AJ was only a month old at Halloween last year, so we didn’t really celebrate. But this year she’s old enough to get dressed up and “go trick or treating” (read: visit a few neighbor’s houses so we can show off how cute she is!) so I decided to make a simple DIY costume for her. We loved the new Star Wars movie when we saw it, and I thought BB-8 was just the cutest thing, so I figured that would be the perfect costume for her. I designed a cute graphic to put on a plain onesie, made a no-sew tutu and a quick no-sew headband, and our little BB-8 was ready to go! (P.S. If you want to make your own DIY BB-8 costume, I’ve shared the free graphic files below!)
I used my Silhouette CAMEO to make this onesie, but if you don’t have a cutting machine you can easily make the onesie using fabric markers or fabric paint! I’ve shared the free printable graphic files below so you can make your own BB-8 costume if you wish!
Easy DIY BB-8 Costume For Baby
- 45 minutes (time spent doing stuff)
- 0 minutes (time spent waiting around)
- 45 minutes (total project time)
Tools
- Silhouette CAMEO or a Cricut Explore
- heat press
- Optional: fabric markers or fabric paint
- scissors or a rotary cutter
- hot glue gun
- BB-8 graphic (you can download the Silhouette Studio file or a PDF version; all downloads are for PERSONAL USE ONLY, please contact me if you wish to use this design for commercial purposes)
Materials
- plain onesie
- orange and silver heat transfer vinyl
- elastic (for the waistband of the tutu and for the headband)
- tulle (I used a ½ yard each of three different colors)
- ribbon (for a bow in the headband)
Instructions
For the onesie:
I designed this cute BB-8 graphic to be made with two different colors of heat transfer vinyl. I separated the design by color and sent it to my CAMEO to be cut. Remember to mirror your design before you cut it! (You can find a detailed refresher on how to use heat transfer vinyl here.) I weeded away all the extra vinyl from the silver design and then put the plain onesie on the bottom plate of my heat press. I positioned the silver vinyl on the onesie, and then pressed it (I did it at 305 degrees F for 10 seconds, but check your specific vinyl for instructions).
You can see I had to cut the very edges off of my design because it was slightly too big to fit on the front of the onesie. But that’s ok! I just turned the onesie on its left side, lined up the cut off portion of the design, and pressed it again! Then I flipped it over to the right side and did the same thing.
Then I lined up the orange portion of the design on top of the silver and pressed again.
And that’s it for the onesie!
NOTE: If you don’t have a cutting machine you can use fabric markers or fabric paint instead! Just print out the PDF of the graphic I provided above, slide the printed graphic inside of the onesie, then trace the design with grey and orange markers or paint.
For the tutu:
No-sew tutus are super simple to make! You’ll need some elastic, some tulle, and scissors or a rotary cutter.
I used about 16” of elastic for the waistband of my tutu; you can determine how much elastic you need by measuring your child’s waist and then subtracting an inch to allow for stretching.
Cut your elastic to length and then tie the two ends together to make a loop. Stretch the elastic over something to hold it slightly stretched. I used a tissue box and it was the perfect size.
Cut your tulle into strips that are about 14” long and 1” wide. You need 25-30 strips of each of the three colors to make a nice full tutu. If you are only using one color you need about 80-90 strips.
Take one strip of each color and stack them on top of each other, then fold them in half so that you have two 7” strips with a fold at one end. Slide the folded end of the tulle under the elastic.
Reach up through the loop in the folded end of the tulle, around the elastic, and grab the loose end of the tulle strips. Pull the loose ends through the folded loop and gently tighten the knot around the elastic. Don’t pull too tight or the elastic will bend and fold and won’t lay flat.
Repeat about twenty more times until you have “knots” of tulle all the way around your elastic waistband! Once your elastic waistband is fully covered, you need to fluff your tutu. Grab each knot of tulle and pull the strands apart from each other; this will make your tutu poofy!
For the headband:
Measure your child’s head size and cut the elastic 1/2” longer to allow for overlap. Hot glue the ends of the elastic together. You can decorate the headband with whatever you want, but I made a small bow out of black and orange ribbon and used a couple extra strips of tulle. I glued the bow onto the center of the strips of tulle, then glued the whole thing onto the headband. Hot glue dries super quick, so the headband was pretty much ready right away!
What are you going as for Halloween this year?
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Erin says
Thank you so much for this!!! We referred to our little baby as BB8 for most of my pregnancy and are super excited to dress her up as BB8 for Halloween – I’m obviously trying to get an early start because, well, newborns. 🙂