Last week, we started our month-long series of Halloween costume-making tutorials. If you haven’t seen the Zombie Bobsled Team and Balloon Zombie, be sure to check them out.
This week, we’re moving from PvZ’s undead zombies to their botanical counterparts – the sweeter and much cuter plants. And, what’s cuter than our always cheerful Sunflower?
Materials you need: 1-2 yards of yellow felt, heavy construction paper, glue gun, 2 wide stretchy headbands, green tights, brown skirt (or you can just wear green or brown pants) and a green top.
Ignore the wire and wire cutters; you need everything else 
To make the Sunflower petals:
Start by figuring out what size you want your petals to be. I chose to cut out three different sizes so that the costume will have more depth: small, medium and large. Cut these out on the construction paper first so you have a pattern to work with.
Sunflower petals... or kernels of corn?
Trace around these patterns on the yellow felt and start cutting!
Because felt is thin, you’ll need two identical pieces of felt per petal. This way you can stuff construction paper inside (you can also use cotton) to keep the petals from drooping.
Each petal is made up of two pieces of felt
Next, cut out petal-shaped construction paper (it doesn’t have to be perfect) to put inside the petals. Glue this to one of the petal pieces. Then glue the other petal piece on, leaving the bottom of the petal unglued.
Remember to leave the bottom of the petal unglued
To make the Sunflower headpiece:
Cut a slit the length of your sunflower petal into the headband.
The headband fabric splayed after cutting it, so I also glued the cut edges together on each side of the slit. This is optional.
You will then insert the petal into this slit. Fold the bottom half of each petal piece so it can be glued to the inside of the headband. See the picture below:
This is what it will look like after you fold each petal piece so that you can glue it to the inside of the headband
Kinda complicated, but it makes the exterior of your headpiece look cleaner
Repeat this process with the larger petal pieces, leaving room in between each slit so that your headband stays together.
All the large petals on one headband
Once you have this framework, you can then glue the rest of your petals on top of the larger petal pieces to fill in the gaps. You should end up with something like this:
See how the other pieces are glued on top of the larger petals, instead of to the headband itself?
To finish the headpiece, I cut another headband in half and glued it to the ends of the first headband. This allows you to wrap it around your head and then tie it under your neck. The boys from our video team took turns trying the sunflower headpiece on. What do you think?
To complete the costume, I put on green tights, a brown skirt and a green top!
Will you be making this costume? We’d love to see pictures – be sure to send them to us at blog@popcap.com