Homemade Cheeseburger Costume

Last year my nut ball son insisted on being a cheeseburger for Halloween. After a good deal of time trying to talk him out of this idea, I surrendered and set out to find a cheeseburger. I looked up Cheeseburger Costumes to purchase but none of them were to his liking so I had to make one. It turned out to be a fun project so I thought I would share it. I know its not likely that many of you are looking for a cheeseburger costume but my hope is that some to the techniques and materials used will help you tackle your own homemade costume ideas
He wanted it to be large so my solution to create bulk without the weight was to make the majority of the costume out of foam insulation board.   Foam insulation board is relatively inexpensive and is purchased in sheets from a home improvement store
Materials


• 2“ Thick And 1 ½ “ Thick Foam Insulation Board


• Foam Core Poster Board


• Expanding Spray Insulation Foam


• Hi Strength Spray Contact Adhesive


• Acrylic Paint


• Utility Knife


• Electric Carving Knife


• Yellow Fabric


• Red Fabric


• Green Fabric


• Poster Board


• 4” Thick Dense Upholstery Foam


• Masking Tape


To start, I cut a donut shape from the foam insulation board.  I used a utility knife but you could use a jigsaw just as well.  You want the inside of the donut shape to fit comfortable around the torso of the costume wearer.
For the Burger Meat  I cut (2) circles out of 2″ thick foam insulation and glued them together “3M hi-strength spray contact adhesive” to make one big 4″ thick piece.


The Tomato Slice is (1) circle of 1 1/2″ thick  foam insulation.


The Bottom Bun is (2) 2″ thick foam insulation circles and glued together with 3M hi-strength spray contact adhesive .
After the Hamburger Meat was glued, I used an orbital sander to smooth the glued pieces that may not have lined up perfectly and I rounded the top and bottom edges.  Also, I created indents in the middle for texture like a hamburger patty.  Then I painted the meat with a mixture of black and brown acrylic paint.
For the Tomato Slice, I did not use the sander  since it was a single slice of foam. I did wrap the outside of the tomato with masking tape. The tape smoothed the outside of the foam and made it look like tomato skin once it was painted.  I used orange and red acrylic paint.
For the Top Bun, instead of Foam insulation I used 2 pieces of foam core poster board and spray insulation foam. I have more details on my original blog post on how to create the buns here


Once the spray foam was dry, I used an electric knife (like the kind used to carve the Thanksgiving turkey) to carve and shape the bun.  After I had the shape mostly smooth, I finished smoothing the bun with an orbital sander.  The expanding spray foam gave the bun a texture that looked like bread.


I also used the spray insulation to cover the outside of the bottom bun.  And like the top bun once the spray foam was dry I sculpted it with the electric knife and finished off with the sander.


I had to be careful with the spray foam because too much spray foam will get heavy.  If I were to do it over,  I would sculpt the entire top bun out of foam insulation board and the do a light coat of the expanding foam just to give it the bread like texture.
I used simple acrylic craft paint to paint the bun. It wasn't hard.
After I had the lettuce attached I glued the hamburger layer to the bottom bun with the spray adhesive. 


The next step was to make the cheese.  I cut triangles out of regular poster board and covered and glued yellow cheese color fabric to the triangles with spray adhesive. After I had the lettuce attached I glued the hamburger layer to the bottom bun with the spray adhesive. 


I attached the cheese to the top of the meat then tucked and pinned in some red fabric for ketchup.  Next I glued on the tomato layer.  On top of the tomato I pined some mustard yellow fabric and then glued on the top bun.  I was surprised how well the contact adhesive held the whole structure together.   I did add a little spray foam from the inside to fill in cracks and  add extra hold.


 


The last step was to add some dense upholstery foam on the inside so the costume will rest comfortably on the shoulders.
I had planned on drilling out arm holes but it turned out that there was plenty of room in the costume for him to move about and reach out from underneath.  It  worked out very well. He loved the costume and it was a big hit in the neighborhood. Check out the original post on my blog for more detail and photos.


If you are looking for something simpler you should check out my ridiculously easy bee costume. click here You won't believe how cute it is!
Paint Yourself a Smile
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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