DIY Circus Animal Cookie Costume

Dressing my daughter up as the cutest existing cookie for her first Halloween miiiight be the best idea I’ve ever had. I mean, can you even?!

And the other good news is that everyone I’ve polled seems to believe a 5 month old baby is old enough to go trick or treating so I guess I’m getting some free candy this year, cha ching!

Really though, even if she wasn’t old enough, we’d have to take her around some neighborhood just so the people there could be graced by her sprinkle-covered presence, am I right?

Gah! I want to eat her right up!

Pink or white clothes //
Assorted colors felt //
-accurate colors are red, orange, yellow, green, bright blue, purple, white and pink
Pink or white pleated ribbon (about 3.5 yards for a baby-sized mane) //
Scissors //
Ok to wash-it fabric glue //
Needle //
Thread //
Sewing machine //

This tutorial is technically for a baby costume but it could easily be adapted for an adult, just buy bigger clothes! And cut out a lot more circles… I also did a pink version but these cookies come in white too which would be equally cute. Even brown or green would work as one of the other varieties (jungle animal cookies and chocolate animal cookies).

I wanted her to be a lion but there are a bunch of animals you could choose from. The actual cookies come with elephants, leopards, giraffes, rhinos, zebras and a couple more. To easily make a mane, I chose to buy a hoodie. I got all my clothes at Old Navy.

Gather your felt and trace 1/4″ circles all over half of the sheets. Place a sheet without tracing on it underneath and then cut them all out (so you’re cutting two circles out at a time). For the mane I used this cute pleated ribbon but so many things would work for a cute mane so feel free to use your imagination here!

Cut 4 ears out of pink felt and 2 little insides out of slightly darker pink. Lion ears are rounded, not pointy. Sew 2 big pieces on top of each other and a small piece in the center then fold the bottom over a little and sew straight across the bottom to hold your crease in place. Sew the ears on to the appropriate place of your hoodie (try on to figure that out) by stitching along the bottom. If you think it needs to stand up more, add a few stitches along the bottom of the other side.

Sew your pleated ribbon back and forth all down the hoodie about 1/2″ apart from each other then go back through and add rows in between and sew on the other direction so that the two rows hold each other up. I only did this on the rows in front of the ears.

Make a tail by cutting out a long strip of felt, fold it in half, sew down and turn right side out. Then add some pieces of the pleated ribbon to the end. Now you can attach your circles all over your costume! I used a fabric glue that is apparently ok to wash but I haven’t tried to yet and honestly I’m going to avoid the washing machine with it I think. There is no wrong way to add your “sprinkles” since sprinkles fall wherever they want to, your costume will look good in any random way!

If you want, you could stitch all the sprinkles on. I did this on the shoes and the mane. Then I hand stitched the tail on at a slight angle so that it would be easy to see from the front.