Our family loves visiting New York City. We thought what better way to honor one of our favorite places than by turning one of the kids into a giant Statue of Liberty snow globe?

Step 1: The Globe

First of all, credit where credit is due, much of this build was inspired by the work of a gentleman I know only as flickr user "jpotisch" who I believe pioneered the idea of this style snow globe. His work can be found here.

Our dome was constructed of three large sheets of the thickest acetate we could get our hands on. We figured the thicker the sheet, the more stable the resulting dome would be. The trick is getting the shape of the "petals" right to create the dome shape at the top of the snow globe. I found a way to draw the shape mathematically at this website. It's a very thorough explanation so just go read it for yourself then come back.

With the dome complete we began work on the base. We cut a large rectangle of green foam and several small triangles which we glued to the sides of the base is a sort of star formation which mimicked the fort upon which the Statue of Liberty was built. this was painted stone grey.

In the middle of the fort we cut an oval plug the same size as the dome diameter. We chose not to go with a true circle because we knew she needed more space from side to side than front to back.

From the plug we cut out of the base we cut another large plug leaving a 3" donut of foam around the outside. This donut was glued to the inside of the acetate dome. This further helped stabilize the dome.

in the middle of the inner foam plug (the one we just cut out to form the donut) we cut a small hole to slip over our daughter's head. This hole needed to be as small as possible so it was snug when around her waist because this was really going to be the only thing holding up the dome while she was in costume.

One last bit foam, this time 1" rigid panel was needed to finish off the bottom of the base. we cut a rectangle about 1" smaller than the large green foam base. into this piece we cut a largish hole that could slip easily over her head but wasn't so large that the inner foam plug would fall through. We stacked and glued the rigid panel (now painted black), the foam base and the inner plug together and glued them all in place.

To wear the globe, she would first slip the base piece over her head and wriggle it down to her waist until snug then we'd lower the dome and foam donut over her head and place it in the gap between the bask and inner plug. Inside the dome she'd press around the donut until the whole this was flush with the top of the base.

Step 2: The Statue

We decided that we wanted as much of the statue costume as possible to be covered in the same greenish material that we felt closely resembled the color of the statue.

First we built a basic toga dress plus gloves and stockings. One word of caution, don't build these too far in advance of the holidays. Our daughter had a small growth spurt after we made the gloves and they almost didn't fit for Halloween!

Next the mask. We started with a basic, white plastic mask. this we attached to a FossShape skull cap. Then we cut the crown from craft foam and covered all the pieces in the same green fabric that the dress was made from. The wig was built from rolls of fabric which were then also covered in the green fabric.

The last element were the sandals which we a pair of cheap flip flops painted to match the, you guessed it, green fabric.

Step 3: Props

The torch was built on a flashlight base so it could light up when needed. We built the flame from orange theatrical lighting gel sheets taped over a from cut and shaped from a convenience store soda cup. For the calderon of the torch we used a lid from a margarine tub, painted green like the fabric. The railing was drawn on a small, thin strip of acetate using the same paint. Lastly the flashlight base was covered in the dress fabric.

The table was a toy box wrapped in the dress fabric. We used a double layer of foam letters for the writing on the tablet. The tablet is san-serif so I had to trim a lot of small bits from the letters to make it match. For fun, on the back of the tablet, using the same letters we wrote "Trick or Treat" which she could hold up to ask for candy.

Step 4: The Snow and Final Touches

We tried a number of ideas for the snow and finally settled on just lots of confetti made from white tissue paper. We fed this onto her through a hole in the top of the dome.

the lettering on the front of the snow globe was cut from red and black craft foam.