Make a Yoda Costume! This DIY Yoda Costume can be handmade for adults or kids, even toddlers and babies. With minor adjustments you can use this for a baby Yoda costume also!

Yoda. He is the center of the Star Wars Universe. He’s everything. And this hat has about 1/2 of my total blood volume within it….  He is the best part of our Star Wars Halloween Costumes. Let me show you how to make a Yoda costume!

Let’s get started!

DIY Yoda Costume

First off, let’s show some pictures.  I actually made the yoda hat a LONG time ago.  2006 actually.  wow.  That was a long time ago.  We’ve had both Spencer and Paige be Yoda — don’t think it’s only a boy Costume.  Princess P loved being him too! If you know any kids that Star Wars fans, this is a great choice.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. The underneath base of the costume is just some dark pants and a shirt. Nothing fancy.

Making a Yoda Outfit

I made a child’s robe from a pattern similar to this or you could even look for a free pattern. They are easy to find, just make sure it has a hood. If you didn’t want to sew this part (but you WILL have to sew on the hood, sorry!) you might could find just a dark child’s robe at Goodwill, or even a regular robe you could re-use. I edged our robe in some darker brown seam tape, because I am fancy. I don’t think I eve made a tie for it. We have never tied it. I used a light brown fleece, but feel free to use whatever color suits you. I think something lighter would’ve been more correct, but my kids have been about 3 when they wear this, and white with kids in costumes just don’t work – in my book.

Now gets to the ugly part.  The hat.

How to make a Yoda Hat/Mask

I got a Child’s animal costume pattern — entirely just to use it for the head pattern. I cut just the hat part of the pattern out of lighter green fleece. I did NOT cut out the ear pattern. I made my own yoda ear template. Now, since I made this the first time in 2006, and I am not planning on replicating it any time soon — I just took a white piece of paper and made a pattern for the ear pieces. They need to be REALLY long, to emphasize that they are Yoda, not a green cat. If you can, pick one that dips down in the front, instead of straight across. It helps with the wrinkles.

Then, when I was supposed to sew in the ears, I sewed in the Yoda ears. Prior to sewing them in, you need to stitch and turn them. I used pipe cleaners within them to help them keep their shape (pipe cleaners run along the entire edge of the ear — top and bottom). Plus, the pipe cleaners on the edges help create a “hollow ear effect. So, sew the ear right sides together (is there a right or wrong side for fleece), turn it, put the pipe cleaners in around the edges, and then sew those in place. I think I may have put batting in the ear,but I don’t think it’s super important. The most important part is to put the pipe cleaners in to stabilize it. Also, when you sew the ears into the hat (and you’ll follow the directions from the pattern on how to sew ears into the hat) make sure that you go back and forth over the pipe cleaners a few times so they are well sewed into the seam. Then, make sure you bend the ends in a little bit so they aren’t poking your child’s head. If you notice, I did turn in the tops of the ears to give it a more “ear” type look.

I then lined the hat with a green cotton fabric, sandwiching a layer of batting between the cotton and the piece of fleece. Are you seeing where this is going?

THEN, and this was the ugly part, I free-sewed wrinkles onto the head.  If you look closely you’ll see them.  I used chalk to give a rough outline of how I wanted them to look.  I then just used my sewing machine most likely with the pressure foot up to sew them in.

I used velcro to fasten (and if your costume has the head piece attached to the body of the costume, you may have to adjust that so you can velcro closure that on the kid).  I wanted to make sure most of their neck was covered in the green and could tuck into the shirt to make them look more yoda-y.

This thing is hot.  Here in AZ it is pretty miserable, but i would guess most places it will make your little 3 year old pretty comfortable!

Finishing your Yoda Costume

Use a green light saber (and yes, we do have all colors) as your accessory and you’re done!

And then get a blood transfusion for the many times you’ve poked yourself making that hat.

The reality is that this costume is WAY better then ANY costume I saw out there to buy.  It has survived a lot of love and abuse and I’m proud that I made it.  I like making my kids costumes {once they are done}.

DIY Yoda Costumes FAQ’s

Why do you use fleece for a Yoda costume?

You don’t have to seam fleece — also, it’s warm for a cool Halloween night.

Also, all items stay fairly wrinkle-free with fleece.  Fleece Fun has another cool Yoda costume that they have a tutorial for.

You could probably also use green felt, but I liked how the fleece worked.

Do I have to be really good at sewing make DIY star wars costumes?

I would say most sewing skill levels would be able to do this. But depending on your abilities, you’ll want to give yourself enough time to do it.

Check out my other costumes:

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I loved doing family costumes. They are so fun and super memorable for all of us.

BUT, organizing all those pieces can be a pain and take up a lot of space.

I figured out a way to put them in a bin and easily find what you are looking for.

You’re going to be shocked — I used vertical organization!

But before I tell you all about it — this organization method uses a lot of the principles I teach in my Organized Home Course.  This one highlights being able to easily access what you need when you need it.  If you’re….

• Wishing you could relax more because it seems like your house is ALWAYS calling your name to clean it up
• Worried about last minute guests — they would not be welcome
• Afraid of losing something important because you don’t have a system of places to put things

The Organized Home might be for you!  You can even get 10% off with code PC10.

Ok, back to costumes.

We had a lot of them, and I didn’t want to take up valuable real estate in my room.  I needed them in the garage, but just piling them all in a big bin was frustrating to find what we needed when we needed it.

In comes vertical organization.

Just put the bin on its side, and stack the costumes in.  Because my bin was large, I was even able to stick the dinosaur tale on top of them.

Because everyone needs a dinosaur tale.  Wait, I think it’s a crocodile tale.

You can see it here:

See how easy it is to find what you need?

Now, I’m guessing MOST homes don’t need a bin like this for adult costumes (but maybe you do).  BUT, I bet there is something in your life that you need to figure out a way to store it better than you are storing it now.

It is SUCH a good feeling when you get something like this solved.  Which is why people love The Organized Home.

If you’re not quite ready to tackle the whole system — maybe try my 5 word organization challenge — and check out my other Halloween & organization posts under that:

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There is one thing that DOESN’T say magic to a seamstress (and I would use the word seamstress pretty lightly about myself).

And that is sparkle.

So I compromised with this costume.

When I made a Tinkerbell costume for my 4 year old I knew that I wanted a few things:

1)  I wanted her to be happy with it.  There’s no reason to sew a costume your kid isn’t going to love.

2)  I wanted it to be easy to get on and off on her own.  We own a ton of dress-ups and I HATE having to help her get them all on and off.

3)  It was for Halloween, so I wanted it to be able to go with varying temperatures.

4)  I wanted it to be appropriate for a 4 year old.  As Princess P will tell you, we are modest around here and we don’t show our shoulders.  It’s a big deal, and hence the seemingly WAY too adult Tinkerbell costumes just would not do.

5)  I needed to limit my swear words while making the costume to less then 5% of my vocabulary, hence it couldn’t be too hard.

Soo….

We looked at a lot of Pixie images, and one of the things we both liked the most was that they used things from nature in their clothing.  Tink’s skirt is made of leaves, so we wanted to preserve that.  I knew the skirt was the place we needed to start, so off we went to Joann’s.  We picked out a darker green crushed velvet, and a sparkly green.  Yay!  Those looked like a LOT OF FUN TO SEW ON.

1)  First, cut out “leaves” from each fabric.  I measured around her waist and then divided that number by 6 or 7.  My plan was to overlap the leaves, but not to have them so big that it woudln’t “splay” out right.  I measured from her waist to her knee and that was our length (I made the darker green ones about an inch longer then the sparkly ones).  I sewed those right sides together to make leaves (and then turned it so the sewing was on the inside).  It would be possible to do this without sewing that way, but the fabrics I chose were pretty flimzy and I wanted it to look OK if it flipped up.  If you didn’t want to sew these together, you’d need to use a no-fray on the crushed velvet.  **Sewing on that sparkly fabric is just about as easy as sewing through your own hand.  It’s actually just glued on sparkles, which gums up your needle.  I had read a few tutorials that mentioned wiping your needle off with nail polish remover every few inches — I did that, and I still had to use about 4 needles because it did gum up.  All in the name of sparkle!

2)  I sewed those leaves into bias tape.  I cut the tape to her waist size plus a couple of inches.  You need to get double-fold bias tape because that will leave you with no raw edges.  I used regular brown bias tape because it is easier to sew on, and the flowers would cover it up.  On the ends, I added about 3 inches of velcro.  That would make it easy to grow with her as I planned on her getting a lot of use out of this (and it has).  When you sew velcro, try to remember to put the scratchy side facing out from their body, and have the smoother side facing them (less complaining that way).  Here is a picture of the ends and you can see some of the skirt stitching a bit better:

Here is a close-up of the skirt.  You can see the Velcro closure, and also how the “leaves” are sandwiched in the bias tape and sewn.  Then, the flower trim is tacked on top

3)  We also found that cute flower trim at Joann’s, and I had to hand stitch it on– on top of the bias tape.  There is no sewing those suckers.  Just took stitches in between each flower with transparent thread.

4)  Underneath it I made very small tulle skirt of varying lengths of tulle.  It is on its own elastic, so it can be worth with it, or without it. We didn’t want it very full but she did want some and that type of skirt is very easy to adjust to however you want it.  I let her be the guide.

*I do think there is something exciting and special about letting your child  help you design their costume, I do love that time together, it almost makes up for the sparkly fabric.  Ok, maybe not.

5)  On top, for her “necklace” I couldn’t sew another moment on that sparkly stuff, so I used some fabric glue to make smaller petals (I just cut paper until it looked like about the right size — holding it up to her chest, as sometimes it’s hard to really picture this stuff in your head).  I used a toothpick to smear the fabric glue in between two petals and then let it dry.  I found it easier to sew the crushed velvet together so I just did that.  I sewed it into bias tape (and I had EXTRA glue this time, YAY!).  I made it really long, and a full circle, so she could just pop it over her head.  i hand sewed on the little jewel trim which I also found at Joann’s, I actually REALLY liked this stuff.  It had solid construction, I would use it again.

We added a t-shirt, some wings, leggings and a smile!

Now, I made this same costume for P when she was a tiny baby.  My main concern was for her comfort back then, here are a few thoughts for adjusting it for a baby:

1.  Use a onsie (I found this cute peter pan collar at a Goodwill, but just make sure it’s appropriate for the weather).

2.  I just made a very small tulle skirt.  I did sew some felt “petals” onto the elastic as I made the tulle skirt — it’s kind of hard to see them, I’m not sure that part was worth it.  I also added some ribbon.  Those tulle skirts sure are easy to adjust to however you need them!

3.  I saw this hat idea on the internet and tried to replicate.  I just took a baby hat that we already had and covered it in trangular strips of yellow fleece (tacking the fleece to the hat in a few spots) and then hot glued a styrofoam ball covered in the fleece to the top, and tied a little bow around it like Tink’s bun.  The hat was a little sketchy, but it looked great for pictures.  I actually used it in our pictures this year (I cut it off the baby hat) and then left it at home.  I wish I could’ve figured out a better way to make it, but it did the trick for what we needed.

4.  I made her some little shoes (which were surprisingly easy) — I honestly felt like they made the outfit!  I sewed little ribbons on the top, or you could sew a pom-pom.

5.  Wings were only for pictures.  I mean, she’s a baby.

Anyway, I think Tinkerbell is a fun thing for a little girl to be.  It is a land of fantasy, and Tinkerbell does a lot of good things, but also has a bit of mischief inside of her.  Reminds me of a little girl I know.  With the new
Tinkerbell movie called The Pirate Fairy will be available on Blu-ray and Digital HD April 1. I bet lots of girls will want to be Tinkerbell.  I hope someone finds this helpful!

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