Girl Loves Glam

No Sew Baby Owl Costume

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Every year of our marriage, I have wanted to dress in theme. We come up with funny ideas, even think of ones we would actually do, then realize that we most likely won’t be doing anything on Halloween that would allow us to really dress up. Needless to say, it never happened. Well guess what?! It is happening this year! Harper is an adorable little owl when her parents aren’t dressed up, but when they are….. She’s HEDWIG! I am so excited about it! After looking for a costume I noticed a few things. One, Hedwig costumes are lame, and ugly. Two, baby owl costumes are really colorful. And three, costumes in general are really expensive. I had most of the things I needed to make Harper’s costume, so I only ended up spending about $5.
Here’s what you’ll need…

*Warm and Natural batting. The amount of this varies on the size of costume you are making. For mine, I used close to 2 packages of the craft size that measures 34×45 inches. I found mine at JoAnn’s. (Tip: Use your 40% off coupons or watch for these to go on sale)
*Glue Gun
*Scissors
*Feathers. These are optional, but really add a lot to the costume. I had some ugly ones I wanted to use up.
*Measuring Tape
*Bowl, lid, or something similar to measure your baby’s head.
*Marker
Cut your material to the size you want your poncho to be. I wanted my poncho to be a square, so I chose a size I thought would be good for Harper, and cut the material into a square. Mine is 26.5×26.5 inches.
Put a bowl or dish on your baby’s head to measure how big to make the hole for the poncho. This may be the best part of the tutorial. She made some pretty great faces with that strange thing on her head. (P.S. Mine ended up being too big, so don’t go off of my picture for reference)
Put the bowl in the center of the material. Trace a circle around it and cut it out.
Try the poncho on your baby. If you did what I did, you can insert swear words here. I cut the hole a little too big. Don’t worry! There is a solution to this! If you cut your circle out just right, skip the next step.
If you cut your hole too large, just fold over the inner circle a little until it is the size you need it to be. Glue the material down onto itself. It will all be covered up by features later on.
Speaking of feathers, now is when you get to cut out the feathers. My feathers range between 3-5 inches long and vary in width too. I took the other material that I had and folded it over twice so that I had 4 layers. I cut 4 feathers at a time that way. Cut them in a feather like shape. They don’t need to be perfect, you just need quite a few of them. I cut nearly an entire bag of Warm and Natural just for the feathers. Sit down and watch a good TV show, and this seems to take no time at all when you are cutting 4 at a time.
Now, let the gluing party begin! Starting from a bottom corner, put some hot glue on the material in a zigzag pattern. I did about 4-6 inches at a time. Place your feathers on top of the glue and press down. Don’t worry about overlapping them side to side, there are enough feathers that lay on top of it that you won’t notice. Continue doing this layer by layer. When you go up a layer, put your glue about 3 inches above the top of the feathers in the line below. When you get to the neck hole, layer the feathers a few times and glue right to the edge of the hole.
Next, glue the real feathers around the poncho. Glue them underneath the fabric feathers to hide the ugly tops of the feathers.
Finally, you can put the poncho on your baby! Isn’t it the cutest?
To make the owl headband, you need…
*Glue gun
*White or ivory feather hackle pad (I sell them in my Etsy shop. You can find them in several other online stores or in some craft stores as well)
*Brown, tan, yellow, and white felt
*Big, black beads (I found mine at JoAnn’s)
*Elastic baby headband
*Scissors
This headband is super easy to make!
1. Gather your supplies.
2. Find items that are about the sizes you want the circles for the eyes to be. Trace them onto the brown and tan felt. Cut them out. Cut a triangle out of the yellow felt.
3. Attach the hackle pad to the headband. Put a little piece of the white felt behind the hackle pad and glue it there for added support. Sometimes you need to glue a few of the feathers down so that the feathers aren’t sticking straight up. (Step 3 and 4 can be done in either order)
4. Glue the felt face pieces onto the hackle pad. Glue the black beads on top of the eye circles.
5. Ta da! You are finished!
Now you can enjoy your little owl (or Hedwig)! Hoot Hoot!
Happy Halloween!
Our Harry Potter family Halloween costumes were all about our little Hedwig owl!
Harry Potter Family Halloween Costume on www.girllovesglam.com
I borrowed a Harry Potter robe from a friend and Dave wore his scarf and tie he already owned. We put a little lip liner “scar” on his forehead to create a Harry look and I let my hair air dry to get into the Hermoine character. Simple, but when they are all put together, they were great!

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Comments

  3. Nat and Holly

    I am dying over here right now!!! Oh my goodness, could this be any cuter? I think not! What an adorable costume and an even more adorable baby 🙂 Love the owl headband, that is my favorite!

    Reply

  5. Mary

    This costume is too cute for words! I saw your costume on ucreate….had to come over! Pinned & New Follower! Thanks for the great share!

    Reply

  11. Emily

    adorable!!! This is the second hedwig costumes i’ve seen today :o) I just linked up to Project Run and Play and saw your link… love it!

    Reply

  15. zween

    so adorable! You baby is just too cute, and I love the picture with the bowl on head. Priceless! I found you via skip to my lou. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply

  17. Lisa

    Forget the costume, I just want to smooch all over those chubby little cheeks! So Cute! (the costume is adorable tho, lol)

    Reply

  20. Mariel

    Absolutely adorable! Thanks so much for sharing it with us at ‘Or so she says…’. I would love to have you back again to share even more of your great ideas. There’s a link party kicking off in the morning (every Sat. through Tues.) Hope to see you there! http://www.oneshetwoshe.com

    Reply

  21. Dinosaur Costume

    It’s amazing what a few materials and a hot glue gun can do. 🙂 I’ve tried those things before and it was really fun, I had the time of my life making those cute costumes with literally anything. Thanks for the share!

    Reply

  22. Kelley

    I love this. But all I could find (at JoAnns or hobby lobby) was craft fur. It was really ruff on the side without feathers, but it worked. This costume is too cute!

    Reply

  26. Jennifer S.

    Just wanted to say thanks for your creativity and for sharing your pattern and instructions. When our 7-year old decided to be Harry Potter for Halloween, I thought it’d be cute for our 15-month old to be Hedwig. Like you, I searched for an owl costume and what I found were either really ugly, not the right coloring, or simply too expensive. Not at all a crafty person, I did some quick searches to see about making one myself and came upon your tutorial. Your instructions were super-easy to follow and the costume got RAVE reviews – the finished product was adorable and it looked like it was much harder and more involved to make than it actually was. Thank you!

    Reply

    • McKenzie

      Oh my goodness! Thank you for the sweet comment. I am so glad that I could help you out this Halloween! I love when things look like they took more time than they actually did!

      Reply

  28. Annmarie

    Thank you so much for this inspiration. I used a white dress as the base, then cut and sewed on felt feathers. For the head I used a white hat and just put on felt eyes and beak. I intended to do feathers there too but ran out of time. My 17mo old got rave review for his costume. I think it turned out great!

    Reply

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