DIY Owl Costume | Easy To Make Halloween Costumes

My 5-year-old loves to pretend he’s an owl. So it was not a big surprise when he announced a couple weeks ago that he wanted to dress up like an owl for Halloween. Not just any owl – an owl with blue feathers. (Blue is his favorite color.)

I knew I was going to have to make an owl costume for him if it was going to have blue feathers. I looked around at different DIY Owl Costume ideas and came up with a no sew version that is actually pretty easy to make.

You gotta love easy to make Halloween costumes. The key to making costumes super easy is to start with basic items of clothing you may already have. For the owl, we used a long-sleeved gray tee shirt and a pair of black leggings for the costume, and a gray knit beanie for the owl’s head. We also picked up $1 pair of knit gloves to match.

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The owl’s feathers are ovals cut out from inexpensive 8×10 felt sheets from the crafts section. (We paid 23 cents per sheet and it took about 6 sheets for the feathers.) You can use whatever colors of felt you want for the feathers. We used Blue, Dark Gray, Light Gray, White and Black felts. Note: My son wears a size 5T shirt, so you will need to adjust the amount of felt up or down, depending on your child’s size. 

I made sure to save enough white felt to cut 2 big circles for the owl’s eyes. I used black felt scraps to cut out 2 small circles for the owl’s pupils. You’ll also need a small piece of orange felt to cut out a triangle beak. All in all, it’s a very inexpensive easy-to-make costume.

DIY Owl Costume

Materials and Tools Needed:

• Print this oval template
• Chalk
• Scissors
• Felt material
• Fabric Glue
• T-Shirt (Long Sleeved)
• Beanie (Knit Hat)

Directions:

1. Cut out a paper oval from the oval template printable. Use white chalk to trace ovals onto felt. Each oval is an owl feather. Cut out as many feathers as needed to cover the front of the t-shirt. ^See photo for guidance.

Tip: Lay out the felt feathers on shirt the way you want them before you glue them. Rearrange if necessary to get the look you want.

2. Use fabric glue to attach each felt feather to the shirt. You only need to apply glue to the top of each feather (about the top inch of the feather) and press it onto the shirt. Glue feathers in rows going across the shirt. I started at the bottom of the shirt and worked my way up. The bottom row of felt feathers starts about 2 inches above the bottom hemline of the shirt. *See photos for guidance.

3. Make the Owl Head/Beanie Hat: Draw or trace 2 circles onto white felt. I used a mason jar to trace circles. Cut out the circles. Draw or trace smaller circles onto black felt for the owl’s pupils and cut them out. Glue white circles onto the beanie. Glue black circles onto the white circles. Cut out an orange triangle for the beak. Glue onto beanie. *See photo below for guidance.

Note: It looks like the owl eye’s are glued on top of each other, but they really aren’t. We found out that when the knit beanie is worn, the knit material stretches out a bit, so the eyes need to be glued on the hat very close together but not on top of each other to account for the stretchiness of the knit hat fabric.

If you use a knit beanie, I suggest having the child put the beanie on BEFORE you glue on the eyes and beak, and use straight pins to temporarily position the eyes and beak so you can glue them into the right place when the beanie is taken off. 

4. Allow the glue to dry completely for 24 hours (or the dry time listed on your package directions) before wearing costume.

You could make this a baby owl costume by using a onesie instead of a t-shirt, and using a smaller ovals template to trace and cut felt feathers.

Our DIY owl costume turned out even better than I expected. I think it is absolutely adorable. It was really easy to make – I love no sew costumes! My son is very happy he gets to dress up like an owl – and a BLUE-feathered owl at that!

Want more Halloween costume inspiration? Check out my round-up of Easy No Sew Costumes for Kids.

Let me know if you have any questions about how to make this DIY owl costume. I’m happy to try to help.