Update 10/6/2016 – We have been featured on both BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post for these costumes!
My toddler is really into Batman these days. My hubby even said it was his dream come true the other day when he asked what she wanted to watch, and she yelled out Batman! And this isn’t the Batman movie or cartoon, but the 1966 Batman TV series!! They watch it together, and they love it and the girls dance when they hear the theme song. So when we were invited to a Superhero themed birthday party this weekend I knew what we had to do. We had to make a Batman costume.
Of course, we had to have a tutu. My daughter LOVES to wear tutu’s, everywhere and anywhere, even if it’s just around the house. You might have seen her birthday party pictures last year, she was a fairy and of course had to have a tutu, and then the fairy outfit she received from Just Pretend Kids, loved it, still wears it.
Here is what you need:
Black fabric
Black craft foam
Yellow craft felt
Black craft felt
Yellow ribbon
Round elastic cord
Non-roll elastic
25 feet roll of black Tulle
Fabric glue – found on Amazon HERE.
White chalk
Scissors
Hole punch
Batman T-shirt or other black top
The red onesie, green tulle and the yellow fabric in the photo is for her baby sisters Robin costume. That tutorial can be found here – DIY Baby Robin Costume.
Mask:
To make the mask, I printed out this batman mask template I found here. I cut it out and used white chalk to outline the foam, then I cut it out. I used a hole punch to make two holes on the ends of the mask. I measured the elastic cord around my daughter’s head and cut. Then I tied two knots on the ends after putting it through the holes I punched out. I wish I had black elastic cord but all I found was white. And that’s it! Your mask is done. Now on to the cape.
Cape:
To make the cape I used black fabric that I had leftover from my daughter’s Minnie Mouse themed first birthday. I used it to make some table runners and I knew it would come in handy some day. I measured on her how long I wanted the cape to fall and I just cut it, leaving about an extra inch on the sides and about two inches at the top.
I did not want to sew anything, but I knew the ends of the fabric would start fraying if I didn’t do something, so I just used fabric glue and adhered it together. I put a line of fabric glue and folded the fabric over on the sides and on the bottom of the cape.
Here is what I mean, I took a photo when I was working on her sisters Robin cape.
At the top, I needed room to be able to run ribbon through so that I could tie it around her neck. I folded the top part down about an inch/inch and a half and glued just the ends to the fabric so that it left the middle open. Then I let it dry. You don’t want to put the ribbon through the fabric while it’s being glued, you want the ribbon to be able to freely move through the opening. Once dried, I cut yellow ribbon and pushed it through the opening at the top. I used a combination of a safety pin, a long marker and the ends of the scissors to get it through to the other side. Then, I just measured the ribbon and cut. The middle should be scrunchy and easy to freely move.
To make the bat symbol I used felt. I just used the same template that I used to make the mask, except that I didn’t cut out the eyes. I just free hand drew the oval shape around the bat symbol and cut them both out and used fabric glue to glue them together and then glued them to the cape.
Tulle Tutu:
For the tutu, I measured the non-roll elastic around her waist and cut. I cut strips of tulle and tied them to the elastic until I got close to the ends. Once I got close to the ends I put in an extra strip of tulle on the inside and tied knots over it to secure the extra tulle to the tutu. I wanted to be able to tie a bow around her waist and not have to sew the elastic, although you can sew the ends of the elastic together if you wish.
I used the same knot method that I used when I made my daughter’s fairy tutu for her birthday. You can read that post here. I cut the tulle in shorter strips this time than I did for her birthday tutu since I knew she was going to be wearing leggings and a cape. I used the entire roll of tulle, so if you want yours longer you may need 2 rolls. They are cheap, 2.97 at Walmart.
And that’s it! She wore some black leggings, and her Batman t-shirt that we bought for her at Comic Con this past weekend because, well she just loves it and would wear it everyday if she could. It was actually what inspired this costume, I thought hey, just add a black tutu and a mask and we got ourselves a little Batgirl!
Total spent on BOTH costumes (Baby Robin costume not pictured YET) was about $11. Since I already had the fabric and some of the other items, I just needed the tulle, elastic, foam, felt and ribbon which are all pretty cheap at the store. That of course didn’t include the expensive Batman t-shirt we got at Comic Con that my hubby says was a good buy since it’s a comic con shirt.
Here are a few iPhone pics of her trying it on for the first time. I plan on taking some better shots with my good camera tomorrow and maybe even doing a little photoshoot. I will update the post with new photos when we have them and I’ll also add the tutorial for her baby sisters Robin costume soon.
Happy Halloween!