I made my son (6yr) and daughter (2yr) a "Mickey & Minnie Topiary" for their Halloween costume this year.

Everyone loved them and they were a big hit everywhere we went!

It took about 2 weeks to make the costumes.

Supplies

Paper Mache Head:

Newspaper

Paper Plates

Elmers Glue White

Big Bounce Ball

Helmet

Long Bolts, Nuts & Washers

Green Paint

Hot Glue Gun & Hot Glue Sticks

Plastic Grate Sheet

Under Body:

Green Long Sleeve Shirts

Green Leggings

Green Shorts

Green Shirt

Yellow Bowtie

Minnie Bow

Cartoon Gloves

Upper Body:

Spanish Moss

Ivy Leaves Vines

Shoes:

Old Shoes

Stuffing

Green Duck Tape

*For my two kids it took about 6 - 8oz bags of Spanish Moss and 2 -24pk of ivy vines. Also took about 3 - 100pk of hot glue sticks.

Step 1: Paper Mache Heads

We took a bounce ball and blew it up to the size head we needed to fit each child.

Then we used the ball as a base to paper mache the head using a half and half mixture of water and Elmers White Glue, with newspaper to make the form. Make sure to cover the ball with plastic wrap before putting on the strips of newspaper. We use paper plates to make the ears and paper mache'd them also.

Once the paper mache was dry, we cut a rectangular viewing area out of the head so that they can see. We used a plastic grated sheet and painted it green and glued it into the cut out spot.

Since our kids are pretty young to just wear the heads, we used the inside part of their bike helmets and attached them to the inside of the heads. We used nuts, washers and a long bolt through the top of the head to the helmet on the inside. Then we used bolts through the sides of the heads to center the helmet, which with this we just hot glues them to the sides of the helmet inside.

Once finished with supporting the helmet inside, it is time to paint the whole head with Green Paint.

Once the paint is dry, you can start gluing the Spanish Moss onto the entire head. For the nose, we just bunched up some Spanish Moss to form the nose.

After the Spanish Moss is placed, you can start hot gluing the Ivy Leaves onto the entire head...which takes awhile, LOL.

For the finishing touch, we added the Minnie Bow to the Minnie Head.

FINALLY THE HEADS ARE FINISHED!

Step 2: The Body

For the body, we bought green shirts, leggings, shorts and skirts to use.

We hot glued the Spanish Moss on all the clothes.

Then we hot glued the Ivy Leaves on all of the clothes.

We only glued on to the spots that were visible after we tucked the clothes in and put the short and skirt over the leggings.

For any areas that will rub together, like in between the crotch area and under the armpits, we only put Spanish Moss, NOT ivy leaves. This helped it not get messed up from rubbing.

For the finishing touches, we hot glued a Yellow Bow to Mickey's outfit and we also purchased cartoon hands to use.

Step 3: The Shoes

We took old shoes and duck taped the shoes while adding stuffing to make the shoes look oversized. You will need to test fit the shoes as you go along to make sure that they can slide the shoes on and off.

We hot glued the Spanish Moss onto the shoes.
Then we hot glued the Ivy Leaves onto the shoes.

We found out that in between the shoes is another area that gets rubbed from them walking, so we only kept spanish moss in between the shoes.