Garbage Men and Recycling Bin Costume

My three-year-old LOVES garbage trucks so it was no surprise that he wanted to be a garbage man this year for Halloween. What started out as a simple costume morphed into something that included all of us!
Several pieces of this costume were found around our house, while some were store bought. We spent approximately $50-$75 on all four costumes and the truck because we had so many items already.

The truck weights at least fifty pounds and is made out of plywood.
We first made the truck frame out of cardboard to get an idea of the
size and shape it would be and then cut out half inch plywood to make the final truck. We had to make sure it was big enough to fit a Fischer Price Sit Me Up in it because my nine month old needed something that would support him AND keep him from getting out! The under frame was made out of a dismantled handtruck that we had in the garage. The front grill of the truck was plywood bead board that was left over from making a baby gate for our stairs. We added a handle bar across the back out of wood for my son to hold on to while he rode on the back. I then painted the truck green and white, added black duct tape (left over from last year's Firetruck costume) to make a smooth finished transition between the colors. I have a Silhouette Cameo 3. I used that machine with Oracle 651 vinyl to make the Waste Management Logo, the red and silver stripes at the bottom, and the lights on the front. We then cut out a handle and screwed it to the base. I collected our household trash over two weeks and hot glued and/or duct taped all the pieces together so nothing would fly off as we "drove" around the neighborhood.

The three white hats were plain adult hats from Goodwill. Once again, I used Oracle 651 to cut out logos on the hats. Since my youngest is only nine months, I sewed the back of his hat together to make it closer to an infant size.

My three-year-old's vest came from Amazon. I couldn't find a vest in an infant size, so I bought a plain fluorescent yellow t-shirt from Hobby Lobby and used that material to cut and sew a small vest. I then used a sharpie to draw a line on the front to look like a vest and put silver duct tape around it for the reflective stripes. My husband was one of the teachers in Henryville High School when it was hit by a tornado six years ago. This safety vest was given to him when he was allowed to go back into the building and retrieve items from his classroom. It definitely has special meaning to us and I was nice to finally use it during a positive experience. I used Oracle 651 vinyl to put their names on
each of the vests and "Waste Management" on the back. I decided I wanted to be a part of the costumes, so I used Oracle 651 on a blue shirt I already had to make the recycling logo so I could peel it off when we were done with Halloween.

The costumes were a hit everywhere we went! People normally said how much they loved it/how creative it was/how cute, etc. and then when we passed them, you would hear "Oh look, they even have trash in the back of the garbage truck!" We even had someone stop and take our picture with him because he worked at Waste Management and wanted to show his boss. Overall, I would say it was a huge success and my boys loved it!