EASY DIY DOBBY COSTUME

Did you know that consumers spend more money on costumes than anything else at Halloween? Yes, even candy, pumpkins and decorations. Every year, I struggle between wanting to go ALL OUT on costumes or save the money by keeping it simple.

As a mom, Halloween trumps all other holidays, even Christmas. Ok, maybe it’s a tie. Still, I LOVE dressing my kids up. There are so many easy DIY costumes out there and you don’t need to have design or sewing skills to do it. And you can save money. This year, we made Mama dreams come true with a costume I’ve archived in my Halloween brain for years.

There was no muggle struggle with this super easy and cheap DOBBY costume! Grab your wands wizards, let’s get into it.

Step 1: WHAT YOU NEED

This part requires looking around your house first. Some of the things are likely scattered around the house, so don’t rush to the store just yet. First, check out this list.

1. White pillowcase

2. Felt/fabric sheets (2 in light tan color as pictured below)

3. Brown marker (optional but recommended)

4. tea bags (4)

5. Hot glue

6. Nude wig cap or hat

7. Scissors

The only thing I had to purchase was the fabric sheets. They are easy to find at a craft store. You can try Hobby Lobby or Michael’s.

I already had the extra pillowcase. If you still need one, don’t waste your money buying anything expensive. Check out somewhere like Walmart for a standard size white pillowcase. Fortunately, I bought a pack of turban hats of Amazon for my daughter months ago that came in various colors. The tan color was one of them, so I opted to turn it around as a suitable cap to attach the ears. If you don’t have something similar, a wig cap works great. Now that we have all our materials, let’s chat prep&design.

PART 2: PREP

1. Make sure the pillowcase is washed. Then turn it inside out to start. This way, any marks you make, you can hide later.

2. Take a large pot and fill it with water. You’ll want to make sure to completely submerge the fabric when you dye it.

3. Boil the water and add salt. The salt will help the dye adhere to the fabric.

4. When the water comes to a boil, remove the pot and add the tea bags. I used 4 Lipton tea bags. Black tea is the easiest way to go because the color is darker, but if you do not have it, use more tea bags or prepare to let your fabric sit longer.

PART 3. DESIGN of DRESS

1. Depending on the size of your child, you’ll need to make cuts in various places to fit them. For an older child, a king size pillowcase or adult XL T-shirt may be a better option. For babies or small toddlers, a standard size works just fine. I began by measuring my daughter from her head to where I wanted the fabric to end. I recommend at least an inch below the knee. Start from the head to give plenty of room to make ties at the top where the fabric sits on their shoulders.

2. Mark the length on the pillowcase, with the head starting at the closed part ( as seen below)

3. Make marks where you want to make the cuts for the arms. Cut in a J shape, doing your best to make both sides even.

4. For the neck, cut straight down to give yourself room to tie the arms at the top before cutting across for the neck. Cuts should not be straight and perfect so take your time but do not put too much energy into perfection.

5. At this point you should still have your pillowcase inside out. You’ll need to make 2 more cuts at the top where the shoulders sit so that you can retie them together, to make it look like Dobbys outfit.

6. From a detail perspective, the tie on Dobbys shoulder sits on his right which will only be important when you go to put the outfit on. Tie one side together in a double knot. Reverse the pillowcase, and do the same thing, making sure there’s a small amount of fabric sticking out above the knot.

7. When you put the outfit on your child be sure the neck hole is large enough to fit their head through. If it isn’t, wait to tie their right side until you’ve put the costume on.

8. Now that the ties and cuts are done, take your fabric and submerge it in the pot with tea. Make sure to take the teabags out first, that way the bags don’t create unwanted darker stains on your fabric. The darker you want the fabric to be, the longer it needs to sit. I left the fabric soak for 2 hours because I went for a lighter color. Definitely don’t take it out before 1 hour is up. You can even let sit overnight. Remember, when you wash it, some of the color may fade.

9. After your fabric is submerged, stir every 10-15 minutes. This will help ensure there’s evenness to the color. If letting sit overnight or if you aren’t able to stir frequently, make sure to spread the fabric out in the pot to the best of your ability.

While this part is a work in progress, it’s the perfect time to start on your child’s Dobby ears

PART 4: DESIGN of EARS

Easily my favorite part of the costume but potentially most stressful step in the process. When I said to not worry about cuts above, scratch that advice for this part.

1. Take the brown marker and start by tracing what you want to be the shape of the ear. You may get lucky and get this on the first try. But if you don’t, try not to panic. Fabric sheets are cheap and you can go buy more. Fortunately, I was able to get the shape I wanted without any issue which made the next step a little easier.

2. Cut out the ear, and trace around it 3 times with your fabric sheets so you have a total of 4. You’ll be using 2 for each ear to glue together.

3. After you cut them out, line them up in pairs to make sure they are as close to even as possible. Cut accordingly.

4. Take the wig cap/hat and ask your child to put it on. That way you can mark where you want the ears to sit. Take a marker and make a dot on either side where earlobe sits.

6. Search your house for something round to put your wig cap or hat on. You’ll want something to put the cap on to give it shape for when you go to glue. Turns out I had a few medium size pumpkins to spare.

7. Next I took the leftover fabric from the pillowcase and folded/cut it into smaller pieces so that I could place some in the ears before I glued them together. Doing this gave the ears a 3D look and also kept the ears from looking too flimsy on my daughters head. You can also use Poly-Fil.

8. Hot glue around 3 edges of one ear, pressing the two pieces together. For the edge that is attaching to cap glue half a finger width in so there is extra fabric at the end. See below.

9. Repeat this step for the second ear.

10. Take both ears and attach them to the cap, lining them up with the dots you made to mark the earlobe. Make sure the bottom of ears go slightly below the edge of the cap to create a more realistic. Take both pieces of fabric that you didn’t glue together and glue along the edge between them. Place it on the cap so the two edges are fanned out on the cap.

Congrats! The hard part is over and Dobby’s ears are almost done! For a little extra detail, I used the darker fabric sheet to give the ears more dimension. For this part you can also use a brown marker to create the lines.

PART 5: THE FINISHED PRODUCT

With your DIY Dobby Dress and Ears already completed, the only thing left to add is ONE SOCK! For kids old enough to Trick-or-Treat, shoes are a must. Attach a sock to the dress or have your child wear one long sock and an ankle sock on the other.

Turn this easy DIY costume into a family affair. My husband and I kept it simple with Harry and Hermione costumes. Most of the clothes were found in our closets with a few exceptions we snagged off Amazon.

My gray knee length socks were SO SOFT and comfy that I had to share!

And my favorite part of the outfit? My detachable collar insert.

A little DIY goes a long way. Happy Halloween Wizards and Muggles.

Xx RR