Halloween Costume Ideas: DIY Duct Tape Candy Corn

(Yes,he’s wearing roller skates. Why? Why not?)

I love coming up with these Halloween costume ideas.

This duct tape candy corn costume was a lot of fun to make. As a kid I used to play dress up all the time, making crazy outfits from hats, dresses and shoes picked up a garage sales.  I “fashioned” old curtains and bedsheets into ball gowns. Once I tried to make a hoop skirt from a hula hoop.  So I guess this is kind of like that.

For Halloween my mom always sewed my costumes. Store bought costumes are inexpensive these days and easy to come by, but homemade just seems, I don’t know, more special. But I can’t sew, and I know I’m not the only one. So I try to come up with costume ideas you can easily make for your kids, or even for yourself, without a lot of special skills.

There’s a saying that goes, “Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.” It’s used to fix all kinds of things, and people even make purses and wallets out of it these days. So why not a Halloween costume?

So here’s what you need to make this Duct Tape Candy Corn Halloween Costume:

1 roll of white duct tape

1 roll of yellow duct tape

2 rolls of orange duct tape

(This was for my four-yer-old. If you’re making a bigger costume, you’ll need more tape.)

aluminum foil

scissors

First you need to make sheets of duct tape. Size will depend on who you’re making it for. I made mine about three times as wide my son’s waist. You just layer strips of duct tape, overlapping about a quarter of an inch.

After you get a few strips down cover the sticky side with more duct tape.

You just keep doing that until you have your sheets. You can tear the duct tape by hand, but you’ll get a cleaner edge and it’s less likely to curl and stick to itself if you cut it with scissors.

You need three sections: yellow at the bottom, orange in the middle and white at the top. You want the bottom yellow section twice as long as the top, and the middle section three times as long as top. So I did six strips of yellow tape at the bottom, nine strips of orange tape for the middle and three strips of white tap for the top. You need two sheets total to make a front and back.

Once you have both sheets made, fold one of  your sheets in half longwise, like cutting out a heart. But instead of a heart cut it out into a triangle shape with rounded corners. I just drew a freehand line to follow.

If you do draw a line, look at your sheet first and decide with side will face out. One side will probably be smoother than the other. Draw your line on the side that won’t face out. Make sure the white is at the top of your triangle when you cut it. Now you can use your first piece as a pattern to cut out the second so that they’ll match.

After you cut the pieces out if you need too you can fold a piece of tape over the top and bottom edges to make them look neater and straighter.

Now you need to make the shoulder straps. Lay the two triangle pieces together so that the insides are both facing each other. You’ll have to determine how long to make the straps and how wide to set them apart based on the person you’re making the costume for. (I actually made mine a little too big for Wade.) Once you have that figured out, cut a strip of white duct tape for the first strap. Fold it in half with the sticky part facing out. Adhere the bottom edges to the insides of the costume.

Then use a second strip of tape to cover the sticky part.

Do the same for the other shoulder strap.

After I tried the costume on Wade, I realized I needed to add straps to the sides of the costume as well to hold it together better. I put them in about the middle and did it just like the shoulder straps.

The last step is making the hat for the top of the candy corn.

Mold a piece of tin foil into the shape you want for the hat. Again, you’ll need to size it based on the person you’re making it for.

Then fold tape around the bottom edge. This will make it a little sturdier to work with.

Then just cover the foil all the way around and up with white duct tape.

It’s easier to do if you work with smaller pieces, three or four inches in length. Again of you cut the tape rather than tear it you’ll get smoother edges that aren’t as noticeable.

And that’s it. Your costume is finished.

I should have taken more pictures of making the sheets of duct tape. I plunged into this and forgot to take a lot of photos at the beginning. If you have any questions leave a comment or send me an email.

Want more simple homemade Halloween costume ideas? Check out my DIY Despicable Me Minion Goggles and my DIY Duck Dynasty costume.

Linked up with The Pin Junkie, Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons, One Project Closer, What-About.co, Simply Sweet Home, Bacon Time with the Hungry Hypo and Dear Creatives.