty with this build and didn't want to wait for glue to dry. I attempted to pray paint the finished block. The primer went on great, but the yellow still found spots where it wanted to eat the foam. I found a tin of old yellow latex paint and got my trusty helper to put on a few coats with me. When it was dry the next day, we mocked it up with her sweater, made some funny faces and then had a few slices of pizza. You can see us hangin' out in the Maker Space I made at my work in the last picture.

Step 3: Hoodie or Hoody?

We found a floral foam ring at the thrift store which seemed to be the perfect size to fit Alex's head through while also being the right size to fit into the hoodie. We then used the vinyl cutter and heat press to make the fire flower stem. As an added bonus we made a custom trick or treat bag with a Nintendo coin on it. All the designs were drawn up using Adobe Illustrator. One more mock-up photo before we went on to the next step.

Step 4: Flower Power

After the last mock-up, we were not completely sold on the foam ring. It was a little tight getting Alex's head in and out and the fire flower itself isn't supposed to be perfectly round. I found some other packing foam material which was much easier to use. I was actually able to use my router to round the edges. The material is easier to cut and score with a knife, which allowed me to cut a channel to stuff the coloured craft felt into. The dollar store had rolls of this stuff in the colours we needed and I was able to quickly cut and stuff the material in place with no glue or sewing.... just friction!! Bonus!!

Step 5: Any Questions?

Previously, Alex was with me at school watching the CNC machine cut out our question marks. This is a bit of overkills, but I wanted them cut out of plastic for durability. We used 1/8" styrene and taped the question marks on with double-sided tape.

Step 6: Suspenders??

The only thing left to figure out for this costume was how to keep the box up. This little kiddo would need those arms to hold up that candy coin bag on Halloween. I decided to bolt some hooks right through the foam in the corners where the bolt details already existed. I wanted to make sure this thing would fall apart in the middle of trick or treating. Nothing worse than having a wardrobe malfunction when out collecting sweets. I used a grommet tool to add some grommets to the sweater. This worked really well, but I was a little hasty in my placement of the grommets. I though that going through a double layer of fabric would make it stronger, but it ended up cinching too much of the material and didn't leave me a lot of slack to connect the grommets to the hooks. In hindsight, putting the grommets through one layer would have been the best way to go. Either way, it's still functioned perfectly on Halloween and I didn't have time to buy and make another sweater.

Step 7: Halloween Night

Just before trick or treating we got the idea of adding glow sticks to the outfit. This kinda worked. Since it was last minute, I just stuffed the glow sticks in the groove just like I did the craft felt. The lengths of glow sticks didn't quite work out, but I think it still worked out ok. It wasn't really dark enough outside to get the full effect. We un-lucked out with rainy weather, but the kids still had a blast going from door to door. I also love my daughter's detailed description of her costume to those neighbours that had to ask. "I'm a Fire Flower coming out of a Question box, you know.... from Nintendo." We had a great time with this project and we're already talking about next year's project. Thanks to the enthusiasm and creativity of this little darling, I'm back in the Halloween Game!!