It's Justice's third Halloween! By now I can tell you that I really enjoy making costumes for him (see his sushi and cup noodles costume in the past). This year, I want to continue our Asian food theme and bring one of our favourite snacks to life. May I present to you - our giant Pocky!

In case you didn't know, Pocky is a Japanese brand known for their tasty biscuit sticks originally with chocolate coating. The product line has grown popularity worldwide and has expanded its offering to a wide range of flavours. You can spot one of these goodies in most Asian supermarket. 

Not only our whole family loves snacking on Pocky sticks on a daily basis, its iconic, eye catching red packaging is so memorable and easy to replicate. Here's what I did and my thought process in case you want to turn your baby into a snack too!

I used felt for this costume as I want Justice to be able to move freely in it. I want a material that can be folded and stored away easily after use. Felt is thick and stiff enough to hold its shape, does not fray like other fabrics and allows me to glue things on it. I purchased a large piece of felt from my local fabric store along with some felt sheets in beige, brown and white colour. You can also make this out of cardboard box if you don't mind the bulkiness.

 

DIY Pocky Sticks Halloween Costume

Materials for Pocky Costume:

• Felt (red, white, beige and brown)
• White glue
• Bonding tape (optional)
• Fabric cutter or scissors
• Cricut or other cutting machine
• White iron-on vinyl
• My Pocky design cut file

Materials for Giant Pocky Stick:

• Cardboard tubes or paper towel tubes
• Brown / beige paint
• Paint brush
• Kraft wrapping paper (optional)

Justice is about 3 feet tall and I wanted the costume to be down to his knees, about 21 inches in length and 16 inches wide. The staff from the fabric store was very helpful in determining how much felt I'd need (since I suck at math!). So, to help you determine all the pieces you'd need, here's a diagram. You can adjust the size to fit your own needs. I also added about half an inch on all sides for seam allowance to attach the pieces together. For the head and arm holes, I traced an outline using a 4" wood circle on the side panels and cut all the pieces out with a fabric cutter.

Before attaching all the pieces together, I made the front graphic using beige and brown felt sheets for the Pocky sticks and some iron-on vinyls for the logos. The brown felt sheet makes 4 chocolate coatings, about 3 inches wide. I trimmed 3 inches on the shorter end of the beige sheet to make my biscuit sticks. Connected them together, trimmed the corners and stuck them onto the front red panel. I recommend using felt sheets with adhesive backing as they keep things clean and mess-free. But those might be hard to come by so attaching with white glue works fine too.

With my mighty Cricut machine, I cut out the logos and nutrition facts onto white iron-on vinyls. Then, pressed the designs onto the front and back red panels with my good ol' iron. After my front and back panel designs were finished, I cut holes for the arms and head in my side panels before finally attaching all the side seams together.

This part was a bit tricky. I find it easier to tell which pieces should attach together when I laid out all the connecting pieces in order on the floor. I put some bonding tape (or you can use white glue) and sandwiched between two connecting side seams. Then I used my hair straightener (yes, you read that right!) and pressed them together. The pressing and heat will turn the bonding tape into some kind of adhesive and bond the two felts together. I love using my hair straightener like a mini heat press. It's so helpful to apply heat to areas as narrow as the side seams! I also bonded the seams from the inside, with wrong side of the panels facing out. So, when I flipped the costume inside out, the seams are clean and hidden. 

Finally, to make the costume fall straight down his body and not crunched up (since it's quite oversized on him), I cut two pieces of cardboard in the same widths as my top panel, added velcro adhesive to them and inserted them like shoulder pads. The velcros help secured the cardboards to the felt.

If you give this a try, be sure to share your pictures with me on IG @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your version!

Happy Halloween folks!

I dress up Justice as CUP NOODLES for his first Halloween! Well, and also a piece of sushi to be exact (do you see a theme going on here?).

One of the things that I enjoy most in motherhood is that I get to dress him up. Even though his first Halloween this year doesn’t involve trick or treating or parties of sort, I still want to make it fun at least for pictures and for my own entertainment. Ha-ha. I need to cherish this time when I still get to decide what he is going to wear for Halloween because I doubt he's going to let me do that once he gets older.

I made this cup noodles or I should say "cute noodles" costume for him with my Cricut and few simple supplies. Follow along to see how I make this cup noodles costume for baby Justice.

DIY Baby Cup Noodles Halloween Costume

Supplies:

• Yellow Yarn
• White beanie
• Blank onesie
• Mini green pom poms
• Orange foam sheet
• Wooden dowels
• Red and gold HTV vinyl
• Glue gun
• Cricut machine
• My Cute Noodles cut file

I got most of the supplies from Dollar Tree. To make diced carrots, I cut out 2-inch strips from the orange foam sheet and folded it in half, and glued it in place. This gave the carrots some thickness and dimension. Then with scissors, I cut them into square pieces.

The green peas were from the mini pom-poms. I didn't need to do anything there. For the noodles, I first wrapped the yellow yarn onto some wooden dowels. I think I did about 10 of them. Then I soaked all of them with water then baked them on parchment paper in my oven at about 200 degrees Fahrenheit until they were all dry (about 15 minutes).

Once they were dry, I unwrapped them from the dowels. And my curly instant noodles were done! Next, I glued the noodles onto the beanie along with the diced carrots and peas. As for the graphic, I first drew the logo with Illustrator and then cut it out using my Circut machine onto red and gold vinyl. With my old-fashion iron, I pressed them onto the onesie for about 30 seconds until the vinyl adhered completely. And that was it! 

Cute Noodles - Much More Than a Cutie

What do you think of my cup noodles costume for Justice? Here're some photos of him in the costume. Can't wait to make another costume for him next year! You can also purchase this made to order onesie in my shop here.

Hope you guys all have a great and safe Halloween!

If you give this a try, be sure to share your pictures with me on IG @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your version!

Check out my other baby Halloween costume ideas.

DIY Baby Sushi Halloween Costume

I'm beyond excited for Halloween this year because I can dress up Justice and take photos of him in his cute little costumes. I have so many ideas for what he could potentially be. Believe it or not, I have been planning since August! 

One of the costumes that I want him to wear is a piece of nigiri shrimp sushi that I made for myself 6 years ago! It's my favourite DIY costume. I just have to bring it back and modify for Justice. This will be a great matching costume to wear as a family too. Check out my detailed tutorial on how to make my sushi costume first.

The modification for Justice's sushi costume is simple. All I need is a white onesie and beanie. I removed the ginger, seaweed and wasabi from my hair clip and stitch all of them onto the white beanie. I didn't use glue because I wanted to be able to remove the condiment pieces and keep the beanie in shape once Halloween is over. See how I made the condiment headpiece here. 

For the shrimp, I use a template to trace out 2 pieces of orange fabric and sew them together with cotton stuffing inside. The shrimp actually looks a little bit bigger on Justice but I find it super cute! 

Download my shrimp template and follow the steps here. 

Then I just dress Justice up in his white onesie, tie a black belt around his waist with the shrimp sashimi on his back. And viola~ An adorable looking piece of sushi is served!

Check out my original Sushi Halloween Costume Tutorial

Who wears it better? I'm sure he does! ha-ha. See some of the other DIY Halloween costumes that I did in the past!

Have a happy Halloween!

I can't believe summer is already over and October arrives in a blink of an eye. While I was putting away my tank tops in exchange for my fall sweaters, I also dug out some of the outfits that I wore for Halloween in the past. They gave me so many fun memories. So today, I wanted to share some of my favourite Halloween moments with you along with the tutorials for making these costumes! These costumes are easy to put together, especially when you don't have a lot of time.

Mad Men Halloween Costume Tutorial

I actually didn't really dress up as a character from Mad Men for Halloween, it was actually for a friend's birthday themed party. But I absolutely love what I put together and just had to share it with you. Do you have vintage pieces that are sitting around the house? If you do, then you could easily pull this off. A simple and low-budget costume that's also great for work and as a group.

Check out my Mad Men Costume Tutorial here

Sushi Halloween Costume Tutorial

If you like to be cute for Halloween (which is what I usually go for), sushi costume is a perfect choice. I made this costume to wear for work one year and everyone loved it! I even got voted for the best costume that year! The piece of shrimp sashimi was sewn from a piece of orange and white fabric. To go with the look, I referenced the sushi condiments and made a hairpiece out of felt. This costume can easily be done in other fish sashimi, which makes it a group sushi platter costume! Read more on my tutorial where I showed you step-by-step on how to make this costume for Halloween.

Check out my Sushi Costume Tutorial here

Spice Girls Group Halloween Costume Tutorial

If you're looking for a group costume this Halloween, this is definitely a fun one to do with your gang! My group got pretty creative with thinking up the spice names for each of us. If you look closely, they're also culturally appropriate! This is a great group costume idea to add some humour to the Halloween festivity. In my tutorial, I'll show you how to assemble the costumes for your group. I also offered a free template for you to download in which you can print at home.

Check out my Spice Girls Group Costume Tutorial here

White Rabbit From Alice in Wonderland Costume Tutorial 

I decided on this White Rabbit costume at the last minute for Halloween one year which was quite fitting for this character from Alice in Wonderland. The entire ensemble was from pieces that I already have in my wardrobes. All I did extra was the pocket watch that I made out of cardboard and a chain. You'd be surprised just how easy to put together this costume. Hence this is why this is one of my favourites. It was effortless.

Check out my White Rabbit Costume Tutorial here

Bullet Bill Halloween Costume Tutorial

Not a lot of people are aware of the side characters in Super Mario Brothers. But Bullet Bill always has a place in my heart. And it's super easy to replicate! The most important element for this costume is the hat! In my tutorial, I showed you how you can also create one yourself!

Check out my Bullet Bill Costume Tutorial here

What's your favourite costume?

If you follow my blog and/or my IG (I hope you follow both), you’ll probably know that I love puns…a lot. I use them everywhere! So, it seems fitting that our Halloween group costumes at work is also a pun. And, our team decided to dress up as Spice Girls!

Now, we’re not your favourite girl group from the 90s, we’re literally a spice you might find in your pantry. And to make things more interesting and funny, we put a cultural spin on our costumes.

Instructions:

1. Download my labels here. 
2. Print each template out onto two landscape-oriented Legal-sized paper in colour. To break the image in half when printing, you’ll need to select “tiling” in your printing settings and select “overlap by 0.5 in”. This will allow a 0.5” overlapping area for you to apply glue and to stick the sheets together.
3. Glue the full image onto 1 horizontal Bristol board. This will be the front of your costume.
    
4. Print the barcode image onto a full size Letter-sized paper in black.
5. Glue barcode image onto the lower bottom of the Bristol board down the middle.
6. Form a cylinder with the 2 Bristol boards with the images outside.
7. Staple the sides of the Bristol boards while adjusting the circumference of the boards so that there’s enough room for you to remove your costume. (We’ve concluded that it was easier to staple down the shape while wrapping yourself with the boards) 
8. Punch two holes at the front and two holes at the back of the board.
9. To create shoulder straps, insert a strip of ribbon into one of the holes from the outside of the board and connect with the opposite end of the hole. Tie knot from the inside of the cylinder.
10. Repeat above step for the other shoulder strap

Tie knots from the inside of the costume

To complete this look, just wear everything black so your spice bottle costume stands out. And if you want to add some pizzazz to your look, put on your boldest red lipsticks. Custom patches can also be used as accessories and bring more fun to DIY costumes. Now you're ready to spice up everyone's lives!

Hai Si Ja Hold tight!
What do you think of our costume?

I hope you like this DIY tutorial! If you give this a try or use my template, be sure to share your pictures with me on Instagram and tag @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your take on it!

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UPDATE* - As per popular requests, I'm selling the EDITABLE TEMPLATE for you to make your own spices. You'll need Photoshop to open the editable file. Just change the text for the spices and add in your own graphic. If you're NOT familiar with using Photoshop, I've also included a blank template in the files where you can add your own text and graphics using programs such as Canva or Microsoft Word. Once you've edited the labels, you can follow the steps above the same way to make your own Spice Girls Costumes.

Happy Creating!

Check out my Halloween costumes DIY ideas!

I'm a Piece of Sushi! {Halloween Costume DIY}

I'm Late {Last Minute White Rabbit Halloween Costume}

How to be a Bullet Bill for Halloween {Costume DIY}

Call Me Miss Seuss {Cat in the Hat Halloween Costume}

I'm a procrastinator when it comes to dressing up for Halloween. So, I always opt for an easy way out by deciding what to wear from the wardrobes in my closet. But this year, my office is making Halloween more festive than ever. There're prizes for best costumes. So, it looks like there's a need to put in extra thought to my costume compared to my last-minute ones.

I dressed up as a piece of sushi and DIY-ed the costume using a few simple supplies. Everyone loves sushi's and so do I! It just seems fitting for a self-proclaimed foodie like me. It not only matches my style but is also more fun than dressing up as monstrous-looking characters. Those aren't really my style.

As my title suggests, I'm late on this post. In fact, I was super late for coming up with this Halloween outfit. I actually pulled this together the night before a party. Just like my previous Halloween costumes, I scrambled from my closet to find something I could pull together. And interestingly, I always ended up getting a lightbulb moment. I went with the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

Here's my ensemble for the look:

{ Trying to imitate Bullet Bill's round cheeks and evil expression }

Have you guys picked up a costume for Halloween this year? or are you looking for a last minute costume idea? I love Halloween. It's the only time other than your birthday that you can dress up and be foolish without anybody judging you. Like my previous years of Halloween, I did a last minute scramble from my closet to find something to dress up for. It also needs to be work appropriate. Knowing that most of my colleagues at my department would not be dressing up, I didn't want to be over the top and crazy with full costumes and make up. Check out my Halloween costume ideas.

This year, I decided to dress up as Bullet Bill. This is also an easy DIY Halloween costume/outfit for people who are last minute like me. Let's get started!