This IS the droid you’re looking for!

Everyone in my home loves Star Wars and we are so excited about the new film, The Force Awakens premiering December 14, 2015. My girls love playing with the new adorable BB-8 robot and shriek and giggle like fans of Elvis or The Beatles every time they see him. Even my 17 month old screams “Eight, Eight, Eight”. I looked all over the web hoping to find a BB-8 costume for Halloween. Nothing existed, so I decided to make one.

I was so excited when I saw a BB-8 hooded towel at JC Penney. Now that I had some fabric to work with the costume would be easy to make. I’m a novice at sewing so I decided to do a no-sew sandwich board costume. This worked out great and it took a little over two hours to make. The best part about this costume is my 4-year old daughter had zero trouble navigating it during carnival games and easy to remove when I put her in and out of her car seat.

After you shop for the supplies below, grab a movie, your favorite beverage and let’s get started!

Supplies:

1 hooded towel from JC Penney

1 crochet hat from a seller on Etsy (2-3 week turn around)

2 pieces of foam core (30″x20″) (I would recommend 2 more to cut and glue on the inside to cover the folded up fabric, but you can skip this step. It would only be for aesthetics.)

2 9″ strips of elastic (this might need to be longer if your child is older than 4)

20 ball head straight pins

a box cutter or hobby knife

a thumbtack

a 1 foot piece of string, twine, ribbon, whatever you’ve got

a pen or pencil

scissors

hot glue gun

The undergarments for the costume are up to you, but we went with a long sleeve white shirt and black pants and black boots.

The first thing I did was remove the hood and cut the towel in half using a sharp pair of scissors. I tried ruching the top of the hood to make a hat, but it was still too pointy and didn’t give me the cylindrical look I wanted to mimic BB-8 head. Instead I ordered an adorable crochet hat from Etsy so we could use it throughout the winter season.

Second, attach one end of your string to a thumbtack and the other end to your writing utensil. The length between the two knots should be 10.5 inches so you can draw a circle onto your foam core and start cutting.

Press the thumbtack into the center of your foam core and start drawing your circle. Don’t laugh at the gloves, I was doing a moisturizing treatment on my hands. I am proud to be a multi-tasker. LOL

Because the hooded towel isn’t a perfect circle my husband helped me draw a cutout for the neck.

Start cutting your foam core. No need to be OCD for a precision cut, after you glue the fabric around the circle no one can tell if it is perfect or not.

Take one of the circles you just cut and use the straight pins to attach the fabric to the foam core. This step is absolutely necessary so the fabric doesn’t move around on you while you’re gluing.

Start gluing. I glued the fabric around the edge of the circle first and then glued it to the back.

The next morning when the Lil’ Miss was awake I measured her to see how much elastic I would need to complete the costume. For her size and shape I cut two strips of elastic 9″ in length. There was only about 2″ of elastic between the two boards. This was plenty for us to stretch over her head and still keep the costume from sagging below her neckline. You may need to adjust measurements for an adult or older child.

The costume was a huge hit! Everyone stopped us and commented on how cute she looked. I think she’s the cutest BB-8 in existence, but of course I’m biased.