When a halloween costume is not in the budget, I DIY! :-) This is one of the cheapest DIY's I've ever done. The total cost for a pair of Minnie Mouse ears? ONE DOLLAR!!!
I knew my sweetie's Minnie Mouse costume had to be free or low-cost. I had a little skirt with polka dots already and I found a red shirt at a local thrift store. It was 50% off, so it ended up being about 75 cents for the shirt. :-) But no Minnie Mouse costume is complete without the iconic ears and bow! I knew I could make one for muuuch cheaper than what I could buy one for, and since Halloween is....a day away, this had to be done myself. I was inspired by this tutorial!
Thankfully, I got sooo lucky at Dollar Tree and found a headband that had a big red bow on it already! It was the perfect base to build my Minnie Mouse ears off of. Here's the step-by-step.
1. Carefully remove the bow from the headband.
2. Use a cup (or anything round) to draw a couple circles onto some cardboard and cut them out. Cut them slightly smaller than the marked line. The cardboard is necessary so that the ears will stand up on their own and not be flimsy.
3. Next, use that same cup to measure circles on the black felt for the outside of the ears. I made the front and back of the ear into one piece and just kind of eye-balled a length of felt in between that would allow for the headband to be glued in there too.
4. Whip out that hot glue gun and get to it! I used a dot of glue to secure the cardboard to the felt, then a line of glue to secure the headband to the inside of the ears. Lastly, glue all around the edge of the cardboard and press the top part of the felt ear to that.
5. Now, reattach the bow to the middle of the headband.
It looked great when I was done gluing everything on, and you could tell it was Minnie Mouse, but it was really missing those polkadots. I experimented with using craft paint to make some dots, but I hated how messy it looked. So, the only solution? Use trash. YES! I had used my hole punch on some white paper ages ago, and I knew the "punches" would be the perfect size! And they would all be uniform! Yay!
For the polka-dots, I used a touch of Aleene's tacky glue on each one, and eye-balled the placement of the outer 3 dots. Then I filled in the rest of the bow until I was happy with how it looked! These ears aren't perfect, but they are going to be perfect to top off baby girl's costume!! For something that will be worn one night, $1 is a great price for a costume accessory!
Drop me a comment down below, I'd love to hear about homemade costumes and accessories that you've made! Hope you have a safe and Happy Halloween!
