Light-Up Jack-o-Lantern Costume

When my first costume idea didn't work out, I needed a fast, cheap, easy DIY costume for Halloween. With a t-shirt I got on sale at Michael's, a chisel sharpie, and one of the battery-powered string lights I got on sale at Target, I made a fun costume in less than an hour! I hope you enjoy and Happy Halloween!

For this costume, you will need:

• Orange T-shirt
• Cereal box
• Masking tape
• Sharpie
• Ruler
• 9ft battery-pack LED string lights
• 3 AA batteries

In order to prepare and plan:

1. Try on the shirt and determine where you want the design to start and end. (I wanted to tuck in my shirt so I needed it to be pretty high up)
2. Fold a crease down the center of the shirt so that your design will be centered
3. Stick a flattened cereal box in the shirt so that the permanent marker does not stain through
4. Use a ruler and draw tick marks at the two ends of the drawing of the mouth with the middle of your design in line with the middle of the shirt

To form the face:

1. Find a reference image online (my jack-o-lantern smile is based off of the pumpkin from Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown)
2. Draw the outline of the smile with a sharpie and use a ruler to approximate the tops and bottoms of the eyes
3. Shade in the outline

To make your costume light up:

1. Remove the cereal box and flip your t-shirt inside out
2. Use masking tape to tape down the string lights in patterns around your shapes
3. Put in the batteries and test that your lights work

For the final steps:

1. Gently pull the shirt on
2. Put the battery pack in your pocket
3. Switch on the lights and enjoy!

Now you have a great costume for day or night!