Toy Story Costumes

Hello!  A few months back, my friend called me complaining about how pricey costumes were.  I remember telling her "well what costumes were you trying to get?" Knowing FULL well, she was trying to figure out in her head if I could make them!! :) LOL, I'm kidding she know I'm ALWAYS willing to craft with her!!  One of the problems she had was that they were out of "season", as Halloween was nowhere in sight.  She needed them for a costume party.  She wanted Toy Story costumes, including Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head for her and her hubby, and Jessie for her daughter.  I told her NOT to shell out the 50+ bucks PER costume plus shipping/handling from the online store and to let me make them instead! While this is NOT a full tutorial, as I had not started blogging yet, and didn't take sufficient pictures (nor do I remember the measurements at this point) I thought it might be fun to share them with you! :)

Here are the three of them!

For the Jessie costume, I took a pair of old jeans that my friend's daughter already had, and asked her to buy some remnants of cow print fabric.  I think she ended up paying like a dollar a yard, and it only took about half a yard of fabric.  I hand sewed (Yes. back then I didn't have a sewing machine yet...) the print on the FRONT of the pant legs to resemble Jessie's chaps.  She was lucky enough that she already had the shirt, and it went perfectly together.  I would also suggest looking for Jessie pajamas for the top, or even using puffy paint on a plain white t-shirt.  I believe Walmart carries pajamas for like $5 when they are on clearance.  All my friend ended up buying were the hat and boots at the Disney store; so she only paid like $15 for the whole thing.  If you didn't want to buy the "authentic" boots and hat from the Disney store, I would cut costs down even more by thrifting them both and just spray painting and adding glitter!  The hat can also be easily made out of felt!

For the Mr. and Mrs Potato Head costumes, we purchased (yes, you guessed it) FELT!  I've said before that felt makes me happy, right?  Well, IT DOES!
My original thought was to use burlap to resemble a potato sack, but we thought twice since that would have been ITCHY! Also, not functional! :)  My local Walmart sells felt at ridiculously low prices, I'm talking between $1-$4 a yard, depending on the day, or whether it's a remnant or not.  Each "potato" took about two yards of fabric, and I cut them into a potato or oval shape with head and arm holes.  I sewed it inside out of course, and turned up the bottoms to make it resemble a potato even more.  I stuffed the bottoms and stitched them shut.
Then turned the whole thing back the right side up and made the expressions, and sewed on some ears.  My girlfriend and I thought it would be funny to make different expressions, since both characters are known for their interchangeable accessories and parts.  Sadly, we did NOT have the time!  I did, however, make her some extra felt flowers (daisies and roses) and other accessories to velcro on her thrifted $1 purse and visor.  (Seriously, how CUTE does she look?!)  The facial features were all glued on with spray adhesive.  He finished off the costume with white gloves and a bowler hat he already had.  Total cost for ALL three of the costumes was UNDER 50 DOLLARS! That's 1/3 what it would have cost to buy them.  The time (late nights) we spent together laughing together (exhausted from the long days): PRICELESS! :)

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