Sea Turtle and Plastic Straw Couples Halloween Costume

Sea turtle with plastic straw up nose viral YouTube video.
For Halloween I always try to use as many recycled items and things you find around the house as possible to make my costumes and buy as little as possible. I don’t think you should spend a lot of money on Halloween costumes, the fun is in the hunt and being creative.

Step 1: Couples Costume: Sea Turtle and Plastic Straw

I started with some cardboard I collected from Costco’s recycle box bin. You can find some nice clean pieces of cardstock, that was used to line products, that make excellent craft projects for free! I’m an environmental advocate so I can’t be a hypocrite and must stay on theme with “seaturtle,plastic straw, environmental” first I formed the shape of the shell with the cardboard, tape and a glue gun. Once the basic shape I desired is formed I then used pieces of recycled cardboard and kraft paper and lots of white glue and tape to form the texture on the shell, basically like paper mache.
I left it overnight to dry and harden then painted the first coat. A couple coats of paint after and a touch of gold paint highlights , I then finished it with 2 clear glossy top coats, to make sure if it rains it doesn’t get destroyed. I then by fluke found some reclaimed fabric at a nonprofit fabric recycling initiative sale that cost $9/3M that had a reptilian print...close enough! I made a hopes with exaggerated sleeves to look like turtle fins and made matching shorts with a tail and completed the hem with a curvy edge to imitate turtle legs. The mask was formed with cardboard in the same manner as the shell and I added some mesh scrap fabric I had for the eyes and elastic to form the head harness strap. The most expensive item was the clear spray paint...total cost of turtle costume is $30

Step 2: Plastic Straws Costume

For the straw costume I found some nylon fabric, which had the same sheen texture as a straw at the same sale for $3/m and bought 2m worth to form the tubes. I couldn’t find a striped fabric so I got a red sharpie marker and drew my own stripes, probably the most laborious part of the costume. I cut the fabric into the size strips I wanted and sewed along the sides to form tubes and turned the tubes right side out and stuffed the tubes with bubble wrap and some card stock formed into tubes, all from my recycle bin of course! I then fastened all the tubes to an elastic strap that is worn around my upper chest that I attached Velcro for ease of putting on and taking off. I also made tubes with elastic sewn along the edge of one end so that it could be worn on my arms as sleeves. I made one sleeve entra long so that it could be worn rouched up to look like the bendy part of the straw. To complete my straws I made a hat out of rolled up card stock and added a bend with a second tube, glue gunned it together and covered it with the striped fabric. I added a base to stablize the hat when worn with a piece of cut out round cardstock with the glue gun and covered it with some black scrap pieces of fabric to camouflage the base. Finally I added an elastic strap to the hat to be worn under the chin to hold the hat in place. The total cost of this costume is under $10