Space Robot Children's Halloween Costume - (Full-Body)

Halloween is coming closer and closer, and the children need their own new Halloween costumes! Make this easy to craft, inexpensive robot costume which will make your child stand out from the crowd!

Step 1: What You Need

Material:

- 1 Yellow bucket that should perfectly fit your child's head (otherwise you must cut eye and a mouth hole(s) later on)

- Many pages of colorful paper (cardboard is more sturdy therefore I recommend you use it)

- Pipe cleaners in different colors

- Vinyl tape in different colors

- 4 Bottle caps

- 2 Styrofoam Balls

- Brass fasteners

- Old T-shirt (I chose green as a color)

- Some kind of large Lid

- Optional: plastic gems

Tools:

- Scissors

- Hot glue gun

- Hole puncher

- All-purpose glue

- Carpet cutter

Safety

When using a hot glue gun, be sure to spread newspaper underneath so you don't ruin your furniture. The hot glue can get extremely hot so be careful not to touch it.

Step 2: The Helmet

Start off with cutting a hole or a slit in the bucket for the eyes. If the bucket doesn't perfectly fit like in the picture, simply cut two holes for the eyes, and one for the mouth. The hardest part is getting into the plastic. If you have a bucket with thick plastic, you might want to use a cutter or a knife instead of scissors.

Next, cut two small holes in the side of the bucket, or use existing ones where there may have been a handle. Insert one long pipe cleaner on each side, and bend them upwards. To ensure that the pipe cleaners will not drop downwards when the styrofoam balls are attached, simply put a ring of tape around the top (the "real" bottom" of the bucket), fastening the pipe cleaners beneath it (if unclear, take another look at the picture, the tape I used is white). Also, fixate the pipe cleaners in the bucket with hot glue.

After that, paint the styrofoam balls in any color you wish, and press them on the top end of the pipe cleaners as soon as the paint dries.

To finish the helmet, glue geometrical figures of paper onto the helmet so it looks more futuristic, and less like a bucket. Feel free to wrap more colorful tape around the helmet too.

Step 3: The Body

This part is very easy:

Glue the lid, the bottle caps, plastic gemstones and pipe cleaners (bend them so they look cooler!) on the t-shirt with hot glue so it looks like there are controls everywhere (feel free to take the picture as reference)!

Step 4: The Arms

Take a piece of colorful paper (cardboard is more sturdy, but you can just glue a few pieces of normal paper together to have the same effect) and wrap it around your child's wrist. Be sure to make the "cone" wider around the top, and more narrow around the bottom.

Punch holes in the paper where it should overlap and insert brass fasteners to connect both sides. Repeat on the other side. Feel free to customize the paper in any way you like (I simply glued blue paper around the ends)

Step 5: The Legs

Proceed the same way as you did for the arms. Try to create a perfect cylinder here, to create a mechanical effect. I tried to create a R2D2-like pattern with blue, white and black paper and vinyl tape.

Step 6: The Feet

The feet are cones. When finished, you just close them over your shoes. That way, nobody sees your child's "human" feet.

You might need bigger paper than A4 or Letter for this step, it works the same way as the arms and legs, but you have to create a cone shape. Proceed to wrap the paper around your child's foot (in shoes!), then connect everything. Now cut the paper off at the
bottom to make a flat surface!

Decorate as you wish.

Step 7: The Shoulders

The shoulders are one of the easiest steps, but also give the whole costume an extra touch.

Measure the length of your child's shoulder (one side) and cut the paper so it has the same. Cut small holes in the t-shirt where you can insert the brass fasteners.

I decided to use yellow paper for this step, because it creates a nice connection to the yellow helmet. The red border creates a connection to the red paper used for the arms.