DIY Minion Costume

So this year, my 8 year old asked to be a Minion for Halloween. I was psyched! Not since he asked me to make him a Buzz Light Year costume have I been so happy with his choice. Trevor is famous for wanting the cheapest store-bought costume (Power Ranger, Spider-Man) breaking the heart of a woman who lives for making memorable Halloween costumes for her kids. That would be ME.

I putting out this tutorial early in the season so that anyone who want to make one for their little guy will have time to make it happen before the big day.

Here’s a list of things you will need to make the goggles and hat:
Two mason jar lids
A silver grommet
A grommet tool
Black nylon strap (long enough to wrap your child’s head twice)
A black buckle for the above strap
Two whiffle balls
A Dremmel
A glue gun and some glue sticks for it
Yellow fun foam (a sheet will do)
Yellow stocking hat
Black pipe cleaners

So I started by making the goggles. To do this, I started with two Mason jar lids, with the inner circles removed.

The jars, with lids confiscated, will now make pretty vases for some cut flowers. I next popped a hole through the side of each lid, using my grommeting tool, which I will also need for the step after this.

These don’t have to be perfect, just big enough to slip a small grommet through. So now, I grommeted the two rings together, using a silver grommet. The end result is two rings attached like so…

Not the neatest job, but they are secured enough for my 8 year old. What more could I ask? They’re starting to look like goggles now, huh?
Ok, next step is to make a way to attach the straps. I did this with my trusty grommeting tool, but I could have used my Dremmel if it had occurred to me, and I’m sure the holes would’ve been prettier. Cut one slot, about an inch wide on each ring, directly opposite the grommet. It looks like I forgot to photograph the slots before I threaded the strap through them, but this is what they looked like after I strapped them up. I used a black nylon strap that I stole from my kid’s old backpack, but you can buy it by the yard at JoAnn’s.

I also had a buckle from the same backpack strap, so I threaded the straps through that to make the goggles adjustable.

Moving on to the Minion eyeballs. I went in search of 2 whiffle balls, the kind that are white with half the orb all “holey” and half of it plain. Ones like this…

But alas, there were none to be had in late September at Walmart. If I wasn’t such an impatient gal, I would have gone online and ordered them through EBay. Which is what I recommend you do if you live in a cold weather climate that doesn’t stock whiffle balls year-round. Anyway, I went looking for anything similar at Walmart and found these orbs in the pool section, on clearance. I honestly am not sure what their original purpose was, but they were battery powered and glowed in my choice of red, green or blue.

I started by popping out the battery compartment and light, so that I had a hollow globe. Then I took one of my goggle “lenses” and marked off how much of the orb I needed for my eyeballs.

Then I fired up my handy Dremmel and cut it along the line. After cutting, I then sanded the cut edge a bit, to remove any jaggy edges.

Holy crap. Who needs a manicure? I do! Check this out.

Alrightie then. So I still haven’t glued in the balls yet (a little juvenile humor for ya there) but next step would be to get some irises for your balls (heh heh).

Believe it or not, there’s a link for a multitude of irises. They print out, in pairs, on a sheet of paper, then all you need to do is pick the color you like, enlarge them to the appropriate size, and cut them out. The iris page is here. Creepy, huh? I also outlined the irises with a black Sharpie, which makes them look more realistic. And because I’m a freak for detail.

Ok now, run and grab your yellow sheet of fun foam. Lay a straight edge along your eyeball where you want the eyelid to fall, then hot-glue that sucker down. Trim off the excess.

I used a teeny bit of hot glue to adhere the irises. If you haven’t already, make sure your strap is connected to the goggle frames. Now you want to put your eyeballs into your goggles and hot glue them into place.

I used a hefty amount of hot glue to cover any leftover jaggy edges on the eyeballs.

And there you have it, your Minion goggles. In case you were wondering, I made them to sit up on my son’s hat, not across his eyes because I didn’t want to impede his vision in any way. I will admit that I had to talk him into this, but compromised by allowing him to have his face painted yellow when he trick-or-treats.

The hat was much easier. Just find a yellow stocking hat to fit your child’s head. Then take black pipe cleaners, cut them in half, and carefully poke them through the top of the hat.

I then carefully turned the hat inside out and squeezed a big glob of hot glue on all of the pipe cleaner ends. This serves two purposes because it not only keeps the hairs in place, but it also protects your child’s head from the pointy end of the pipe cleaner.

Once the hot glue is good and dry, flip the hat right side out. You may need to trim some or all of the pipe cleaners so go ahead and give that bad boy a haircut. And it’s done! Put the hat and the goggles together and you have a Minion costume.

To complete the ensemble you need to gather up the following:
A yellow long sleeve shirt
A pair of overalls (I had the hardest time finding some to fit my kid, so mine are homemade, but store bought would be just fine)
Black shoes
Black gloves
Yellow face paint (optional)
Also, I recreated the “Gru Industries” logo in black vinyl and stuck it to the front of the overalls. Here’s what I based it off of…

So here is my kid in his costume, but without the face paint. I didn’t make him up for the purposes of this dress rehearsal. Isn’t he the handsomest 8 year old you’ve ever seen?

I promise to come back and add a picture of him that includes the face paint shortly after Halloween.

Now, to turn my 10 year old into a Tardis. Hmmm…

Good luck with your own Halloween costumes this month!