Sock Monkey Costume

Our 8-year-old's sock monkey costume was really fun to watch come together. As with all our children's costumes, we wanted this one to be as realistic as possible while still being easy to get in and out of and user friendly for our daughter while she was wearing it.

The first concern we had creating our sock monkey was finding the right fabric. That brown and while sock fabric of a real sock monkey doll is very recognizable and if our version was going to work we needed something that matched it. Fortunately for us, the solution came from across the country in the form of Gramma who found a lightweight print that looked perfect.

The costume is just three pieces. The bodysuit is basically like a big pair of footy pajamas with the zipper up the back. In the feet we attached a pair of slip-on shoes to give it some structure for walking around outside. Sock Monkey's arms are proportionally longer than an 8 year-old girls so we added a poly-fill stuffed mitten to the end of the arms to elongate them. There was a hidden opening in the hands though so our daughter could get her hands out to if needed to eat or whatever. Details are everything so we made sure to include the Redheel tag on the back.

On her head she wore a cowl which had Sock Monkey's ears and hat. There was extra fabric along the bottom so it could tuck into the bodysuit. For the yarn hair, we went with red pipe cleaners because they were the proper scale and stood up like the yarn does on the real deal.

Lastly, we had mask to cover her face. It started out as one of those cheap white plastic masks which we then covered in the monkey fabric and attached a stuffed mouth piece to. It didn't cover we entire face which was great so we could still eat and drink in costume. The blank. black eyes were created by glueing the lenses from an old pair of cheap sunglasses to the back of the mask. A black Sharpie marker completed the look with eyebrows and nostrils.