How To Make a Simple Grinch Costume

When it came to choosing a Halloween costume for this year, my youngest child was adamant that he wanted to go as The Grinch. Well, he is pretty mean and scary, AND we did already have the body made from our World Book Day make, which was very, very handy, so I thought, why not? This is how we transformed a little green monster costume into a simple Grinch costume.

What You Will Need:

• Green trousers
• Green (fluffy) jumper
• Toy stuffing
• Sewing kit
• Green shoes or xmas/fluffy slippers
• Headband
• Green wool/material, plastic/card (for his hair)
• Green card
• Facepaint
• Glue gun
• Optionals – Christmas hat, Santa jacket, sack, toy dog etc.

How To Make The Grinch Body

As mentioned above, we used the body we made from an earlier make which you can read all about in this blog here, but I will recap quickly in this blog too.

I found a fluffy green jumper on Vinted that looked like it had some stretch in it. I purchased some toy stuffing from Hobbycraft (you can easily get this online too) and found some old pyjama bottoms in the house that I could cut up to create the pouch to hold the stuffing inside the jumper.

I began by cutting the leg area of the pyjamas (adult size) to give me one long piece of material. I then began to sew the bottom of this to the bottom of the inside of the jumper, leaving it loose enough to move with the jumper and my child.

I then carefully stuffed the pouch I created with the toy stuffing which may sound simple but this actually took up a lot of time because I had to keep checking I had the right amount to get the desired look.

I also found that overstuffing led to pulling on the threads I had sewn and that the shape of all the material changed when I asked my child to try it on. So, be prepared to be patient. Once I was happy with the look, I hand-stitched around the top of the material to finish the belly.

The Grinch’s Hair

I was strapped for time with this make, and if I’d had more notice that this was what he wanted to be, I would have probably looked for a wig or come up with something to make him look a little hairier, but I only had a few hours to bring this look together and he wanted simple so simple is what I went for. I found an old headband, dug out some green plastic stringy packaging (the kind people use to make gift baskets) and my glue gun. All I had to do was cut the plastic to size and glue it to the top of the headband to give that iconic tuft of hair look. I did also cut some green card out to cover the black headband. Again, this was glued in place.

Shoes

Now, because I wanted people to know that he was The Grinch, we popped out to some charity shops to look for Grinch themed shoes or slippers, and can you believe the first shop we went into actually did have Grinch slippers?! Brilliant! The only problem was, they were too small. So, back home we went where I created shoe covers out of an old pair of tights. I then cut the front of the slippers away from their soles and used my glue gun to attach them to my shoe covers. Voila! Grinch shoes for £3 and a little bit of creativity. Obviously, if you have more time, you can shop around a little and maybe come up with something a little bit better.

Face

My child didn’t want me to make a mask or look for one, so we simply opted to paint his face green for the evening. If you have more time, you could add finer details such as lines and a nose, or you could make a mask to look more like this character.

The Finished Look

One very quick and simple Grinch costume ideal for Christmas or indeed Halloween!!

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