How to Make a Minion Costume

Hey, so Mr. Minion here is competing in costume contest. If you could head over and give him a click (he's #33), he'd really like it :) Click here!

WHAT???!!  Dude, I know you just said that in minion voice. I made this homemade DIY minion costume for a Halloween party last year and in my extremely bias opinion, it's awesome. :) This photo was taken in the "line up" at my friend Christy's house. Apparently this minion got into some mischief. She's the same Christy photographer that took all of the amazingly flattering pictures of my family on my about me page. Yes, I normally frolic in a field wearing fake eyelashes. Anywho... The costume took about a week (mostly because of the paper maché dry time) and cost about $50 (less if you already own an exercise ball).

Do you want to make a minion? You do. Here we go.

Supplies (there's lots, but hey, it's an awesome costume)

• 4' x 8' Polywall Panel (sold at Home Depot in the Room Mouldings section)
• Exercise Ball (slightly wider than yourself)
• Paper Maché - Mix 1 part water with 1 part flour an a tsp of salt.  Easy.
• Construction Adhesive (Either Liquid Nails or Loctite will work)
• 2 empty/new quart size paint cans (sold at Home Depot in the paint section)
• Small Cheap Playground Ball (I got mine at the dollar store)
• Yellow Spray Paint
• Duct Tape
• Hot Glue
• Blue Fabric of some sort (I used an old sheet)
• Markers
• Craft Foam Sheets, 1 black, 1 white
• Utility knife
• small nuts and bolts

Supply Help:
I know sometimes you have no idea where to get some of the oddball supplies I have listed.  So, I took pictures of some of them on the shelves at the stores to help you out... because I'm nice like that.

1. Polywall Panel from Home Depot - It's big and white and flexible. You should be able to roll it up and shove it in your car. I did.

2. Empty Paint Cans - They sell them right across from the spray paint at my Home Depot. You need 2.

Step 1
Blow up your exercise ball and measure the diameter. If it's new, the measurement will be on the box. Now roll the polywall panel into a tube until it's the same diameter as your ball. You'll probably need 2 people to do this. Once you get it into a tube the same diameter as your ball, clamp it or have person 2 hold it, and drill several holes at the seem and insert blunt screws (are those called bolts?).  Then from the inside, attach a nut to each one. Yes, the screws are going to show a little in the final costume, but I find them hardly noticeable once painted.

Please excuse the pre-paper mache chaos happening above.

Step 2
Plop your exercise ball in a large bowl to keep it from rolling around and paper maché the heck out of it. (1 part flour, 1 part water, a little salt. Dip strips of newspaper and smear them on) I had the kids rip up the strips of newspaper. Fun in the kitchen... black fingerprints everywhere. Yeah....

Exercise balls have a seam around the middle which really helps in getting a perfect dome. Just paper maché past the seam a little. You're trying to cover half of the ball. Do one layer at a time and let it dry completely before you move to the next layer to prevent mold. This process took a few days. I think we ended up with about 6 layers. For the last layer I used white copy paper so I would have a nice white surface to paint. Once the whole thing is dry, deflate the ball and carefully remove your hardened dome.

Step 3
Attach the paper maché dome to the polywall tube you made in step 1. I'll admit it, this is the toughest part of the costume. First I glued little scraps of foam just below the rim (you really could use anything for this), inside the tube with construction adhesive. You're trying to make a little ledge for the dome to sit on once you shove it in there. If you don't make a ledge, the dome is just going to slip down into the tube. You want it to stay right at the top. Let the ledge dry.

I trimmed my dome with scissors to the seam line the ball made in the paper maché. Give the top of that rim you just made inside the tube a generous bead of construction adhesive. Then you want to slip the dome inside the tube so it rests on the rim. If it doesn't fit, keep trimming the dome little by little until it slides in (or you force it). You want it to be as tight as possible. This took quite a bit of finesse. Run another bead of construction adhesive around the outside seam and smooth with your finger. In this pic we're cutting arm holes.. but you can see the dome glued to the tube here and the screws down the side.

Step 4
Cut arm holes and a mouth. I looked at a picture and drew the "WHAT?!" mouth with a pencil. I think I got inside the costume to determine where to put the arm holes. You will be seeing out of the mouth. That might help you figure out where to put them. We used both a power multi-tool and a utility knife to cut.

Step 5
Paint the whole thing bright yellow. I used Rust-Oleum spray paint. Let it dry.

Step 6
Make the goggles. You need to cut the bottoms off of two quart size paint cans (warning, they will be sharp). I used tin snips for this but a multi-tool with a metal bit might work. The fronts of the goggles are going to be the top of the cans where you'd put the lid on. You don't need the lids for the goggles.

You can't cut the bottoms straight off. You have to cut at a slight angle to get the goggles to sit flush against the rounded costume.  Like this...

Step 7
Make eye balls! Cut a cheap small rubber/plastic play ball in half. Even if there's a design on the outside of the ball, the inside should be white. Flip the ball inside out. Draw the eye part with a Sharpie. Trim it down with scissors until it fits inside the paint cans. Slide it in the goggle from the side you cut.  Attach with duck tape. Be careful... the paint cans are sharp!

I do realize what it looks like I am making... however, they are eyeballs. :)

Step 8
Attach the goggles with eyeballs to the minion (now that it has eyes, we'll call it a minion). I taped the paint cans together, ran a bead of construction adhesive around the rims of the paint cans, then taped them to the minion on the sides. Center the eyes right over the seam between the dome and the tube. If you put duck tape on the sides of the cans, the goggle strap will hide it.

A bit blurry, but you can see what's going on.

Step 9
Cut goggle strap, teeth, and hair from craft foam sheets. Hot glue in place. The goggle strap is made up of a few pieces. The teeth are just rectangles with rounded corners.

Step 10
Make shoulder straps on the inside to hold up your minion. I used two old belts for this. Attach them taught across the inside of the minion on each side, right over where your shoulders would be. Remember, you want your face to end up somewhere near the mouth so you'll be able to see. I secured them with nuts and bolts. The bolts will be hidden under the overalls when the costume is done. This picture is taken through the arm hole.

Step 11
Last step! Hot glue some blue fabric to the minion so he's not naked. I used an old blue sheet we had. Wrap it around the bottom, cut squares for the front and back of the overalls, and make straps.  I drew the logo with a Sharpie.

Tada! Now wear a pair of jeans, a yellow long sleeved shirt, black shoes, and black gloves. Your minion transformation is complete. Go wow your friends :)

We attended a costume party this night where we took second place. (We bought the Gru mask on Amazon) Yep, I was beat out by the Lego People made by Katie and Jon at Sew Woodsy! I have to admit, they're pretty amazing! We're both a part of The Really Awesome 2013 Handmade Costume Series below too. So click over and check out all of the costumes both on Really Awesome Costumes and on C.R.A.F.T. They're are so many ideas, I'm proud to be a part of it.

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How to Upholster a Box Spring

Operation Big Girl Room still in full chaotic swing. It's tough to re-do a kid's room when they are still very much living in their room every day. I have to clean up tons of toys and laundry first before I can even get to the thing I'm trying to redo. Sheesh. I've wanted to do this project for a long time. Before, Kaley had a traditional bed skirt. But because of the style of her bed, it always just looked like a big wrinkled mess. So, I decided to upholster her box spring.

Supplies

• Box Spring (duh)
• Staple Gun
• About 6 yards of fabric depending on the size of the bed (This is a full)

Note about my fabric. This fabric was $2.99/yard. It's actually the fabric reusable grocery bags are made out of. It was called "bag fabric" at JoAnn's and I'm so happy I stumbled across it. I highly recommend this type of fabric for upholstering a box spring. (And it's cheap!)

Step 1

Cut your fabric lengthwise. Wide enough to cover the side of the box spring, wrap around the top about 6"-8", and wrap around the bottom a couple inches. It doesn't have to go around as far on the bottom. You don't have to cut super straight. I found standing the box spring up was the easiest way to do this. Let's just pretend that laundry is put away there... (little secret, it never really is).

Step 2

Start stapling. This is the bottom. I really didn't need to wrap the fabric that far under, you'll never see the bottom. Make sure your staples are going into the wood. Smooth the fabric out flat as you go. It doesn't have to be super tight. On the top, put the staples as far in (toward the middle of the bed) as you can get them and still hitting wood. If they are close to the edge, you will see them.

When you get to a corner, just smooth it around and fold the fabric on the top and bottom. Staple in place. My fabric did not go all the way around. I used 2 pieces and made the seams at the foot and head of the bed. This fabric does not fray so I just overlapped and kept stapling.

That's it. A cheap and easy way to get rid of that bed skirt. I love the polka dots!

If you'd like to see where we started or other projects from Operation Big Girl Room, click on the pics below.

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How to Make The Incredibles Halloween Costumes + Costume Contest

I've always liked Halloween and always decorated and dressed up. However, about 4 years ago I started working in an office that took Halloween to a whole new level (some might call it crazy). These people are crazy serious, not only in work on Halloween but at costume parties they throw at their own houses. Remember this post from a couple years ago? Yep, that's my office. Each year we outdo the year before. So a couple years ago the pressure was on for a full family costume so we could attend one such party and not hang our heads in shame. That year, I transformed us into The Incredibles.

Since the only part of this costume you really have to make is the logo on the shirts, I'll first show you what I gathered for us to wear. I had about half of the items already, the other stuff was purchased at Walmart, and the black work gloves are from Home Depot.

Mr. Incredible:

You'll notice Mr. Incredible is wearing a lot of women's clothing :). I could not for the life of me find men's sweat pants (because we all know he wasn't gonna wear tights) or long sleeved shirts in bright red. All the men's stuff was maroon. So, the women's section it had to be. Also, the reason he has two shirts on is because the only long sleeved bright red shirt I could find (quickly and cheaply) was women's. Women's shirts have a much larger neck hole (in general) than men's and well... Mr. Incredible was showing a little too much chest hair. I did find a men's short sleeved shirt. So he just put it on over top of the long sleeved one.

Mrs. Incredible, yep, that's me:

I had trouble finding red leggings in women's sizes so these are actually a girl's 14-16 :) Good thing they are super stretchy! They're quite the high-waters inside the boots though.

Violet and Dash:
The kid's costumes were easy since kid's clothing comes in bright colors usually anyway. "Dash" will probably have to wear girl's clothing, but he'll look really fast so it's okay. ha. They both are wearing red long sleeved t-shirts, red tights, black shoes, black gloves (I think Dash took his off), and the same orange t-shirt cut into strips for the belt. Dash has a girl's black diaper cover on over his tights and Violet has some black leggings I cut to look like small black shorts. I didn't do the mask makeup on my Dash because we were at a friend's house and I didn't want his black makeup smeared all over their furniture. I'm nice like that.

To make the Incredibles logo for the shirts:

Supplies:

• Felt - Orange, Black, Yellow, White (my black is actually an old black t-shirt)
• Scissors
• Heat-N-Bond
• Iron
• Incredibles logo template - Click here for the template!
• Printer

Step 1.
Iron Heat-N-Bond to the felt. I find cutting a rectangle of Heat-N-Bond slightly smaller than your fabric rectangle or felt works best. You want the Heat-N-Bond smaller than the fabric so you don't stick Heat-N-Bond to your ironing board. Just follow the directions on the package. You should have several pieces of felt backed with Heat-N-Bond after this step.

Step 2
Print out and cut apart the pieces of the The Incredibles logo. I have made 3 versions for you. An adult size and two smaller children's sizes.  If they don't fit the shirt you have like you want, you can scale them when you print them out or scale on a copy machine. Click here for the logos.

Step 3
Trace the pieces with the right side of them touching the Heat-N-Bond paper backing. Remember, the backing is the back of the logo that will be sticking to the shirt so you have the trace the pieces backwards in order for it to be correct when you iron it to the shirt. I forgot the backwards part and so you'll notice all of the logos on our shirts are backwards compared to the cartoon versions. No one has ever noticed so don't sweat it if you forget too. Cut them out.

Step 4
Reassemble the felt logo pieces on each shirt, peal off the backing, and iron in place. Follow the directions on the package to see how long to hold the iron down.

Now suit up and head to the party as various other motorists do triple takes of your family as you drive by. It's quite entertaining actually. I think we scared our neighbor on the way to the car.

Let's be friends!

Tween Girl Side Table

The first project for the great tween bedroom makeover is complete! Okay, so she's almost 6... not quite a tween but it sure feels like it with every "whatever" and eye roll being flung about. Last week I gave a tour of Kaley's room in it's current "baby" state. She was itching for something a little less pastel and a whole lot brighter. Since her current "nightstand" was really a tiny round plant stand with no storage and no room for even a book, we tackled this problem first. After all, my girl is learning to read and she needs a place to put the book down at night before she dozes off, right?

And, lucky for me... the neighbors were movin' on out (not sure if it was the east side or not) and left this beauty at the curb. Score! Quite scratched but the perfect size.

Ready to go from junk to funk? (Make mental nerd comments, I'll wait)

Supplies:

• Mask - I use 3M tekk respirators made for painting and sanding 
• Medium to fine grit sand paper - I used an oribital sander but plain sand paper would work fine
• Primer - Either spray on or paint on
• Spray Paint - I used Rust-Oleum 

Time to grab the kids and suit up! I promise, they are smiling under the masks.

Step 1: 

Give the entire thing a light sanding. Remove any chipping areas and smooth out rough spots. Encourage children not to fight.

Step 2:

Prime your piece. I used a quick coat of spray primer. Doesn't have to be fully covered and you might need to give it a really light sanding again after the primer dries if it feels gritty.

Step 3:

Patch any chips or damaged spots if you have any. I used 3M Patch Plus Primer on a small chip on the top. Since it was so tiny, it dried in minutes.

Step 4:
Paint away! Paint many light coats and allow them to dry completely in between to avoid the sticky finish afterwards.

I gave this table a week in the garage before I brought it in. Time to get rid of the spray paint smell and to cure. I also find if you give your piece a coat of Pledge or furniture polish before you bring it in, it helps prevent that sticky feeling too. The knob was switched out for an antique glass one... I had extra from when I redid my dresser.

 I think it turned out so great and the finish is really nice.

Not bad for a dumpster dive and some paint! Stay tuned for more Operation Big Girl Room progress!

Apparently I have a thing for painting old tables. Here's a few more I did. :)

  

If you'd like to see where we started with Operation Big Girl Room or some other projects for this room, click below.

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3 Quick and Simple Organizing Ideas

This post brought to you by Gecko Tech. All opinions are 100% mine.

Lately I've been trying to purge, streamline, and simplify my life as much as possible. With the start of school and sports, efficiency is the key in getting my jam-packed schedule done. In order to accomplish that, I need organization. Last week I shared my weekly planner to keep my head organized, and this week I'm sharing 3 simple tips to keep the day to day stuff organized using Gecko Tech Reusable Hooks. Because they are removable, waterproof, and reusable, they're perfect for my temporary rental abode.

1. Clean up that craft area. Since part of my job is to create and share projects on a deadline, I need a space to do that. And, because I'm doing that in between working a regular 9-5 and parenting 2 little ones, I have to get my craft on quickly. It's incredibly frustrating when I only have an allocated 30 minutes to work and I spend 10 minutes of that time trying to find a supply. It only took a minute to hang up my most frequently used bobbins, but will save me lots of minutes later when I don't have to search for them in my drawer of clutter.

2. Since I cook dinner every evening (okay, almost every evening) my kitchen has to function well. Night after night, I kept finding myself crouched on the floor pulling out 5 pots and pans just to find one lid. Not only do your quads start to burn, once you find the lid, you then have to restack everything you just pulled out. The little one always seemed to get buried under whatever had come out of the dishwasher last. 

So I did something about it. Stick a couple Gecko Tech hooks to the insides of your cabinets and you'll never have to search for the little lost lids again. Remember, they're removable and reusable so you won't damage the cabinets and can always move or reposition if your needs change.

3. Conquer those bath toys. After cooking dinner each night comes bath time and the kids love to play. Thing is, they don't love to clean up and that hanging mesh bag thing was useless before. Even when they did get the toys back in there, the suction cups never held. Especially when the toys were wet and heavy. Then it became just a big bag of wet mildew toys laying in the tub all the time. Since the Gecko Tech hooks are waterproof, you can use them in the shower. Love that. Good bye suction cups and hello to toys that might actually dry before the next bath.

That's it. 3 simple, quick, and effective ways to streamline the day-to-day stuff using Gecko Tech Reusable Hooks. If you're looking for more creative inspiration, follow the makers of Gecko Tech, The Duck Brand, on Twitter and go pick up Gecko Tech hooks at Meijer stores and soon on Amazon and at Office Max. Happy organizing.

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