Jack Skellington - Jack the Pumpkin King Costume

My 5 year old daughter loves Jack Skellington and requested this costume for dress up and Halloween. So here is how we did it-

Supplies:

Jack’s Head $15.00 in supplies

Large Round Punch Balloon (Walmart) remove rubber band.
Flour and water for paper mache
Newspaper cut into strips
Elmer’s Wood Filler 8oz tub (doesn’t matter on the color)
Sandpaper Assorted grits
White craft paint
Pearl white craft paint
Black craft paint
One pair of black knee high pantyhose
Foam pieces (Joann’s Fabric store)

Bat bowtie $6.00 in supplies

Crayola Air Dry clay (smallest package)
Black craft paint
White craft paint
Stiff black felt 11x17 (Joann’s Fabric Store)
Black pipe cleaners
Black duct tape
Black ribbon

Black Suit $20.00 in supplies (mostly fabric)

Material found at Joann’s Fabric Store. Used a little boy’s suit jacket pattern and added the tails by using newspaper as a pattern.
Pumpkin buttons found at Joann’s for the front of jacket
White t-shirt from Walmart
Black pants were a leggings pattern from Joann’s used the same material as the jacket
Skelton gloves were mittens found at Fred Myer

Zero Candy Holder $3.00 in supplies

Used an old pumpkin candy holder and hot glued one yard of white fabric to cover.
1 green floral cone found at Walmart
One black pom pom found at Joanns
Black felt for eyes
Floral wire for ears

Jack’s head instructions:

This was a family affair in making this costume. My daughter did a lot of work on the head since it was easy for her to paper mache. However, daddy got involved when we had to recut the head opening because it collapsed on us when we set it out to dry. Grandma made Jack’s suit and I make Zero and did most of the sanding and painting.

• Start with a round punching balloon blown up to about the size of the head you want. Tie off and set in bowl to keep it stable.
• Cover with paper mache. We use the traditional water and flour method. It doesn’t have to be drippin wet. Just make it a paste. We used newspaper cut into strips about 1” wide.
• The head took the longest since we did one section of the balloon at a time. We ended up applying paper mache four times. Waiting to make sure each coat was dry before applying another layer. It usually took two days to dry between coats. When you set it outside to dry be careful not to set it always down on its opening as the edges will turn in and make the opening smaller. We got all done and it wouldn’t fit over my daughter’s head so we had to cut the opening larger with a saw and repaper mache.
• We made the eyebrows with rolled up paper towels and just paper mached over them a few times.
• Once we were done with the paper mache, I applied wood filler paste over the entire head. We live in the Pacific Northwest so I was afraid the rain would make the head soggy. Once the filler was dry I sanded it once with course and then fine sandpaper.
• After it was somewhat smooth. We painted the entire head white and then let dry. After it was done drying I painted it again with pearl white paint to give it a glowing look.
• I didn’t paint or apply anything to the inside of the head. I didn’t want my daughter to breathe in anything toxic.
• We added small pieces of green foam from Joann’s to the inside top of the head to keep it straight. This took a bit of time trying it on, taking off, adding foam and again and again. We used a hot glue gun to adhere the foam inside.
• Lastly we covered the eye holes with black cut up knee high pantyhose. Just used hot glue on the inside of the eyes to adhere. I also painted the eyes black first.
• We painted the mouth on with black craft paint. She didn’t have any trouble breathing without a hole since the head had a huge opening right below her mouth.
• She could see fine out of the eyes and wore it all night. She only had trouble looking down as the head would shift a bit.

Bow tie instructions:

• Use air dry clay and make the bat. Or at least I think it’s a bat. We looked at photos and did our best.
• Once dry we painted the bat and hot glued black felt to the back.
• We then cut out the sides of the bow tie from stiff felt and taped pipe cleaners to the back with duct tape to give the felt even more support.
• We painted the lines on the front of the tie with white craft paint.
• We hot glued a ribbon to the back of the tie so we could tie it around my daughter’s neck.
• The clay bat was a bit heavy and thick so if you do this, make sure to go as thin as you can on the bat mold so it doesn’t lean forward when you put it all together. Ours was fine and easy to wear.

Zero

• This is white fabric around a candy pumpkin.
• I formed the ears out of floral wire and hot glued a green floral cone from Walmart to the front and covered the whole thing in fabric.
• I used hot glue to add the black nose and cut out eyes from black felt.
• I used hot glue all over this to make the fabric stay.
• It was a last minute thing so it was kinda makeshift.

She really enjoyed making her costume and was a hit!