Yo Gabba Gabba: DIY Muno Costume
My son has the tendency to want to be something for Halloween that they don’t make a costume for. A couple of years ago he wanted to be Muno (from Yo Gabba Gabba) for Halloween and wouldn’t you know, they make every single costume BUT Muno. My husband and I brainstormed on the ways we could re-create Muno, and luckily we were able to. Here is a tutorial on how we made it.
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Body (excluding Muno’s bumps):
For the body suit, we purchased a Raggedy Andy (jumpsuit) pattern for our son’s size from a fabric store. Using the pattern we cut out the pants, top and gloves using a red fabric (we used a fleece type material as it is typically cool in our area at night in late October). We slightly altered the pattern, just to flair out the legs a bit and extend the length (I think Raggedy Andy’s pants are floods). We sewed the pieces together as described in the pattern and added a zipper from the back of the neck to mid-back.
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Head Piece:
For the head, we purchased 1/2-inch thick, foam-type material from the fabric store. It is sold by the yard.
We cut out a long rectangle of foam material with the short-side of the rectangle measured to fit snug around our sons head. We rolled it once around in the long-direction and sewed the two ends together making a tube or pipe out of it. Now we had a roll of foam that fit on our son’s head like a hat. On one end of this rolled foam, we cut out four, equally sized triangles from the foam material evenly spaced around the circumference of the roll. Then the tips of each of these triangles were sewn together making a rough half-sphere (it doesn’t have to be perfect because the fabric will cover it).
Then, near the end of the fabric roll that is still open, we cut out a window on one side for our son’s face to show through. We then measured and cut a rectanglar piece of red fabric to match the dimensions (only just slightly larger) of the foam rectangle that was cut to make the foam roll. This fabric will be wrapped around the foam roll. We cut out Muno’s smile to match up with the location of the window in the foam roll. We cut out the triangles as was done with the foam, wrapped the foam and sewed up all the seams. You will have to be more cautious cutting the triangles out of the fabric than the foam as the fabric seams will be seen. I recommend for the fabric, instead of cutting straight sides on your triangles, cut curved lines making your “triangle” more rounded. This will help the seams match up better in the half sphere top. Look at a baseball hat for an example. We then used felt and cut out the teeth and eye. We sewed on the teeth so not to block our son’s vision.
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Muno’s Eye and bumps on his body:
Muno’s eye and bumps were done in a similar way.
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Using a circle template to trace circles, cut out lots of little circles using the red fabric. Also cut a big white circle and a medium black circle out of felt for the eye. Similar to the top of the head piece, we cut four triangles out of each circle equally spaced around the circle, then sewed together all the seams. This gives these features a really good 3D effect. The bigger triangles you cut out the more 3D it will be. Experiment with the size and shape of your triangles. They don’t have to be equilateral triangles. Once you get the right shape make a bunch of bumps out of red fabric, and one big one for the white part of the eye. Then we sewed each bump onto the body and head by hand about 3/4 of the way around the circle. Leave the last 1/4 open so you can stuff the bumps with stuffing then sew it the rest of the way up. Do the same with the eye and glue, or sew the black of the eye on to the white. This part took forever!
There is quite a bit of sewing, but I will add that my husband not only helped design, but sewed a lot of this costume. He had never sewn anything before (he didn’t even know how to thread a needle). So try not to get overwhelmed. If you have any questions, please let me know! HAPPY SEWING!
