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Every year, our son gets to pick the theme for our DIY family Halloween costumes. We’ve dressed up as all kinds of things over the years, but this time he came up with something a little different: Pun Bugs!
The idea was simple. Each of us would dress as a bug, but with a little twist. Our son became the Snack Spider, Mom was the Queen Bee, and Dad transformed into a Butter Fly. Yes, a giant stick of butter with wings!
As usual, these DIY Halloween costumes were a mix of sewing, glueing, repurposing old materials, and figuring things out along the way. I even brought back a costume from a decade ago!
Here’s a closer look at how our three DIY bug costumes came together.
Our “Pun Bugs” DIY Family Halloween Costumes
One of the fun things about this year’s theme was finding different ways to turn ordinary bugs into Halloween costumes with a little wordplay.
We ended up with three very different costumes:
- Snack Spider: An eight-legged spider loaded up with his favorite snacks in hand.
- Queen Bee: A royal bee costume complete with a handmade crown, antennae, and wings.
- Butter Fly: A giant stick of salted butter with oversized fly eyes and wings.
Each costume involved a different approach. The Snack Spider started with everyday clothing that can be worn later, the Queen Bee was updated from a costume I made years ago, and the Butter Fly was built almost entirely from scratch with a mix of old things on hand and everyday clothing.
RELATED: How to make a DIY Giant Spider Halloween Decoration Tutorial →
Snack Spider: DIY Spider Costume for Kids
Our son’s Snack Spider started as a fairly simple DIY spider costume made from a black hoodie and black pants. We added four stuffed legs, eight red eyes, and a collection of snacks to bring his pun to life.
Materials Used for the Spider Costume:
To create the extra legs, I used black sweatshirt fleece, the soft, brushed fabric commonly used for hoodies. I sewed four long legs about the length of the hoodie arms, stuffed them with Poly-fil, and hand-sewed them to the sides of the hoodie. A little 1/4-inch black elastic connected the extra legs so they would move along with his arms.
The eyes were one of my favorite details. I cut eight circles from red felt in three different sizes, then used a black fabric marker to shade each one for a little extra dimension. A tiny dot of white acrylic paint added a highlight to each eye. Once finished, I hand-sewed them to the top of the hood with a simple running stitch that can easily be removed later (unless he wants to keep them on).
Of course, a regular spider wasn’t quite enough for our Pun Bugs theme. We needed snacks!
I collected empty snack packages, making sure they followed our school’s nut-free policy, and filled them with a little Poly-fil so they would hold their shape. I put a piece of packing tape on the backsides to reinforce a bit then hot-glued the packages to the extra spider legs. For the snacks on his shoes, I glued the packages to small pieces of elastic that slipped right onto his shoelaces.
Even without all the snacks, this makes a fun and easy homemade spider costume for kids. The black hoodie and pants provide most of the costume, and the handmade legs and eyes give it that extra boost to turn him into the ultimate Snack Spider.
Want to make your own? Check out my [DIY Spider Costume for Kids tutorial] for detailed instructions on sewing the stuffed legs, connecting them with elastic, and making the felt spider eyes.
DIY Spiderweb Wreath with Cheesecloth
Make a elegant yet spooky spiderweb wreath using cheesecloth, yarn, wire, and a sparkly bow.
DIY Queen Bee: A Upcycled Costume Revisited
My DIY Queen Bee costume wasn’t entirely new this year. In fact, I originally made it about a decade ago when my husband and I dressed up as a Queen Bee and Beekeeper couples costume!
DIY Queen Bee + Beekeeper Couples Costume
This classic couples costume pairing comes together with thrifted and home store goods. It’s the real buzz of the party!
Rather than starting from scratch, I pulled the original costume out of storage and gave it a few updates.
The original costume started with a thrifted black and white dress that I dyed yellow using Rit Dye. I sewed 1-inch black grosgrain ribbon across the dress to create the bee stripes and added a sheer top to convert the original strapless design into something that will stay on all night long.
The handmade crown was still in great shape after all these years. I made it from gold glitter craft foam, decorated with metal brads and rhinestones, and added antennae using a black headband. I attached two hair combs to help hold the crown securely in place for the whole Halloween party.
The wings were another original piece I was able to reuse. They’re made from wire coat hangers shaped into wings and covered with white pantyhose, with black fabric and duct tape helping hold everything together. Black elastic straps make them easy to wear over the shoulders.
Of course, a dress made years ago needed a little attention before I could wear it again. The fabric doesn’t have any stretch, and the dress was just a tad tight, so I replaced the back zipper to give myself a little more room.
I also made one very important improvement: pockets!
Using the free Inseam Pocket Pattern from Helen’s Closet Patterns, I added pockets to the dress. It’s a simple addition, but having somewhere to keep my phone and a few essentials makes wearing a costume all day so much more convenient.
I finished the outfit with a black long-sleeve shirt, leggings, and boots. One of the nice things about this costume is that it’s easy to layer for whatever weather our Minnesota Halloween brings.
Between the new pockets, a better fit, and a few small updates, this 15-year-old costume was ready for another Halloween!
RELATED: You can see how I originally made the dress, crown, and wings in my DIY Queen Bee and Beekeeper Costume tutorial.
Butter Fly: A DIY Butter Costume with Wings
Dad might have ended up with the best Pun Bug DIY costume of the bunch.
When our son picked a Butter Fly, I knew we needed something a little ridiculous. The obvious solution was to turn Dad into a giant stick of butter and give him fly eyes, antennae, and wings!
The DIY butter costume was the biggest construction project of the three, but really it’s just a rectangle with head and arm holes. I wanted it to have the recognizable rectangular shape of a stick of butter while remaining lightweight and comfortable enough to wear for an all day Halloween party.
Materials Used for the DIY Butter Costume:
- 1/4″ upholstery foam – I used 2 24″ x 72″ sheets and have some leftover to use for other projects (it’s perfect for the Headline Tote Bag!)
- 2 old sheets (beige or light cream)
- yellow rit dye (I only used about 2 tablespoons of liquid dye using the washing machine method)
- 2 wire hangers
- white tulle
- black jersey fabric scraps
- hot glue
- 4″ styrofoam ball (I bought the 4 pack and only used one, the others will be perfet for DIY Christmas ornaments!)
- holographic fabric
- old fishnet stockings
- adhesive printer paper
- blue spray paint
- black hat
I used 1/4-inch upholstery foam to build a long rectangular box with openings for the head and arms. The foam provided enough structure to hold the butter shape without the stiffness of cardboard.
For the fabric covering, I started with an old beige bedsheet and added a small amount of yellow Rit Dye. The combination created the perfect soft, buttery-yellow color.
To make it look like an actual wrapped stick of butter, I printed “SALTED BUTTER” onto adhesive sheets and cut out the lettering to create a stencil. The adhesive made it easy to position the stencil directly on the fabric, and I used blue MTN 94 spray paint to add the words.
Once the fabric was dyed and stenciled, I sewed the covering to fit over the foam structure and lined the inside using another old sheet. The finished butter costume was soft, lightweight, and surprisingly convincing as a giant stick of butter.
But we weren’t making just a stick of butter. We needed a Butter Fly!
Adding the Fly Eyes and Wings
For the oversized fly eyes, I cut a 4-inch styrofoam ball in half and covered each piece with stretch holographic performance fabric. Then I stretched old fishnet stockings over the fabric, creating a grid-like texture that gave the eyes that fly-like look.
I hot-glued the eyes to the front of an old black hat and used strips of black jersey fabric, left over from a previous t-shirt resizing project, to conceal the glued edges. A couple of thick wire antennae glued between the eyes finished the fly’s head.
The wings were made from two wire coat hangers bent into fly-wing shapes. I glued some white tulle to the frames and finished the edges with a strip of black jersey fabric scrap. The wings were connected where the hangers met to create one lightweight set of fly wings. These were then just simply safety-pinned to the back of the giant stick of butter
Put the handmade butter costume, fly-eye hat, and wings together, and you’ve got a Butter Fly!
It was a fun mix of fabric dyeing, stenciling, sewing, and repurposing materials I already had around the studio.
If you’d like to make your own stick of butter, I’ve put together a separate [DIY Butter Costume tutorial] with more details about the foam construction, fabric covering, and stenciled lettering. You can even add the fly accessories to make your own Butter Fly!
More DIY Family Halloween Costumes Ideas
One of my favorite things about Halloween is brainstorming with our son for our family costume theme each year. Some costumes require lots of sewing, others are made from cardboard, foam, or thrifted clothing, and sometimes we get to bring an old project back to life and rework it.
This year’s DIY Pun Bug Costumes were a little bit of everything. The Snack Spider was a fairly simple hoodie costume, the Queen Bee got a second life after a decade, and the Butter Fly gave me an excuse to experiment with some new construction techniques.
If you’re looking for more homemade costume inspiration, check out some of our other family Halloween Costume creations:
DIY Bat Family Halloween Costume →
DIY Pikmin Family Halloween Costumes →
Whether you’re creating an entire family’s costumes from scratch or adding a few handmade touches to something you already own, have fun with the process!
Happy Halloween!