gumball machine
When I was in New York a few weeks ago, my friend Sara Clifton was telling me about her daughter Lucca's request to be a gumball machine for Halloween. Sara had no idea how to turn her daughter into a gumball machine, but Lucca was adamant, and I was not offering any helpful advice (balloons? a plastic bag?).
Here is her brilliant solution:
1. Make a red skirt.
2. Add gumball machine components (like a coin plate, knob and hole) made from felt.
3. Buy a couple plastic bowls and plate from the dollar store. You'll need one large clear bowl to make the gumball bowl, one plate with the same diameter as the large bowl, and one smaller bowl.
4. Hot glue the small bowl to the center of the plate. This will help eat up some of the space in the large bowl, so you don't have to fill the entire thing with gumballs (which would be too heavy for a little girl to wear).
5. Fill the larger clear bowl halfway with gumballs, and then press the plate (now glued to the small bowl) on top like a lid. Hot glue them together.
6. Glue some red ribbon around the bowl and attach ribbon to help support the weight of the bowl.
7. Add a red beanie for the lid of the gumball machine.
As you can see, Lucca was quite pleased with the final result. Hooray for handmade costumes! (And thank you to Sara, for sharing her how to with us.)
10.31.2011
Reader Comments (125)
AWESOME! :-)
Oh my goodness, that is the cutest little costume ever!! So clever and adorable :)
I saw this on Facebook and just about died! I love Lucca for being so creative and unique (especially for one so young!) and I love Sara for pulling it off so well!
This is amazing! She looks so happy to be a gumball machine!
What a PERFECT costume. For child or adult. :)
So cute! I was a book for halloween one year when I was a kid. If it had been approached with this kind of creativity and attention to detail it would have been so cute. Alas - I just looked like a cardboard box with arms. This is a million times better. Great job!
What a fabulous idea.
This is so adorable and clever. I love it!
this is the best costume! so clever and adorable. i love that this is what she wanted to be! a very creative little girl.
Wow! most creative i have ever seen
What creativity! I showed it to all my kids and they loved it!
Wow! So creative and absolutely adorable!
this is seriously the cutest thing ever!
Absolutely adorable! How I love halloween.
So adorable! I dressed as a gumball machine when I was in 3rd grade. My Mom made my costume, but we used balloons for the gumballs. This costume looks so much more comfy than mine was!
So cute and clever and gloriously random! I love this!
My little guy had a similarly awesome/unusual costume request this year....A MEATBALL. It was pretty awesome:
http://modernkiddo.com/?p=6205
xo
A
I have seen plenty of gumball machines... but none as well done as this one! It looks super cute and fun!
Genius! That is so fun!
Beyond brilliant! But how did Luca react to not being able to access all those giant gumballs... ? LOL!
I love the gumball machine!! Beautifully constructed. It's great to have a vision. Mine was adamant she needed to be a "Nutbox". When I asked what that was, she said she wanted me to write "salted, delicious, roasted nuts" on a box. She went as a Nuts 4 Nuts vendor. "Nutbox" on the front. http://flic.kr/p/azNgys "Nuts 4 Nuts" on the side. http://flic.kr/p/azKBbk She gave out nut stickers to classmates. While I worried she might be ostracized by the other 3 yr old princesses, they all loved it and wanted to sell nuts with her.