4-Legged Magical Unicorn Costume

Last year, my daughter Jayleigh, now age 10, saw Zuri on an episode of Jessie dressed as a 4-legged unicorn. Immediately my daughter wanted to be that. I told her that costume would take some time (and ingenuity). I took a picture and told her to save it for next year. Well, of course, she didn't forget. I tried to find where I took a photo and had a no luck. It took some hunting on the internet, but I finally found a video snippet of it and took pictures on the computer with my camera for inspiration. (included) Believe it or not, there are not many people out there that have done this, so didn't get much help from the internet at large, either. I looked online at store bought versions of a unicorn costume and thought I can do the same or better to make it our own. It is our tradition to make or semi-make a costume every year. We will not look the same as anyone else, we have to be different and love to have a "wow" factor! I enlisted some help from my mom for support and to get the brainstorming of ideas going. I get my love of Halloween and creative spirit from her! Plus, I knew we were not going to have Disney's budget to make this happen! My limit is usually $30 to $40 (what you might typically spend on a store bought costume) and everything else has to come from the house! We purchased separately a pretty wig with unicorn horn, then found a pretty skirt with similar colors. That gave us the start for the colors, since most unicorn costumes online are rainbow, ours was going to be aqua, pink and purple. My daughter did not want the base to be white like the one we saw on TV (or store bought versions) either, so we used pink boots, a pink leotard and tights that we already had in our closet. Then after scouring the house I also found a white vest in her closet, so we picked up white fur for the boot covers, for contrast and tulle to match the skirt that I wanted to add to the boot covers for pizazz. We also picked up batting to make the body of the unicorn and legs, not knowing how we were going to make it. But in order to give the body structure and keep it light I ended up finding a decorative rectangle pillow from my daughter's bed and a pool noodle that we cut in half for the legs. Thus, we never used the batting. I covered the pool noodles with 2 pair of pink tights, but you could still see the green pool noodle through them, so we covered them with one layer of pink tulle and added small boot covers. I ended up covering the (body of the unicorn) pillow with the tights from the back legs, then put a pair of tights the other way, that we would tie around my daughters waist under the skirt. Tried that and it obviously didn't stay up. I knew we needed to add more, so I started wrapping the tulle in stripes to the body, which added some interest. I found an old piece of felt (actually its Fred Flintstones tie, from an old costume) that we could attach near the hind legs and to the vest. Tried that, didn't work, still needed more support. I added a piece of cardboard under the pillow and looped the tie through two poked holes in the cardboard near the hind legs, hoping the support to the vest and tights tied around the waist would keep it stable, but knew it wouldn't hold up for long. I had one more idea, the trusty wire hanger, a must have for every homemade Halloween costume. LOL! I bent it, so the rounded side would be closest to my daughters back, and then separated it and weaved it through the cardboard. I then took the "Fred" felt tie and weaved it the opposite way so it would be towards the back. near the legs. I wrapped clear packaging tape (for comfort) around the wire hanger and bent it so it would be at 90 degree angle (or so) on my daughter's back. For support, I wrapped more packaging tape around the cardboard that now had weaved hanger and felt through it. I placed it under the pillow and tied the tulle in stripes around it to hold it in place. Now the tulle is pretty, and functional. While retrieving the wire hanger, I also found an aqua tutu from an old costume that I thought would be cute, because my mom purchased a pink pony tail wig that could be used as the tail. We put the aqua tutu over the unicorn's "butt" to cover up the hind legs/tights and sewed on the pink tail. Voila, it worked! We added some magical glitter makeup and she was ready! And the best part, she could untie the tights and take off the vest and she could still look cute. And that is how she ended up trick-or-treating, after I took more pictures, of course! So, aside from pre-purchasing the wig, skirt, tail and other materials, we put this costume together in about 4 hours, the day before we needed it for the one costume contest she entered at her dance studio. Probably spent 3 hours sewing boot covers, adding tulle, putting body and legs together and then about 1 hour of trial and error to make the back legs stable and give this costume the "wow" factor we were wanting. Overall we spent about $50, probably way less than Disney spent on our inspiration costume. Approximately $10 each for: wig, skirt, tail, fur and tulle. If I had it to do over, I would have used fishing line instead of the fred tie, to create more magic, but overall, I told my daughter "its still cool.....I bet, no one else will be a 4 legged unicorn"! And guess what? I was right!