Our family loves wacky traditions! And we also love free food. July 14th is Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A this year. They seriously have the best lemonade ever. My kids are pretty excited to have lunch at Chick-fil-A this week. I told them all they have to do is dress up like a cow. Gandalf was just a bit embarrassed. Don’t worry. I’m going to dress up like a cow too. Although that might just add to the embarrassment factor. Baby Girl is pretty excited. She LOVES cows! Her costume is taking a bit longer. We have had some sickies over here this last week. Even though this is kind of last minute I wanted to share how to make a cow costume. I was going to make some pajama pants at first, but I had the genius idea of making shorts to save money.
One might argue that it might just be cheaper to buy my kids lunch. But these pajama’s are an investment. This will not be our last cow appreciation day. And if you happen to have extra white material, like from an old sheet, you can whip these bad boys up at no cost. Cutting our felt and pinning spots on would work with this as well. Or let your kids paint spot on instead. I was able to find this material at Joanne’s. Throw my 40% off coupon and I paid about $7 for this material. And I am hoping to have enough extra to maybe make a Jessie Costume. Baby Girl hasn’t seen Toy Story yet, but I am sure she is going to love it.
Start with a pair of your child’s elastic shorts. With your material folded, trace your shorts adding seam allowance and a bit of height for your casing for your elastic. After cutting your two pieces of fabric, use that as a pattern for another two pieces. You will now have four pieces. With right sides together (Your correct sides of your material together) sew up the two seams on both sides. Don’t sew that curved piece quite yet.
Turn one of your “legs” right side out. Then place it inside the other leg. Match up your curved pieces. Start sewing at the top and sew all along until you get to the other end. Go back and reinforce the center with a second stitch. Pull the other leg out. Yay! They look like shorts. You are almost done.
I like to sew a zig zag stitch across the top to help it from fraying. Then fold over making room for your elastic. You can use whatever width of elastic you think is best. I like thicker width for myself and older kids. Sew along the bottom a bit from our zig zag stitching from sewing pin to sewing pin, leaving a hole open for your elastic to get through. Grab a safety pin and attach it to your elastic. You should have already measured it for your child, leave a little extra to sew it together.
Work your safety pin through your garment until you have both ends out. Sew your elastic together. Adjust your shorts so your elastic is distributed evenly. Sew along your original stitch to keep it together. Tie off all ends. And hem your shorts. With my two younger boys I made their short bottoms along the salvage end so I wouldn’t have to hem them. Gotta save time when you have so many kids. If I was making these really nice I would fold my top stitching so you couldn’t see the zig zag stitch. I would have ironed it over so it was nice and clean.
To make the headbands I took white jersey material left over from this costume. I cut strips and sew them together. Then I added triangles to the headbands. I stitched the ear on the left with the ear facing up. Then I did a top stitch across the front like shown on the right ear.
The boys loved making their own signs. They always think the Chick-fil-A ads on the side of the road are hilarious. We see them all the time on our way to California. I pinned some felt to these white shirts. I think I am going to reuse theses shirts and make some new school clothing using them. And of course you don’t have to sew your costume to get a free meal. Search your closets for polka dots or any cow print clothing. It’s so much fun to get creative this this day.
And even though these costumes look really great. There is something missing…
They need more cow bell.
