Angry Bird Costume

Here is an Angry Bird costume made for my two and a half year old. This was inspired by a Nemo costume my son wore last year. I liked the style of costume but couldn't find anything comparable so we set out to make our own. This was a group project with my wife and mother, I think it came out great.

Cost was about 40-50 dollars. We bought more material than needed so I can only estimate. The sewing was pretty straight forward but having an experienced sewer(?) on the team was most helpful and really what made this project a reality. To me difficulty seemed to be 3 of 5.

We found a pattern for a pumpkin costume from Simplicity. It was the style of costume we wanted and so set out to make it an Angry Bird. We bought everything at Jo Ann Fabrics to make the costume with. We made it out of fleece and fiber fill with a satin lining.

We used an Angry Bird plush toy as our guide for the proportions of the costume. We set the beige trim on the bottom and built the face off of that. Following the pattern we made the shell first in a size 4T. Yes, for my two year old. 1, because he is Amazon size for his age and 2, we are going to stuff the costume a little more to try and get a nice round (ish) bird shape. We sewed the breast panels together and then added the beige panel on the bottom. We opted to double up the bottom for durability instead of cutting out the red under the belly. Fiber matting was sewn in during this process. 

The face came together starting with the eyes and moving to the brows and finally the nose. It was a lot of tracing bowls and cups to get the size of the eyes and nose right. The eyes and brows were ironed on with some kind of transfer paper and then embroidery stitched on. The nose took a couple attempts to size right and was then hand stitched on. This step was arguably the hardest and most tedious part of the costume. It really set the look of the costume and we got what we were aiming for. This stitch is very hard to do especially on a thick project like this and may be the only way you can tell it's a hand made costume, I really give my mom credit for pulling it off. Tail was added for extra realism.

The body was finished up after the face. The costume is double stuffed. We sewed a fiber fill lining into the shell, attached the satin lining and then stuffed the bird. We had to play with the amount of stuffing to get it right. The satin lining is sewn around the edges and the poly fill is loose in the body. It worked perfectly to get the shape we wanted. The lining was a nice touch as it lets the costume glide on and off very easily. Velcro was sewn into the shoulder straps and the fit holds the costume in place.

This is to show some of the detail work on the finished costume. The hat was made per the plan and only differs slightly for the feathers on top.

Costume in use. Allows plenty of movement.