A cute little bee costume DIY

This DIY bee costume for a toddler is a black top and black pants, one roll of yellow duct tape, a tutu and a pair of wings. It took me about an hour, cost under $20, and it went out trick-or-treating on a cold central Indiana night with a layer of warm clothes underneath, which is the part most store-bought bumble bee costumes cannot do. Sadie wore it as a toddler; the same trick works on a onesie for a baby and on a hoodie for a bigger kid or a grown-up, and the sizes are at the end.

Everything here was bought at Walmart, Target and the Dollar Tree in one trip. The photos are ours, from the afternoon she first put it on.

What you need

item	where we got it	notes
black long-sleeve top and black pants	Walmart, $3.88 each	one size up, for layering
yellow duct tape, one roll	any hardware or craft aisle	“Duck Tape” in yellow is the easy find
scissors
yellow tutu	we already had one	a $5 store tutu or a no-sew tulle one works
antenna headband with a stinger	Target, under $5	sold as a set in October
yellow wings	Dollar Tree	the yellow ones sell out first; pink and green are what is left

About $20 all in if you buy the tutu, under $15 if you have one.

Before you start

• Size up. Halloween night in the Midwest is cold; a top and pants one size bigger take a long-sleeve shirt and leggings underneath and still look like a bee.
• The tape does the whole job. No sewing, no paint, no fabric glue. It sticks well to cotton knits and stays put for a night of trick-or-treating; it does not survive a washing machine, so this is a one-night costume, or a hand-wash-and-re-tape one.
• Babies under one: skip the headband, or hold it for the photo only. Wings go on a onesie with two safety pins from the inside, and only for pictures, never for sleep.
• Have the spacer ready. A short piece of tape as a spacer is the difference between stripes that look store-bought and stripes that look like a Sunday afternoon.

How to make the bee costume, step by step

Did I tell you this is easy? Because it is. Lay the shirt on a flat surface and decide where you want the stripes to be. I pulled enough tape to be longer than the shirt was wide, then pressed it on, leaving enough at each end so the ends wrapped around and overlapped in the back. The overlap goes at the back on purpose: that is where nobody looks and where the tape holds best.

I cut a small piece of duct tape to use as a spacer, so the yellow stripes were spaced the same width apart and the black stripes came out the same width as the yellow. Move the spacer down after each stripe; do not eyeball it, the eye is worse at this than it thinks.

For the neck area I cut slits in the tape and folded it inside, so there is no sticky edge against the skin. Then do the same for the pants, one stripe at a time around each leg. Both pieces take about half an hour.

There are a lot of tutorials out there to make tutus. We already had this yellow one from the year before, when my oldest went as Batgirl; I just adjusted the elastic waistband to fit Sadie. I was going to make the antenna, but found this set with a stinger at Target for less than five dollars, and that was that.

The wings came from the Dollar Tree. Either there are a lot of DIY bee costumes out there or they did not make many in yellow: there were plenty of pink and green wings on the rack and one yellow pair at the back. Go early in October.

I took these photos right before lunch. Just as we were finishing up, Daddy came home, and the look on his face was priceless. I think the finished result was a success.

You can just barely see her little stinger under the tutu.

Baby, bigger kid or grown-up: the same costume in three sizes

Baby bee costume. A black long-sleeve onesie and black leggings or footed pajamas instead of the top and pants, and the tape goes on exactly the same way; two stripes on a small body are plenty. No headband under a year (pipe-cleaner antennae twisted onto a black hat work for photos), wings pinned to the back only while you are watching, and a yellow tutu over the leggings if you want the full bee.

Bee costume for a bigger kid. A black hoodie and black leggings or joggers, tape stripes around the body and the sleeves, store wings, and the tutu is optional past about age six; a yellow scarf or a yellow beanie reads as bee just as well. Felt stripes sewn or glued on last longer than tape if the costume needs to survive a school party and a night out.

Bee costume for an adult. A black sweatshirt and black pants, the same yellow tape in wider stripes (two tape widths side by side), the biggest wings the party store has, and the antenna headband. It is the fastest last-minute adult costume there is, and a grown-up bee next to a toddler bee is the photo you will keep.

Making it a pair

In a corny way, Sadie’s and Nolan’s costumes went together that year: she was the bee, and he was Buzz. His is in Wings for a Buzz Costume. A beekeeper (a white shirt, a straw hat with tulle netting, a jar labelled honey) is the other easy partner for a bee, and a flower or a honey pot works for a baby sibling.

Keeping a bee warm on Halloween night

The whole reason to build this on a black top and pants is that they layer. A long-sleeve shirt and leggings go underneath without changing the shape, a black zip-up goes over the top between houses, and the tutu and wings go back on for the door. Mittens in black, and the antenna headband over a thin black hat if it is really cold.

Questions people ask

Does duct tape stick to a shirt? To a cotton knit, yes, well enough for a night out; press each stripe down with your palm and overlap the ends at the back. It does not stick well to fleece or anything fuzzy, so use a smooth top.

Can the costume be washed? Not in a machine; the tape lifts and leaves residue. For a second wearing, spot-clean and re-tape any stripe that lifts. The tape peels off cotton cleanly afterwards if you want the black top back.

How long does it take? About an hour: half an hour for the stripes on both pieces, the rest for the tutu, wings and headband.

Bumble bee or honey bee? The costume is the same; a bumble bee is rounder and fuzzier, so a tutu and a hoodie read as bumble bee, and a slim striped top with small wings reads as honey bee. Nobody at the door will check.

What about a boy? Skip the tutu, keep the stripes, wings and antenna; a bee is a bee. A black beanie with pipe-cleaner antennae instead of the headband is the version most boys will keep on.

More for Halloween

• Wings for a Buzz Costume, the other half of that year’s pair.
• The Scareman, the porch guard we build every October.
• Spooky spider wreath, spider candy bowl and spooky Halloween luminaries for the house.
• Every Halloween post on this site.

Thanks for stopping by At Home with Sweet T!

-Tracy