Jessie and the Slinky Dog (Toy Story)

The same year thay we hosted a Toy Story birthday party, the girls requested Toy Story Halloween costumes. Julia wanted to be Jessie and Claire wanted to be the slinky-dog. Julia (age 4) helped design her own costume.

The Jessie Costume:

I don't know how to sew very well, so I'm always looking for opportunities to tweak existing items into crafty costumes for the kids. We went to Children's Orchard (a used children's clothing store) to find jeans and a shirt we could turn into a costume. Next we went to JoAnn's Fabric store to find cow print fabric. Julia was very helpful hunting up and down each isle looking for the perfect print. Next she picked out some red yarn for the wig. We had a really hard time finding a red cowgirl hat. It was Julia who suggested that we just spray paint a brown foam one, I figured why not. With a little white yarn threaded into the trim, it worked perfectly.  We went to Target and purchased a pair of cowgirl boots--lucky for us boots were in style that year, so she had quite the selection from which to choose. Julia insisted it would be more authentic if I wrote "ANDY" on the bottom of her new boots, and never one to dismiss an opportunity for creativity I happily pulled out my trusty Sharpie. She was right. Instead of making chaps, I used iron-on transfer backing to attach the cow material to the jeans. I did the same with yellow felt to make the cuff and shirt accents. The edges were all lined with red rickrack. The wig was made using red yarn and the instructions from the October 2010 issue of Family Fun Magazine (A great magazine for crafty parents).

The Slinky Dog Costume:
 The slinky dog costume was very easy to make but extremely difficult to figure out what to make it out of. My mother and I headed to Home Depot to search for materials from which to make the spring. My mom found this 1/2" gray foam backer rod, which was perfect. I found a brown jumpsuit and wrapped the tubing around her middle. I glued black felt ears to the hood of the jump suit and made a green felt collar. They were quite the pair at all the costume parties we attended that year.