Spaghetti And Meatballs DIY Costume For Kids Or Kids At Heart!

And now for the last of our Purim costume creativity for this year: presenting a spaghetti and meatballs DIY costume, hold the sauce! My dear eleven year old is somewhat on the particular side and nearing the age when many boys choose not to dress up more than possibly a funny hat, so it took a bit of convincing to even get him to agree to wear a costume. With some help from his teacher (who said the boys must come in a costume to a little party at his house) I had possibly one of the last opportunities to create a unique costume for this sweet boy, and while I really didn't have much of a plan, rather than the idea "spaghetti and meatballs", I fortunately pulled it off! Admittedly here in Israel people really don't identify with "spaghetti and meatballs" and some people apparently thought the balls were falafel!

In fact people, namely men and boys mostly, were raving about this costume, and how they'd never seen anything like it! In my opinion the costume came out well given the fairly minimal (compared to costumes that require sewing and crocheting) preparation time, but mostly I was really happy that my son to got this kind of attention. And yes, classic spaghetti and meatballs should have some red sauce in there, but I just couldn't figure out how to do that in a nice neat way, so I just skipped it altogether, and truly, no one noticed anyway!

And now that we've delved into the arena of costumes that use boxes, I have a feeling that we'll be making more costumes in this vein in the future, we'll just have to wait and see!

How To Make A Spaghetti And Meatballs Hold The Sauce Costume:

You'll Need:

• A cardboard box— a cardboard fruit crate is the perfect size for a child
• plastic table cloth material, I used 1.5 meters
• a large round cardboard food platter, mine is metallic silver, and slightly larger than a charger
• yarn in a color that resembles sphaghetti (ours could have been a bit more yellow)
• an old yarmulke or beret of some kind
• paper mache meatball tutorial
• styrofoam balls
• a cardboard egg carton
• white glue
• brown and black paint
• a hot glue gun
• various accessories for the table: a drink bottle, a cup and straw, a newspaper of some sort......

How To:

1. Make fake meatballs according to the paper mache meatball tutorial, and set aside to dry.
2. Cut a circle in the bottom of a cardboard fruit crate that is just big enough to fit over the head of the designated costume wearer. I traced a plate and then cut on the line with a sharp craft knife.
3. Place plastic tablecloth material, centered in both directions, over the box, and cut an x in the exact center to form an opening. Fold the tablecloth slits down into the hole and tape to the box on the inside. If you are certain of the placement of the tablecloth, go ahead and adhere it to the box with hot glue.
4. Fire up your hot glue gun, and cover your hat or yarmulke with yarn. First form a spiral on the whole hat and then make some loops here and there.
5. Cut a circle out of the center of the large plate such that the plate will just fit around the wearer's neck. To cut out the circle, you can do it with sharp scissors by making a slit and then cutting out the center. This slit will be used by the wearer to put the plate on. The plate is not glued to the table, otherwise it would have to have a huge opening in the center of it to accomodate the head. Just put the plate on after the box is slipped over the head. Got it?
6. Decorate the plate with a casual heap of spaghetti, adhering here and there with hot glue. To get it looking right, use long and short pieces of yarn, and some spaghetti should spill over the sides of the plate.
7. Once meatballs are dry, adhere one or two to hat, several to the plate and more to the tablecloth itself. Decorate the table with strands of spaghetti and a fork and knife, cup, bottle etc.

My son didn't want any face makeup, but you could have fun with that too! Happy homemade costume making, there's nothing like it!