Homemade Word Girl and Captain Huggy Face Costume

Halloween is fast approaching and I always seems to forget to share these costumes I made a few years ago. My oldest son was obsessed with Spider-man (still is!) and my oldest daughter wanted to be Word Girl with her younger brother dressed up as Captain Huggy Face.  I decided that we would just go with it and have a Super Hero themed Halloween. Getting a Spider-man costume was easy but Word Girl and Captain Huggy Face ended up being a challenge.

Here are the results.  (Note: I am not a professional photographer and my kids only pose for cute pictures when I DON'T want them too!!)

 

I didn't capture pictures along the way for a tutorial but I will try to run through how I created the costumes...

I used these two images as the inspiration for my costumes. 

Word Girl & Captain Huggy Face Image

Captain Huggy Face - Homemade Costume from Flickr 

Word Girl Costume Instructions: 

I dyed a set of white thermal long john's using red dye.  I got that idea from one of the few blog posts I did find from someone who had made a custom. My daughter wanted a yellow cape out of satin and wanted it sewn directly onto the shirt.  It is a double layer of fabric, I sewed a large rectangle, leaving a small area undone so I could turn, turned it, sewed the unfinished section then gathered it, pinned it along the shoulder line and used a double zig zag stitch to secure. The belt and star emblem are made out of felt that I Steam a Seam to adhere (carefully with a towel on top) and then sewed for durability.  The hat was purchased at Wal-mart and we simply removed a tassel that it had at the top. (shown in picture at the bottom) 

Captain Huggy Face Costume Instructions: 

I lucked out with Captain Huggy Face and found the blue shirt, thermal leggings and red shorts at a thrift store in town.  The colors were perfect.  The shirt actually has an Old Navy logo on it but I covered it with the lightening bolt (also out of felt, fused with Steam a Seam and then sewn). The leggings are thermals, I'm not sure of the brand.  The shorts are from a Superman PJ set and even have a little Superman logo at the waist but that is covered by the belt so they worked.  The Captain Huggy Face Cape is made from a simple single layer rectangle of fleece fabric.  I gathered it and sewed along the shoulder line in the same manner as the Word Girl costume. The belt is also made in the same manner as Word Girl, I cut pieces from felt, fused and sewed.  The belts are secured with Velcro at the center. 

Huggy's hat was the hardest part of the costume to figure out.  I used an adult size knitted bennie type hat from Wal-Mart.  It was very cheap maybe $2-3.  I cut out brown ears from felt using the same method as the belts (fuse together, sew) but I hand sewed them onto the hat.  A friend helped me with the idea for his little antenna.  It is a bundle or 3-5 (I can't remember exactly) pipe cleaners twisted together.  I poked a hole through the hat and pulled the ends of the pipe cleaners out like spokes on a wheel.  I then cut a circle of red felt and hand sewed that over the ends of the pipe cleaners inside the hat and put another circle (that I had made a small cut so that it would easily wrap around the pipe cleaner antenna) on the exterior of the hat.  I wrapped the pipe cleaner "pole" in a

scrap of grey felt and secured with hot glue.  I glued on a large gold pop pop for the top.  It was hard to figure out but in the end was my favorite part of the costume because it is quite close to the actual hat!

Captain Huggy Face collecting candy on Halloween!

These two siblings share a special bond and now two years later still refer to each other as Word Girl and Huggy!  My little guy has worn this costume (the top and pants only) at least 2-3 days a week for 2 years! {notice the holes in the sleeve??} 

Recently big sissy went off to college; they worn their costumes on the last day before for she left and had a Word Girl marathon.