Hero In a Half Shell: DIY Turtle Costume

Welcome to the last week of school for my precious five year old. This week, his teachers have basically decided to completely forgo all educational planning and essentially make this week a party everyday for the kids. Which I absolutely love. As a kid in school, what was better than counting down to summer? Why not countdown to summer with a fun different activity each day? Today is Super Hero Day!

Zander wasn't really sure what he wanted to be for a super hero. He's totally in LOVE with every super hero lately, so this was a hard pick for him. Finally he settled on Raphael. AKA the Red Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. He already had a mask. Technically we have two masks which turns into all 4 ninja turtle masks. They're reversible, so one mask has two colors. Boom. Awesome. We're partly there for the costume! What about the rest? Enter my rare creative DIY Mom side of my brain. Thus the need to share this with y'all. You're welcome.

Y'all. I'm not gonna lie. I'm super proud of how this turned out. You see, I refused to buy anything for this super hero day thing at school. Refused. I immediately started googling how I could make this costume for Zander.... and I immediately got discouraged. Most of what is online required things I didn't have around the house. (Like spray paint)... So I really had to get creative.

How I made Zander's costume!

Turtle Shell
What I used:

1. Cardboard box insert
2. Markers
3. Ribbon
4. Stapler 

What I did:

• The insert was a rectangle. I drew the oval shaped turtle shell in the middle of the box. 
• Using markers, I drew the shell pattern and colored it in. No, it's not perfect, but who cares? It's for a 5 year old. 
• After coloring, I bent the edges of the box so it would form a shell-like shape. 
• Holding where I folded, I stapeled it in place
• Using Christmas curling ribbon, I strung it through the folds & formed a "back-pack" like method to where Zander could wear the shell on his back. 

Turtle Belly.
Y'all! Huge props to Amanda for this. When I was posting all over instagram the progress of the shell, she suggested how I could do the belly. I took that idea and ran with it!

What I used:

1. Old white T-shirt (too small for Zander so he won't miss it)
2. Markers
3. Scissors
4. Needle & Black Thread
5. Pins

Because Amanda is a Genius and really helped me out. I had to share via Snapchat!

What I did:

• With I pencil, I sketched the outline of a turtle shell belly on an old white t-shirt. (I used the help of a google search image to see what several looked like.) I combined the look of two different pictures into one. 
• Using a black marker, I went over the sketch once I was happy with the design. 
• Now color away to how you want your shell to look! 
• Once I was happy with the look, I cut out the outline of the shell. Here, I cut out both the FRONT and BACK of the t-shirt. The idea here, was I didn't want it to fray, so I was planning to sew a little. 
• Because I wanted to sew, I left some of the white on the edge. 
• Here, I sewed by hand with a running stitch along the black outline. Once I was happy with it and satisfied there'd be no fraying, I cut the remaining white. 

To finish the look:
// I took Zander's green ninja turtles shirt and pinned the belly over the logo. This way, he looked green and didn't have to ruin his favorite turtle shirt!
// We put the "back-pack" shell on, and finished the look with the mask and khaki shorts!

What I love is that this can easily translate to a Halloween costume with long sleeves and pants. Plus, super easy! Literally, y'all I didn't even make my markers go dry coloring everything. I was pretty impressed by that.
Do you make your own costumes? I feel like this would've been easier if I had a sewing machine, but lucky for me my running stitch has improved while doing this! What do y'all think?