Football Brothers Halloween Costume + 88 More Handmade Costume Ideas!

Along with my boys’ FOOTBALL BROTHERS HALLOWEEN COSTUME, with DIY football pads and DIY football onesie, I am also sharing 88 more really awesome handmade costume ideas from talented bloggers everywhere!

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We are football fans in this house. Broncos fans to be exact!

And not only are we Broncos fans, we are also “that family.” The ones who like to dress up in family costumes for Halloween.

Last year, it was a football Halloween for us, but since our costumes weren’t ready until the night prior, there was no time for me to post any details on the blog before the holiday. So with Halloween right around the corner again, it’s now the perfect time for me to share the DIY details of my boy’s costumes for all those other families with football on the brain.

Beckett already owned a Peyton Manning jersey, but I wanted to make his football player costume a bit more authentic with the addition of some football pads.  I did just a bit of Google searching and came across a mom that had created football pads for her three sons – the concept was pretty simple, but I couldn’t find some of the materials that she used, so I adapted her idea to come up with my own, somewhat simpler, version. This is a DIY costume easy enough for anyone to tackle (bad pun totally intended).

I bought a yard of 1/2″ foam from a fabric store, then laid Beckett’s jersey on top to get a basic idea of the dimensions.  If you happen want to make football pads for an 18 month sized jersey – the dimension listed here will be just right.  For any other size, you’ll just have to approximate your own measurements – but I’ll give you some tips on how to do so.

I first spread the jersey out on the foam and marked the width of the shoulders (the width across the shoulders of this 18 month sized jersey was 11 inches), then the length from the shoulders to the bottom of the jersey (12 inches, although I ended up trimming off about a half inch in the front and back when I was done to prevent it from sticking out below the jersey).

I knew the pads would need to narrow in at the torso, so I decided to make the bottom measurement just under half of the shoulder width (I went with 5 inches). I used a ruler to connect the shoulders to the waist with angled lines.

I again laid the jersey on the foam and sketched in the approximate shape of the neckline.  Then I added a cut line from the point of the v-neck to the bottom center of the pads so that the completed pads would fit on like a vest.

I printed out the shoulder pad template from this website, but since the template was for older little boys, after cutting it out at full size, I proceeded to trim off about a quarter of an inch off all the way around.  I traced the reduced template onto the foam twice {as illustrated above}. {UPDATE: it appears the post with the template has been removed from the Instructables website; but the shape is pretty easy to draw}

After cutting out all of the pieces (the foam was easy to cut with just a regular pair of household scissors), I used my hot glue gun to glue the shoulder pads in place.  Note that I cut the front and back as one piece.  I did not cut along the shoulder line that I had drawn, I just used this line as a guide for where to attach the shoulder pads.

The final step was finding a way to hold the pads in place. I’ve seen other tutorials that involve gluing or sewing on velcro, but I wanted to keep this as easy as possible, so I used ribbon I already had around the house to create laces to simply tie the pads in place.

I grabbed some ribbon out of gift wrapping closet and used an Exacto knife to cut slits in the foam down the front and at the corners.

I laced two long pieces of ribbon down the front, leaving them loose enough to easily slip the pads over Beckett’s head, but allowing me to tighten the laces and tie them at the bottom once he was wearing them. Then I attached ribbons at each of the bottom corners so that the pads could be tied in place at Beckett’s waist.

In each instance, I cut the slits just large enough to thread the ribbon through, but kept the slits small enough that I could double knot the ribbon on the back side of the pads and the knot would not pull through.

Beckett was not a big fan of the football pads when we first put them on him.  It was a two person job – Scott held his arms above his head to stop him from pulling them off while I tied them in place. You can see from this blurry photo that he wasn’t thrilled to be wearing them.  But as soon as we put his jersey on over the pads, he completely forgot about them and didn’t bug them once.

I did trim off some of the excess ribbon length once the pads were tied on so that the ribbons wouldn’t dangle below the jersey.

I was pretty proud of the pads when I first made them, but I was even more excited to see how great they looked under Beckett’s jersey.  They really looked like football pads!

We added a long-sleeved white onesie under Beckett’s pads and jersey to keep him warm. To complete his football player costume, I paired his jersey and pads with an inexpensive pair of white cotton pants, which I rolled up to his knees, and Broncos colored, striped socks that we already owned.

The simple DIY foam football pads gave Beckett’s costume a much more authentic football player feel.  He looked SO stinking cute running around outside in his jersey, pads and eye-black!

I especially loved the look of those shoulder pads from behind!

Once big brother’s football player costume was complete, it was time to get the little brother in on the action. Since Cooper was only 5 months old last Halloween, we decided he was the perfect size to be the football!

I found a lot of football onesies online, but most were pretty pricey, so I decided to simply make my own.

I bought a solid brown, long-sleeved onesie and cut the football shape out of white iron on transfer paper. The key here is to make sure your transfer paper is made for use on dark colored fabric – like this Avery Dark T-Shirt Transfer Paper!

I sketched out the shape of the laces and the top and bottom white markings of a football on the back of the transfer paper. If you’d like to make your own football onesie, download my football template, which you can cut out and trace directly on to your iron on transfer paper. This template is sized for a 0-3 month sized onesie, but if you need a larger size, you can simply adjust the scale on your computer before printing, or you can print it and then enlarge it on a copy machine.

Do not print this image to use as a template – it is not to scale. If you wish to use my template, download it here.

Then I cut the football shapes out of the transfer paper, and ironed them on to the brown shirt. Each brand of transfer paper has slightly different instructions for how long to iron, so be sure to carefully follow the packaging instructions.

Since Halloween in Denver can be quite cold, we paired Cooper’s DIY football onesie with some cute football socks and an adorable knitted football hat. I also added some brown fleece pants for Trick-or-Treating after dark.

Now tell me he’s not the cutest football you’ve ever seen!?

If your little football is a girl, you could instead add a cute brown tutu and a brown bow in her hair.

As I mentioned above, we are that family… so Scott and I dressed up with the boys. I purchased inexpensive referee shirts, which we paired with black pants that we already owned. If you are a parent to young kids, you know we are basically referees in real life, so these costumes weren’t much of a stretch!

And now it’s time for more DIY Halloween costume inspiration! A whopping 88 more DIY costume ideas, to be exact!

Join in on the BLOG HOP by clicking on the links below each collage to get the detailed instructions about how to make the costume pictured, just like mine above. And don’t forget to follow the Handamde Halloween Costumes Pinterest Board for even more DIY costume greatness!

1. Handmade Baby Hamburger Costume

2. DIY Baby Game Boy Costume

3. DIY Minecraft Steve Costume

4. Football Brothers Halloween Costumes with DIY Pads and Onesie {YOU ARE HERE} 5. Star Trek Halloween Costume for Kids

6. A Bee and Her Keeper

7. No Sew Magician Costume

8. Flint Lockwood Costume

9. Pinocchio

10. Marty McFly

11. Princess Wedding Dress Costume

12. Handmade Lalaloopsy Doll Costume

13. Homemade Toothless Costume

14. DIY Mermaid For Less Than $20 (No-Sew Option)

15. Easy Tinker Bell Costume

16. Mario and Luigi Go Kart Costumes

17. Dog The Bounty Hunter and Beth

18. Family Monsters University Costumes

19. Scooby Doo family costumes

20. DIY Storm Cloud Costume

21. Cheap and Easy DIY Spider Costume

22. Easy Tin Man Costume

23. No Sew Bee Costume

24. Planet Halloween Costumes

25. DIY Cheshire Cat Costume

26. DIY Instagram Board

27. Elsa crown

28. Dog Collar Ruffles

29. DIY Pineapple Baby Costume

30. DIY Lego Movie Costume

31. Weeping Angel Costume

32. Disney Planes Costume: Dipper

33. Easy Pirate Costume

34. Easy Costume Idea – Renaissance Girl

35. 10 Minute Homemade Jellyfish Costume

36. DIY Cat Costume

37. Lucy And Ricky Costumes

38. Easy Frozen Costumes (Carrisa!!)

39. Easy Greek Goddess Costume

40. DIY Family Willy Wonka Costumes

41. DIY No Sew Maleficent Costume

42. No Sew Pineapple Halloween Costume

43. Graveyard Bean Bag Toss: Trunk or Treat Car Costume

44. DIY Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Costumes

45. DIY Raccoon Costume with Printable Mask

46. Easy WildStyle Lego Movie Costume

47. Simple Hello Kitty Costume

48. No Sew Minnie Mouse Costume

49. DIY Inspector Gadget and Penny Costumes

50. DIY Frozen Elsa Dress Baby Edition

51. Fairy Princess Dog Costume

52. DIY Hashtag Halloween Costume

53. Toddler or Baby Egg Costume

54. Easy No Sew Olaf Costume

55. DIY Baymax Costume

56. DIY Tooth Fairy Costume

57. Baby Short Stack Pancake Costume

58. Elephant and Piggie Halloween Costumes

59. Instagram Halloween Costume

60. Peter Pan & Mr. Smee Halloween Costume

61. Wildstyle Costume from the Lego Movie

62. Fred and Wilma Couples Costume

63. Viking Family Costumes

64. DIY Cruella de Vil Costume for a child

65. Disney Frozen Olaf Halloween Treat Bucket

66. How to Make a Minecraft Steve Head

67. DIY Harry Potter Costume

68. DIY Duck Dynasty Costumes

69. No Sew Cupcake Baker Halloween Costume

70. DIY Skunk Mask

71. Ghostbusters Proton Pack DIY

72. Frozen Anna Costume Tutorial

73. Candy Corn Costume

74. Paw

75. No Sew Toothless Dragon Costume

76. DIY Robot Costume

77. Wonder Woman Costume

78. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Costume

79. Thrifted Gentleman Spy DIY Halloween Costume

80. DIY Boy Garden Gnome Costume

81. Group Costume: Bob Ross, Happy Tree, & Squirrel

82. DIY Blues Brothers Costumes

83. Snow White Costume

84. Peacock Princess Costume

85. Scarecrow Costume

86. Easy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Costume

87. Handmade Teddy Bear Costume

88. Princess Elsa and the Spy Kid

89. DIY Baby Koala costume

What handmade costume ideas did you love the most?! Be sure to click over to get the costume instructions, pin the costumes, and let the bloggers know you love them!

If you are looking for even more seasonal inspiration, you might be interested in my full collection of fall and Halloween projects!