Let’s go out to the lobby and dress up like a snack! Your little movie-lover will be thrilled to wear this no-sew Popcorn Costume for Halloween. With a few clever materials, you’ll be able to make this no-sew costume in about an hour.

Materials:

Main Costume:

• ½ yard white felt
• 1 roll red duct tape
• 4 pieces of ribbon, each measuring 18-inches by ¾-inch (choose black, white, yellow or red)
• 1 package of 2-inch white pom-poms
• 1 package 1-inch white pom-poms
• 1 sheet yellow craft foam or felt
• 1 sheet red glitter craft foam or felt
• 1 yellow marker
• hot glue gun (adults ONLY)
• hot glue sticks
• scissors
• stapler
• staples
• ruler

Hat:

• 8-inch round piece of white felt
• 5-inch round piece of white felt
• 6-inch round piece of scrap cardboard
• 1 large white pom-pom
• 3 small white pom-poms
• elastic, ¼-inch wide (length depends on your child’s head size)

No-Sew Popcorn Costume Instructions:

Make the Popcorn Box:

1. To begin, lay the white felt flat and cut out 4 rectangles. Two of the rectangles should be sized 12-inches by 18-inches (these will be known as “the long pieces”) and 2 of the rectangles should be 5-inches by 13-inches (these will be known as “the short pieces”).

2. These 4 felt pieces will form the popcorn bucket. Arrange all 4 pieces in line on your work table. They should be arranged like so: long piece, short piece, long piece, short piece. It’s important that the bottom edges of the felt pieces are aligned so they form an even line, and there should be about ¼-inch gaps between each felt piece.

3. Use your red duct tape to tape across the bottom section where all the felt pieces align, so they are connected. Fold the tape over (horizontally) the other side of the felt, so no sticky parts of the tape are exposed. (This will be the bottom of your popcorn box.)

4. Run red duct tape between the felt panels (along the ¼-inch gaps between each piece of felt) to secure them together. Then flip the felt over and run tape between the felt panels on the other side, and press the two pieces of tap together where they touch in the gaps (this will allow the edges of the popcorn box to crease into the corners of the box).

5. Run red duct tape (folding it horizontally, so half covers one side of the felt and the other half covers the flip side of the felt) over the edges of the long pieces of felt past where they align with the short pieces so all edges are covered.

6. Now, all pieces of the white felt should be taped together and every edge of the white felt—except for the tops of each panel—should be covered with red duct tape. At the bottom, the felt pieces align evenly and at the top they are staggered, with the longer pieces taller than the shorter pieces.

7. Attach the felt panel on the right with the felt panel on the left with the red duct tape creating a loop of the felt fabric. Crease each corner (between each panel) so the felt piece is now the rectangular popcorn box. The long pieces are the front and the back of the costume, and the short pieces are the sides of the box.

8. Use the red duct tape to add vertical stripes to each panel of the costume. I added two stripes to the front and back panels of the costume, and one stripe to the side panels.

9. Staple 2 pieces of the ribbon to the front of the costume (staple each ribbon about 6″ from each edge, so they look like the ties on an apron), and staple 2 pieces of ribbon to the back of the costume.

10. Cover exposed staples at the top of the costume with two pieces of duct tape – one across the front of the costume and one across the back.

11. Cut a popcorn shape from the yellow piece of craft foam or felt.

12. Cut out letters that spell “POPCORN” from red glitter craft foam (or use pre-cut letters) and glue them onto the popcorn shape. Once dry, glue this to the front of the popcorn box.

13. Make popcorn pieces by gluing 2 small pom-poms together and then gluing these to a large pom-pom. Glue 1 more small pom-pom on the other side of the large pom-pom to form a popcorn kernel. If desired, color popcorn kernel lightly with the yellow marker (especially in the crevices where the pom-poms meet each other) to make the popcorn look buttery.

14. Glue popcorn kernels to the costume, or attach popcorn kernels to t-shirt with safety pins (or hot glue if you don’t intend to use the shirt again).

15. To wear, have your child stand inside the box and tie the ribbon over his shoulders.

Make the Popcorn Hat:

1. Crumple up the paper towel sheet and glue it to one side of the 6-inch cardboard circle. Then, turn the cardboard circle over, and put a line of hot glue around the outside of the cardboard circle, close to the edge. Fold the 8-inch felt circle over around the entire edge so it’s covering the side with paper towel (which will make the hat puff up on top) and is secured by the glue on the other side.

2. Measure the ¼-inch elastic all the way around your child’s head going under his chin. Cut the elastic so that it’s snug but not too tight. Glue raw edges of elastic flat to middle of cardboard circle (on the underside of the hat).

3. Glue the 5-inch round piece of felt over exposed the cardboard and elastic (on the underside of the hat).

4. Make another pom pom popcorn kernel by gluing 2 small pom-poms together and then gluing these to a large pom-pom. Glue 1 more small pom-pom on the other side of the large pom-pom to form the complete popcorn kernel. If desired, color popcorn kernel lightly with the yellow marker (especially in the crevices where the pom-poms meet each other) to make the popcorn look buttery.

5. Once dry, glue the popcorn kernel to the top of the hat. 

No Sew Costume Tips

What to wear underneath the popcorn costume: Wear neutral pants or leggings (black or white) or tights (black, white, red or striped) and black, white, or red shoes. Wear a black, white, or red turtleneck, long-sleeved shirt, or hooded sweatshirt underneath the popcorn bucket.

Popcorn treat buckets: Pick up a cardboard popcorn bucket next time you go to the movie theater and add a ribbon handle; or buy a plastic popcorn bucket at the dollar store and add a duct tape handle.

The post No-Sew Popcorn Costume Tutorial appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Once Easter is done and the candy is gone, what do you do with the leftover eggs? Some people will simply put them away to save until next year. Making maracas, on the other hand sounds like a lot more fun! Dana from Made shows you how to make your own colorful maracas from leftover Easter eggs and plastic spoons. [how to make Easter egg maracas]

Project estimate:

• Easter eggs, on hand
• Plastic spoons, on hand or $1
• Popcorn kernels, on hand or $1 and up
• Tape, on hand or $1 and up
• Markers, on hand

Total: Free and up

The post Make Maracas from Easter Eggs appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

No matter what your age, Movie Night at home is always a big deal! I love popping my own corn, picking out a good video, and taking a couple hours to escape from my everyday life. These popcorn cupcakes from Lovey Cakes are so cute, and would make a fun surprise for kiddos on your next movie night. [how to make buttery popcorn cupcakes]

Movie Night Crafts:

Drive In Movie Party at Homemaking Fun

One of the most fun things I have done with my kids is have a pretend “drive in movie” with diaper box cars for each child inspired by this idea at Homemaking Fun.

Concession Stand by Homemaking Fun

Homemaking Fun also created this cute concession stand for her movie night, complete with fun-size candy bars and a cute little “Now Playing” sign. Definitely check her post for her awesome strategy for doling out treats.

Popcorn Painting Activity by Katherine Marie Photography

Katherine Marie always has these amazing theme weeks for her family, and one week was all about popcorn! Among all the beautiful and fun-looking things she did was a popcorn painting activity. She used sweet evaporated milk colored with food coloring for the paint. Check out her site for tons of inspiration and ideas for a movie night.

Movie Night Cup Printable at Suzy Q Scraps

I love this idea for marking drinks (and making them festive at the same time). Visit Suzy Q Scraps for the free printable.

Backyard Movie Night Ideas at Party Wishes

I love all the fun details for this backyard movie night at Party Wishes. They screened “Night at the Museum” for the neighborhood, and it looks like a ton of fun!

The post Movie Night Ideas appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Can you believe Halloween is this week? You probably have one or more parties to go to that involve dressing up. Have you decided what your Halloween costume will be yet? Have your children? If your kids are like mine, many ideas have flown around (ours: Backyardigans, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a piece of pizza, candy corn), but you  might still be looking for that perfect costume. At this point, the “perfect” costume has to be quick and easy! No problem. I have a bunch of no-sew costume ideas for you.

No-Sew Pumpkin Costume

I made this one out of an orange t-shirt (find it at your dollar store or craft store), some felt, and a hot glue gun. The hat was quick and easy to make with recycled cardboard, felt, 1/4″ elastic and a hot glue gun. [Pumpkin Costume Tutorial & Video]

No-Sew Princess Costume

I don’t have any little girls, but if I did, I’m betting they would want to be princesses for Halloween (and beyond).  I came up with a simple no-sew princess dress for you to make. That’s right, even if you can’t sew, you can make this dress! [instructions for the no-sew princess costume]

This would be a good one to combine with the Rapunzel costume.

No-Sew Popcorn Costume

My sons are so excited by the idea of dressing as food (see our list of possible costumes above). My 2 year-old son was so excited to dress as a bucket of popcorn for our photo shoot. Secret sidebar: I added an interactive element on this tasty costume: popcorn you can attach and detach and move around on the costume. Hot glue the popcorn kernels onto the scratchy side of a piece of velcro, and then they’ll stick to your costume. [No-Sew Popcorn Costume Tutorial]

No-Sew Pirate Costume

There are so many ways to dress as a pirate, I practically wrote a book about it. You can cobble this together from stuff you have on hand, and add a dollar store pirate accessory set to give it a little extra zing. [get all my tips for dressing like a pirate at AmazingMoms]

No-Sew Ladybug Costume

This costume is all based on that grade school trick to making a symmetrical heart. If you can do that, you can make this costume! Making a ladybug costume is so simple, but it could not be cuter. It was so cute, in fact, that I made one for each of my boys. All you need is about $1 worth of felt yardage, cute ribbon, and a hot glue gun. [how to make a ladybug costume]

Other Homemade Costume Ideas:

Last month, I gave you some other great no-sew costume ideas, so don’t miss them:

• Bumblebee costume
• Rapunzel costume
• Octopus costume
• Spider costume
• Paper Doll costume
• Homemade costume roundup

So, have you decided what you’re going to dress your child (or yourself) up as for Halloween this year?

The post Roundup: Last-Minute No-Sew Costumes appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Have you ever made your own microwave popcorn? Maize in Montana has, and her microwave popcorn is cute! She shares her secrets for successful–and cute–DIY microwave popcorn over on her blog. Make personalized microwave popcorn as a fun kids’ activity, or as part of a frugal movie night gift basket (you can pick up the basket and movie candy at the dollar store). [how to make microwave popcorn]

And since Maize shared all her popcorn memories (and secrets) on her blog, I’ll let you in on some of mine. My favorite trick right now is to air pop the popcorn and spray it with Crisco butter-flavored nonstick spray and then salt it. The spray smells like butter and gives you enough grease on your fingers to trick you into thinking you’re eating buttery popcorn, but the actual fat is negligible. If you’re used to super buttery popcorn, it will probably take you a bowl or two of this to readjust your palate, but this trick works for my family and completely removes the guilt for me.

Project Estimate:

• Brown paper bags, $1
• Popcorn kernels, $1 and up
• Masking tape, on hand
• Letter stamps and ink, on hand

Total: $2

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