She-Bot Costume

Gather your materials: I rummaged through my junk drawer to find anything I could attach to the body. I used:

Two foil bottoms from burned-out tea candles

Old buttons from ripped jeans, sweaters, jackets, etc.

The backs of some old pins I had (from various events such as marathons, fundraisers, etc.)

Misc. nuts and bolts that were rolling around in my desk.

Colored foam squares and felt scraps from some older craft projects.

I walked over to the Dollar Store to pick up a few things I knew I wanted but didn’t have: 2 large rolls of aluminum foil, a cheap tire gauge, an LED reading light ($4 total!).

I had just moved into a new place so I had some boxes still lying around. This box was perfectly square and fit comfortably over my head. Before anything, I figured out where my eyes would be and cut out a rectangular area with a box cutter. I cut semi-circles in the middle of each of the flaps which would go around my neck. This way the box would stay in place and I could still easily take it off.

I wrapped the box with foil paper, using regular white school glue to keep it in place.

Using the word-processing program on my computer, I made basic shapes for eyes and the mouth (I thought I’d give her big beautiful red lips). Printed, cut and glued.

I used two soda cans out of my recycle bin wrapped in foil paper as my ear/antenna. I used hot-glue to fasten them.

The LED book light was also affixed with hot glue at the top of the head and, using some felt scraps, I fashioned a bow and hot glued that on to the middle of the light.

I used a larger box for the body – this was a moving box from U-haul, size medium. I did the same semi-circle cut on all flaps on one end of the box, then very precisely measured the location of the armholes by poking a pencil through the general location of my shoulder with my opposite hand. Using a box-cutter, I cut out arm-holes using similar guessurements.

I wrapped the box in foil like the head, using school glue.

I used colored foam rectangles as the “screens” for where I wanted to place my “gauges” and cut others out into big colorful buttons that went along the bottom. Hot glue away!

Not visible in the pic: I found a roll of left-over party streamer and glued pieces on to the bottom of the box to form a cute pink hula-type skirt.

Also not visible: I used one of the foil rolls and cut-out sections of arm hole cardboard to fashion a wind-up mechanism which I wrapped in foil paper and hot glued to the back of the box.

Lastly: Turn on your LED antenna and challenge everyone to do the Robot. Winner every time.