Lovely Party Things

When my son turned four, I put together a fun Robot Birthday Party for him, you can read all about it right here on my family blog: Robot Birthday Party Ideas. The printables I used to create robot costumes for his party are no longer available, so I decided to design some of my own to share with you .

Printable Robot Costume Tutorial

Here’s how you can make a simple robot costume using the free printable robot images available below.

Robot Costume Supplies:
Poster board or sheet of cardboard
Robot Printables (free download below)
Contact Paper (optional, you could use any adhesive)
Ruler, Stapler, Scissors, and a Pen or Pencil

The size of the poster board needed depends on the size of the child who will wear the costume. For my son’s robot birthday party, I just used sheets of poster board cut into quarters, one quarter for the front, one for the back (so I could make two costumes per poster board). I stapled strips (from another piece of poster board) to attach the two sides together at the shoulder. This was for kids who were mostly four years old. I recently made a new costume for my son with the new robot printables. Now that he is almost six years old, I needed a larger costume! The image below shows how I cut a single piece of poster board to make his costume.

Instructions:
1. Print the robot costume images: *Click here to go to the download page for these free robot printables*

2. Cut two equal sized rectangles of poster board to be the front and back of the costume (you could measure your child or just estimate the best size). Also cut two thin strips of poster board for the shoulder straps.

3. Adhere the robot printouts to the poster board by covering them with clear contact paper (for durability) or you could just use regular tape.

4. Staple the shoulder straps to the edges of the front of the costume, then have the child hold the front of the costume up while you figure out the best placement for the back staples (mark the shoulder straps with a pen or pencil). Staple the back of the costume to the other ends of the shoulder straps.

Here’s another idea: for a more 3D costume, try cutting arm and head holes into a cardboard box, using the printables to decorate the sides. There are lots of possibilities with these, I hope you enjoy them, and please let me know how you use them – I can’t wait to see what you come up with !