by Patty Marinelli

Created on: October 17, 2009   Last Updated: October 18, 2009

Living in the Midwest I have learned that Halloween is going to be a very cold night. Most of the time the child's costume would end up covered by coats. I decided when my children were young to make costumes warm enough so a coat wouldn't be required.

My son wanted to be Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. I started my project a couple weeks before Halloween, not sure how long it would take me to finish. I went to Walmart and found an orange hooded sweat shirt and sweat pants. I purchased them large enough so I could put a pair of jeans or another sweat shirt underneath them. I also picked up a couple yards of matching orange fabric and a black marker. I thought of a convenient way to keep his ears warm by using the hood, and provide his costume with tiger ears. Having my son try on the costume while attaching the ears helped to align the placement of the ears.

It did get a little tedious when coloring on the tiger stripes, but I recruited my son to help color them in. My son really enjoyed contributing to the construction of his costume.

I had the costume close to completion when I found myself stuck. How do I make Tigger's bouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun tail ? The tail Tigger has in the videos and books is coiled up like a spring. I went through my house trying to find ideas when I realized that I could use a wire clothes hanger. I sewed a tail about two feet long and three inches wide. I inserted the hanger and stuffed the tail with old nylons. Once construction of the tail was complete, I took the tail and twisted it into a coil. I had to reinforce the hind end of the sweat pants where the tail attached or it would pull his pants down. But I did that with a little square of cardboard. It was spectacular!

I really don't like the idea of having a toddler wear a mask over his face. So I used black eye pencil to color his whiskers and a little red face paint for his nose.

I found that in making the costume myself I achieved several goals. It was a less expensive costume than I could find in a store. It was a costume I could save and hand down to my next child. Tigger is a character that will stay popular for generations to come. And I managed to make a costume that wouldn't have to be covered up with a coat.

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