Venus Fly Trap Costume and Trick Or Treat Bag

Last year I had a request for a Venus Fly Trap costume. Although they do sell them online, they were pretty pricey. I decided to try to make one. It turned out ok, but he was happy with it, so that's all that mattered.

I made the Venus Fly Trap head, a pot, and his trick or treat bag. He wore a red knit cap to blend in with the mouth area (and also to keep warm), brown pants (to blend with the pot), and green shirt and gloves.  

I wanted to use as many materials from my craft supplies as I could, plus make it easy without a lot of sewing. For the costume I used/bought: red and green thick felt, white felt, cardboard/display board, brown paint, red and green thread, a sewing needle, hot glue/gun, fabric stiffener (like a Fusible Pellon), a rag for ironing, and an iron.

I used a witches hat to create the mouth piece. I cut off the pointed top, leaving just the brim of the hat. This would be where his head would poke through. I cut a large oval shape with pointed ends (almost looked like lip shaped) from the red and green felt. I pinned the red material to one side of the hat and the green to the other side. Once they were lined up, I cut out the middle for his head to go through. I hand stitched all the pieces together around the head hole. Once I had the head space stitched together, I cut out teeth from the white felt and stitched on (attach to the red and then to the green, just don't sew all the through both colors). I then added in the Pellon fabric stabilizer. I added in stitches at the corners where it folded over to become the mouth to keep it in place. I had cut the head hole large so he could just slide it over his head, but it did leave a gap where you could see his shirt. I cut another piece from the red felt to form a tongue and used a clip to attach behind his neck.

At this point, I didn't feel like it was finished yet, so I cut out a flower pot shape from some cardboard we had and painted it brown. The plan was to create a tie or belt for the pot pieces to be attached to, but I ran out of time and ended up using binder clips to attach to his pants.

The last few years, they have wanted to use pillowcases to go trick or treating with. (Hubby told them lots of stories about when we were kids trick or treating and that we had used pillowcases.) I took a pillowcase and cut out a flowerpot shape, a stem, and the head of the Venus Fly Trap, and little triangles for teeth. I used hot glue to attach all the pieces to the pillowcase. To finish it off, I wrote Feed Me on the bag.