The Claw Costume

My costume came about because my son asked specifically for a claw machine costume lol. We had made a homemade costume last year, and everyone loved it! I think he wanted something different that everyone would once again love. We started off by getting a big box from my husbands job. (FREE) Then we went to the dollar store and looked for the stuff that people use on Easter baskets, (the clear plastic) so that we could use it as the front and sides so it could resemble a claw machine. We also purchased 2 black poster boards and 2 blue poster boards. We only spent $3.00 on this project!! :) We went home and started on it. We first cut out 3 sides of the box for the windows and hot glued on the clear plastic. Then we cut out two arm holes so he could walk and hold it up, and a slot at the bottom to grab the toy from. We hot glued the blue poster boards to the top part of the box on each side, and the black poster board to the bottom of all the sides. We used the leftover box pieces from the cutout windows to make an area for the money and coin slots, and the joystick. We cut out a hole in the top of it, and stuck in a marker that we painted black. We glued on a small red circle from construction paper as the top of the joystick. I googled and free hand drew the coin slots and money slots onto a piece of computer paper. I then cut it out and glued it to the front of the box. We added stickers and a piece of leftover cardboard to the top, and cut out letters saying "the claw!" and glued them to the top cardboard piece. After that, we added a black garbage bag to cover his head and shoulders, and put the stuffed animals on top of it. We then took two old pant hangers that are used for babies, and twined them together to make a "claw". We covered the hanger with foil and hung it to the top using an old necklace chain. That's it! We had a fully walk able crane machine costume. :)