One of our kids favorite musicals is "Little Shop of Horrors" and one of our girls wanted to be the plant. After some discussions we modified the idea a bit and went with a fly caught in the mouth of a potted venus flytrap plant.

Step 1: The Pot

First item to take care of was the pot itself. This meant a trip to the home improvement store for fittings. A large terra-cotta colored pot made of plastic was the winner.

We cut the bottom from the pot so her legs could stick out then set about adding a system of nylon web belts that would allow the pot to hang from her waist.

To mask the belt system we cut a round plug of rigid foam insulation. This was painted a sort of dirt/mud brown. Then we added three small flytrap heads around the edge because from our research we learned that flytraps usually grown in little bunches. The small traps were built on a paper towel roll base on which was attached a sort of green fabric taco. The center of each mouth was painted red and around the lip small green pipe cleaners were hand sewn as the plant's teeth.

As a little bonus feature, one of the three small plants was actually a funnel leading to a bag hidden under the foam. People could feed candy to the little plant and it would slide down the tube into the bag for later retrieval.

Step 2: The Plant

The plant outfit was basically a long-sleeved shirt, mittens and a mask. The shirt and mittens were made from the same green fabric we used to cover the smaller flytraps. The mittens looked like additional small flytraps. and were constructed in a very similar manner.

The mask began with a store-bought fly head. We felt a little guilty going this route but ultimately decided there was no reason to reinvent the wheel. Especially when you've got 5 kids to costume. We did add fly wings to the sides of the head using some bend wire and layers of iridescent fabrics.

Next we made a sort of collar for the mask that looked like the head of a large flytrap. These were glued and tacked into place and painted like the other traps. Again around the edge we used green pipe cleaners for the teeth.

Step 3: Finishing It Off

As a couple of finishing flourishes, we first added a layer of dark brown rubber mulch to the foam disk to make it look more like dirt. We then made her a pair of shoe covers from a mottled brown and tan fabric which looked like roots. Additional strips of this fabric were attached to the bottom of the pot to hang down like a bit of a skirt.

Lastly, just for fun, we glued a small rubber fly to the lip of one of the small flytraps.

Thanks for reading!