2023 Halloween Costume Contest
Enter 2023 Costume Contest

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Family Costume

Rate this costume:

72 votes
12 comments  ·  add a comment 
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Family Costume

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Family

More views: (click to enlarge)
Photo #1 - The Very Hungry Caterpillar Family Photo #2 - The Very Hungry Caterpillar Photo #3 - The Strawberry Photo #4 - The Ice Cream Cone Photo #5 - The Slice of Watermelon
Costume type:  Costumes for Families
Categories:Halloween Costumes, Literary Costumes

This homemade costume for families entered our 2012 Halloween Costume Contest.

A word from Shanda, the 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' costume creator:

We do a family theme every year and this years theme was inspired by the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. The costumes are all handmade, without patterns, trying to follow the illustrations of the book. The baby is the caterpillar who ate through the strawberry, the piece of chocolate cake, the ice cream cone, the slice of watermelon and the slice of swiss cheese. The holes were the hardest part to make. I used old peanut butter jars (plastic) and based on the width of the costume sometimes duck taped two together and covered them in fabric and glued them in- sounds easy, but it was pretty tricky. The tricky part comes in cutting a hole in your costume to put the peanut butter jar in. If you put your costume on the ground and cut a hole straight through it won't lay the same way once the costume is on. So you'll end up having to cut an angle on the peanut butter jar to get it to fit just right. Tricky, but it's cool because you can actually see through the holes. The cake is a box with holes cut in it for the arms and head and fabric glued onto it (red snow hat for the cherry on top). The ice cream scoop is separate from the cone in order to put it on. The cone holds its shape with a foam wreath on the inside. They stick together with velcro. The ice cream scoop is the top half of a womens dress, stuffed with batting. I machine quilted the cone to put the lines on it. The watermelon slice has cardboard in the bottom to help it hold it's shape but still allow him to sit down. For the caterpillar I made a "bunting" for the baby, with various green fabrics (old t-shirts, etc). Used yarn for the fuzzy on it's back, and that's where the costume opens up to put it on (with velcro). I then made a hood and stitched on the antennas and eyes and nose. The costumes probably cost around $20 but that's because I had the box on hand as well as a lot of the batting used to stuff the strawberry and ice cream cone, and got a lot of the fabric for free (re-cycled clothing from a clothing swap I go to every year and made it into costumes!)

Rating: 4.3 of 5. Votes: 72

72 votes

Comments

#1 comment by Tara C. October 30, 2012

This is so cute and creative!!! I love it.

#2 comment by Youna October 31, 2012

This is the best costume ever! Brilliant idea, i love the very hungry caterpillar family!

#3 comment by Wade October 31, 2012

Great idea!! I hope you win!

#4 comment by Shelley Monsivais November 1, 2012

You guys are the cutest! I must have had some great intuition when I asked you to be our art specialist this year! You are amazing! We will have to have Ivory wear her costume when we do the hungry caterpillar book in class later this year.

#5 comment by Seth November 1, 2012

Cute idea ... love the costumes!

#6 comment by Cara November 1, 2012

Very fun and creative. Great job with the costumes Shanda!

#7 comment by John November 1, 2012

The craftmanship (or craftwomanship?) is amazing! This is such an original idea. Nicely done!

#8 comment by Julene November 2, 2012

WOW...I'm SURE this was MANY, MANY HOURS in the making! However, such a REMAKABLE OUTCOME!!! GREAT JOB :) WONDERFUL FAMILY COSTUMES!!!!

#9 comment by Cherise November 4, 2012

So creative! I Hope you win!!

#10 comment by Shayla November 28, 2012

I absolutely love this! Possibly the best executed family theme I've seen. Your son is sure a good sport to wear that pink watermelon "dress" and tights(!).

#11 comment by Jenny Nelson March 21, 2013

Would you be interested in selling them? I have a 5k Run coming up in which I am pushing a 73 year old lady with Cerebral Palsey in (by wheelchair). My husband and daughter will be helping. It run benefits our local library...so this would be perfect! Please consider.

#12 comment by Kristy November 16, 2014

Can you give a tutorial on how you made this?

Add Your Comment

* Comment: 
* Your Name: 
* Your Email: