8 Meet Mr & Mrs...

What?  You didn't know I married Alex O'Loughlin? OK, ok... my husband REFUSED to let me put his face up. Alex was not harmed in the making of this picture.   Super simple costumes that cost me only $8.97 for the tan felt.  All other items I had on hand.  Even so, the only other must haves are elastic, hot glue gun/sticks and felt sheets for facial features. I purchased three yards of tan felt, 72" wide. For my husband, who is 6'4" I measured from his shoulder to mid calf and then added 2" for a total of 52".  My final measurement came in at 45".

Fold the felt in half and mark the length you need (52" for hubby).   Cut straight across.  You now have a 52" x 72" piece of felt.   Now that you have the felt cut to size we need to shape it. To figure out how wide to make it measure edge of shoulder to edge of other shoulder.

  Fold the felt in half again and mark the center.  Next mark on either side for your measurement - example: My husbands measurement was 20" so I marked 10" from the fold.    The above picture shows the measurement when the fabric is unfolded.

Keeping the fabric folded in half you are going to cut a semi-potato shape, starting from the 10" mark.  I slowly angled out until I got to the spot where I wanted my widest point (around a persons bottom - so 24" for my hubby) and then I rounded it off and down and in until I got to the bottom.  See picture above for shape - left is how I cut it folded and right shows it unfolded.   You should now have the front and back pieces of the potato cut.   NOTE: THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO MAKE THE ARM HOLES AND TWO WAYS TO ADD EARS. ARM HOLE OPTION 1 works good with EARS OPTION 1 and ARM HOLE OPTION 2 is for if you aren't adding ears or are using EARS OPTION 2.  I tried to explain this as best I could so let me know if you are confused! ARM HOLE OPTION 1 Hold the cut fabric up to the persons body and mark where you will want your arm holes and head.

EAR OPTION 1 I folded some pink felt in half and then free cut the ears, but if you aren't comfortable doing so, then draw up a template on paper first. Pin your ears about an inch below your arm hole - making sure they are pointing in and are sandwiched between the two tan pieces of felt.   I didn't want, um... headlights so I put the ears BELOW my arms so that the face was further down.  If you are OK with eye boobies, skip this step,  and use ARM OPTION 1 and EAR OPTION 2 below.

Now you are ready to sew. Starting at the edge of your neck hole sew across the shoulder and down to the top of your arm hole and back stitch. Start again at the bottom of the arm hole and go all the way down. Now do again for the other side.

ARM HOLE OPTION 2:  Sew from the neckline all the way to the bottom on one side and then the other.  Have the person try the costume on and mark where the arm holes should go.  Cut a small section out and then do a small stitch above and below so that the seam doesn't unravel. Ear option 2 comes later.

I then folded the bottom up an inch  all the way around to create a casing for the elastic. Starting on a side seam, sew the casing, leaving a 3" gap to insert the elastic.

Using a safety pin, thread the elastic through the casing. Using a zig zag stitch sew the two ends of the elastic together and sew shut your gap.   If you want to finish off the neck and arm holes just fold the fabric in a half inch and either sew or hot glue in place.

I also chose to round off the shoulders at this point. Flip right side out and you have your base is done!

Next step is to add facial features.  I drew up all of my facial features onto paper and arranged it on the potato - this helped me size everything correctly.  

Once I was happy I traced them onto sheets of felt and cut them out.  I made my husband put on his potato and then hot glued everything into place.  I did consider gluing them to velcro so that the pieces could be arranged which I think would be hilarious, but since we will be wearing these at an amusement park I didn't want to chance loosing anything.   SECOND EAR OPTION  Did you decide you wanted ears after all and don't mind them at arm level?  Cut them out and then glue the ears to the front inside of the your arm hole.    Want to add a bow for Mrs. Potato head?

 Take a small sheet of craft felt and fold it in half. Use a pipe cleaner to wrap around the middle creating a bow shape and then secure to a headband with the pipe cleaner.

Cut a small piece of felt and wrap it around the bow and pipe cleaner and hot glue in place.

Kim is a Marketing Director by day and Crafter/Blogger/Blog Designer by night. She lives with her husband, three beautiful children, and her dog and cat. You can also visit her design site, seven thirty three – – – creative blog design.  For even more seven thirty three fun, like her on Facebook or follow along via Twitter!