Easy No-Sew Cactus Costume

by Elaina M

11K2112

Intro: Easy No-Sew Cactus Costume

I'm huge fan of dressing up on Halloween and normally spend months planning and plotting my attack, but to be honest, this year it just kind of snuck up on me. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to get crafty and play dress-up at my very real adult job - I had to act quick and devise a costume that I could make in a single Sunday afternoon and (most importantly) one that I could source the materials for via Amazon Prime 2-day shipping.

As such, my version of an easy no-sew cactus costume was born. I drew inspiration from an advertisement I saw of a woman wearing a cactus sweater that read "don't touch, I'm prickly". I thought it was hilarious and that it would make a great costume.

This easy costume only takes a green knit sweater, a handful of pipe cleaners and about a half an hour to make!

STEP 1: Supplies

Optional:

  • Green stockings or pants

Notes:

* The Green Knit sweater I used has POCKETS!!!!!

* I also looked at this Yellow Flower Hair Clip - but ended up going with the hat.

* I included the links to the items I bought from Amazon above.

STEP 2: Making Your Cactus Costume

  1. Fold 6-inch beige pipe cleaner in half to make a V-shape.
  2. Push the ends of the pipe cleaner through the holes in the knit sweater.
  3. Repeat randomly over the surface of the entire sweater - I used about 60 pipe cleaners.

STEP 3: Notes About Pipe Cleaner Placement

If you want your cactus spines to stick straight out: place your pipe cleaners vertically along one of the knit ridges

If you'd like your cactus spines to lay flat: place them horizontally through 2 separate knit ridges.

**note: I found that having the spines on the backside of the sweater lay flat made it easier to sit down without smashing the V-shapes of the pipe cleaners or poking myself.

STEP 4: Cact-acular Costuming

Given the time, effort and cost - I have to say this was one of the most satisfying DIY halloween costumes I've had the pleasure of making. Hope you enjoy an happy Halloweening !

10 Comments

Katusha 6 months ago

Thanks for posting this! My kid insisted that I dressed as a cactus to compliment the horse/cowboy combo and I didn't know where to begin. This was so easy!!

Alex in NZ 4 years ago

This is awesome! Simple to make, but visually striking and very funny. Thank you for sharing :-)

Elaina M 4 years ago

You are most welcome ! Thank you for the kind comment and I'm so happy you enjoyed it. It was super fun to make :)

bekathwia 4 years ago

I love this! Great job, Elaina!!

JT3OSU 4 years ago

What a great and simple idea! One I'll have to remember.

Elaina M 4 years ago

It was super easy !! Which also made it super fun ;)

Elaina M 4 years ago

Thanks! And I'm kind of obsessed with that hat now lol. So Practical... and Fashion ;)