Sea Turtle Baby Halloween Costume with Free Pattern

Our baby’s first Halloween and our very first family Halloween costume was a big deal. Ryan and I are huge Halloween lovers and have been making our own couples costumes for over a decade. We brainstormed several family costume ideas before landing on the Sea Turtle Baby Halloween Costume and Scuba Diver parent costumes.

Two weeks before Halloween, we coincidentally had a family vacation planned for the East Coast on Figure Eight Island in Wilmington, North Carolina. This vacation with extended family gave us the perfect opportunity to capture our baby sea turtle in his natural habitat.

The beach house we stayed in during our family vacation had beach themed rooms decorated to match. As fate may have it, the room our little family stayed in happened to be the “Turtle Room,” complete with a pile of giant stuffed sea turtles for our little sea turtle play with.

I created my son’s Sea Turtle Baby Halloween Costume from scratch using two colors of fleece, velcro, Poly-fil stuffing, and a little elastic. The base of the costume is a pair of hooded, full-body fleece pajamas with felt eyes added onto the hood.

Materials

• sea turtle costume pattern
• light green fleece (I used Lettuce Green from JoAnn)
• blue/green tie-dye fleece (I used Deep Blue Green Tie-Dye from JoAnn)
• Poly-fil
• 1/4″ elastic (approx 12″)
• green fleece PJs (I used these from footedpajamas.com)
• black and white felt for the eyes
• coordinating thread
• basic sewing supplies

How to make a Sea Turtle Baby Halloween Costume

This Sea Turtle Baby Halloween Costume can be sewn by hand or with a sewing machine. People have told me they’ve even used fabric glue to make the baby costume. Fleece fabric is very forgiving, and cuts or stitches don’t need to be perfect to achieve a great looking costume for baby.

The sea turtle costume has a loosely stuffed turtle shell on the back plus a removable belly that wraps around the body. The front fins attach to the wrists with elastic and the back fins hang free from the shell.

How to Make the Costume Belly

Lay the pajamas onto a large piece of paper to create a template for the belly piece.

Trace around the body of the pajamas from the neck to the crotch.

Cut out your paper template and fold it in half. Make a final cut, so both halves match. You should be left with a template that resembles a sleeveless onesie shape.

Fold the paper template in half and place onto a folded piece of fleece. Cut around the paper template, leaving plenty of extra fabric at the shoulders, sides, and crotch. Set aside.

Make the Stuffed Sea Turtle Shell

You can download the free sewing pattern for the turtle shell, or follow along below for making your own shell.

Create another paper template for the shell piece. For sizing, hold the paper piece up to your baby’s back or the PJs to get a good idea for much fabric you’ll need. The shell should sit slightly above the neck and hang slightly past the baby’s bum.

Cut 2 pieces of fleece for the shell.

Now you can start creating the plates on the shell using the tie-dye fleece. I used an image on Google for reference.

Start by making the outer plates around the edge and then cut out shapes to fill in the center plates. Leave about 1/2″ space in between the plates to allow the lighter green fleece to show through.

As you cut out the plate pieces, arrange them on one of the shell pieces. Transfer one or a few pieces at a time to the other shell piece, pin in place, then sew. I started with the center pieces, then added all of the outer pieces, then filled in with the remaining plates.

Once your shell plates are sewn in place, set aside.

Make the Fins

The fins are included in my free sewing pattern (above), or you can follow along to cut your own fins.

Just as you created paper templates for the belly and shell, create paper templates for the fin pieces. You’ll need 4 of each piece. Have a look at this picture below for the basic shape of the fins.

Before sewing the fins layers together, add random tie-dye fleece shapes to the front-side of the fins. Remember that the left and right sides need to be mirror images of eachother.

Create wrist bands for the front fins to hold onto baby’s arms.

Cut 2 pieces of fleece about 2″ x 7″. Fold in half and sew down the long side to create a tube. Attach a safety pin to one end of the elastic and guide the elastic through the tube.

Pull the elastic tight and scrunch the fleece tube. Test the tightness on baby’s wrist. Place a pin to hold the elastic tight. Sew to hold.

Sew the wrist bands onto the backside of the front fin pieces.

Complete the fins by sewing the front and back fin pieces together.

Completing the Baby Sea Turtle Costume

Onto the underside shell piece, sew the fins in place. I found this easiest to lay the shell piece on the floor, lay baby on top, lay the fins in place, and make general marks on where they should be placed. The top fins should point out to match up with the baby’s shoulders. The back fins can hang straight down.

Sew pieces of velcro onto the top, sides, and crotch of the belly piece. This is what the belly piece will be attached to. Sew the other sides of the velcro pieces onto the underside of the shell.

Sew the 2 shell pieces together leaving an opening about 4″ wide for filling with stuffing.

Lightly stuff the shell with Poly-fil stuffing. The turtle shell should be stuffed enought that it’s puffy, but not filled too tight. Sew the hole closed.

Adding the Turtle Eyes

Cut out the eye shapes from the black and white felt (use my pattern or make your own). Sew pieces together, then sew onto the hood of the PJs. I sewed these by hand, only through the fleece layer of the hood.

While we happened to be on the beach for our DIY family photoshoot, I created this Sea Turtle Baby Halloween Costume to be perfect for a chilly, Minnesota Halloween. The fleece layers kept baby warm while the shell and fins could easily be taken off when needed.

Scuba divers parents and a baby sea turtle made a memorable first family Halloween costume.

See how me made our DIY Scuba Diver Costumes here.

Our happy little sea turtle in his first Halloween costume.

One great thing about turtles is that all of their shells are unique, so you can get creative with the shell plates. I’m super excited to see what your little turtle looks like and feature them on Scratch and Stitch. Send your pictures by email or tag @scratchandstitch.