BOO! A Last Minute Ghost Costume

At the beginning of the month, my aunt asked me if I could make a ghost costume for my little cousin. While he may not be trick or treating this year, his school was having a little Zoom party so, out of nowhere, he kept saying that he wanted to be a ghost.

I don’t know about you all but the only “ghost costumes” we had as kids were sheets with holes cut out for eyes. So since they didn’t know what they wanted for a ghost costume and, let’s be real, I can’t do something as simple as cutting up a sheet and calling it a day, I jumped on Pinterest and searched for “Kids ghost costume”. This was one of the first Pins that popped up:

I thought it would be the perfect combination of quick and easy and a little more detail and construction to match my aesthetic. I drafted my own poncho by cutting a circle skirt out of fleece from Joann’s. Since I was working with limited yardage (having to cut out a hood for the costume), I cut it in 2 separate half circles. I made sure to cut it to 27” long all the way around to give me plenty of wiggle room to cut out the neckline and still have plenty of length to fit my cousin perfectly.

I eyeballed the hood, cutting it out in two pieces after measuring the distance around the neck opening. Sewing it up, I immediately saw that I had cut it way too bit for his little self so I kept making the hood smaller and smaller until it looked about the right size. After trying it on him. I still had to take a few inches off of the hood and shorten the length of the cape by about 7”, especially since he made sure to tell me how big it was!

Once the cape and hood were attached, I cut out the ovals to make the eyes and face of the ghost. I laid out the poncho on my bed and safety pinned the pieces to the body before edgestitching around the three to attach them. I was surprised at even myself by how quick this project took me - about an hour and a half tops, cutting out and assembling!

The finished product! What do you think? Thankfully the true judge loved it so much that (after I convinced him to try it on to make sure everything was good and got him to let me take a couple of quick pictures) he immediately ran away wearing it to go and finish his movie. The best part? He raced over to my house after his program was finished to give me a hug and thank me again. Sometimes it’s the little things!