Never before has a costume personified a 7 year old better. The added features of light and storm audio made it interactive, precisely the capabilities it needed to raise the buying power for any kid. Make it a toy. He filled the role perfectly. Here he has gathered his tornado terror power and summoned, by the strength of his sheer will, the mighty storm you see before you.

Tornado.mp4
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Supplies

Supplies needed:

Cylindrical pop-up hamper (partial to this ‘Real Living’ brand I found at Big Lots for a few bonus features)

I’m so glad I came upon this because it coincidentally came with a couple of really handy features like, handles (repurposed as armholes), and a Velcro strap to adjust the collapsible height.

Batting
Stuffing
Grey tulle
Hot Glue (partial to Gorilla Glue sticks)
Embroidery thread
Metal wiring
Circuit Playground Bluefruit

Step 1: Release!

Released half of the wiring in the top structure, but did not remove it from the seam completely. Cut out the flooring panel for the torso to fit. The opening is already perfectly structured to fit a head as it would for a T-shirt opening. However, it did end up slipping a little bit on a 7 year old. I recommend sewing closed the head opening slightly at the shoulders and place elastic or spandex by the neck.

Step 2: Scrunch and Mark

Safety pin the base to the appropriate torso height. Mark the opening for the arm holes toward the top of the mesh. I put mine underneath the handles to repurpose later.

Step 3: Stabilize Scrunch

Embroidery thread had the staying power to hold in this bottom. I raised the base to where it needed to land on his body so he could still walk and enjoy trick-or-treating (been there, done that), and cut a slit in the mesh by the Velcro fasteners (this brand happened to already come with) to hold its collapsing height together.

Step 4: Handy Handles Armholes

Cut circles for armholes, and flip the handles under to sew along the mesh holes.

Step 5: Skeletal Structure

The released wire at the top needed to be adjusted to accommodate a wider-mouthed funnel shape. Using the end cap on the wire to lock it into place, I pulled the wire out as wide as it would allow, and locked both end cap and wire together in their new position under the seam with embroidery thread and hot glue. This didn’t give enough of a dramatic shape so I added a sweeping shape on either side with additional wiring. Secure these pieces to the main wire on top by looping the ends of the sweeping shapes to the main wire and hot gluing that connection to keep from slipping.

Step 6: Form Fitting

Attach batting to the form. Hot glue for the win! If you are still using standard hot glue sticks, I highly recommend splurging on the the Gorilla Glue brand because that stuff is definitely worth the extra $1 or $2 sticking power. After this stage, I added lighting with chainable NeoPixel LEDs repurposed from a mac-n-cheese costume that left some yellow paint residue. These were mainly hidden underneath stuffing to give off a glowing lightning storm effect.