This beautiful butterfly costume is perfect for my coloring loving girl! With just a few simple supplies, she was able to color her way into a beautiful butterfly wings costume. This no-sew Halloween costume couldn’t be any easier, and could be made in an evening!

 butterfly costume

We love easy DIY Halloween costumes at our house. Last year we made a no sew witch costume, another adorable and popular costume for girls. If you’re looking for more fun homemade costume inspiration, here are some great family costume ideas.

This costume is all about the wings! This one size fits all wings costume could easily become any butterfly you like. A monarch butterfly costume would be amazing – simply color orange and black monarch butterfly wings. Or if you’re feeling fancy, create fairy wings with bright pastel pinks and blues!

Butterfly Costume Supplies

One advantage of this DIY butterfly wings costume is that you may already have a lot of these supplies around the house. My girl loves her black leggings and shirts, so we’re more than covered with the butterfly body part of her costume! This costume includes wings and antennae.

  • a black long sleeve shirt
  • black leggings
  • thin white muslin fabric (about a yard)
  • Elmer’s Painters
  • black extra wide Sharpie
  • 2 large pom poms
  • 2 black chenille pipe cleaners
  • 1 headband
  • glue gun and glue sticks
  • glow in the dark fabric paint (optional)
butterfly costume supplies

How to make a butterfly costume

Not only is this costume easy enough to let your child participate in its making, it is also easy and comfortable to wear. The wings attach to their shirt and allow for total arm movement – which you really need for maximum trick-or-treat action!

To make the wings, first lay out the black shirt your child will be wearing. Now place the arm of the shirt up at an angle.

Next, take your muslin fabric and sketch out a wing shape in pencil. You can freehand this shape, making it as curvy or simple as you’d like – we kept ours pretty basic, using curves to suggest the top and bottom wings of a butterfly.

Now cut out the wing shape. On the edge facing the shirt, cut the fabric to match the angle of the sleeve and the side of the shirt. Again, this is a freehand estimate and doesn’t need to be incredibly precise. You can make any wing design.

butterfly costume making wings

Now copy this shape, so there are two symmetrical wing shapes.

butterfly costume wings

To make coloring the fabric easier, iron the fabric wing to the shiny side of freezer paper. The freezer paper will stabilize the fabric, creating a coloring surface more like paper than cloth, and it can be easily peeled away when finished.

butterfly costume freezer paper

Now draw a design on the wing with a Sharpie marker. I drew in pencil first to get the shapes the way I wanted them, then outlined the lines with the Sharpie. You can make the design as simple or complicated as your coloring person would like!

Repeat for the other wing, making sure the design is symmetrical. I have found that holding the fabric up to a window will make it a lot easier to trace.

butterfly costume draw design

Butterfly Wings Costume

Now that everything is prepped, it’s time to color away! Here’s another super cool idea for night-time trick-or-treating: if you want your butterfly to glow in the dark, outline with glow in the dark fabric paint.

As your child colors, make sure they complete each wing with the same pattern. After one wing is finished, lay it out beside the second wing so they can match the colors up.

As you color, be careful to keep your hand and arm up off the fresh marker, because the markers may stain skin or clothing. You might also want to line the surface where you’ll be coloring with some old newspapers, or choose a place to color that a little mess won’t matter.

butterfly costume color wings

Finally, trim the wings and peel off the freezer paper. Now you’re ready to hot glue the wings to the back edge of the arms and sides of the shirt.

homemade butterfly costume

Butterfly Antenna  headband

Now you’re ready to add the finishing touch with cute antennae accessories. We chose yellow pom poms, but feel free to match the color to your wings. These are so fun to wear that my daughter will often put them on just to play around the house.

To create the butterfly headpiece, just twist pipe cleaners onto a standard headband, and hot glue them to secure them in place. Then hot glue a pom pom to each end of pipe cleaner, and you’re all set with some springy, bouncy butterfly antennae!

DIY antenna for butterfly costume

More DIY Butterfly Costume Tips

How easy was that? There you have it, a beautiful butterfly Halloween costume perfect for your resident coloring expert! Honestly, the butterfly wings costume idea would be so easy to adapt for women, toddlers, babies, and teens – how about a whole family of butterflies?

If you’re feeling experimental, why not try some variations on this simple costume? Here are a few more ideas:

  • Look at pictures of real butterflies to get some ideas on wing patterns. Some have large blocks of colors, and some have intricate spots and swoops. The design is totally up to you and how ambitious your little coloring fan is feeling!
  • Paint the wings using glitter paint rather than coloring with markers.
  • Dress up your butterfly costume with a pretty skirt. I could see some matching wings paired with a little tutu right overtop the black leggings.
  • Glow-in-the-dark markers create a stunningly cool effect for Halloween night.
  • Color a whole rainbow of colors for a gorgeous stained glass effect.
  • Alternatively, you can stick to one color plus black – some of the prettiest butterflies are just black with blue, yellow, or orange.

Look at that! A perfect butterfly costume!

DIY butterfly costume
Girls Butterfly Costume

Costume Ideas

We love Halloween at our house, and it is definitely a family affair. If you’ve got a group that’s enthusiastic about getting into the holiday spirit, here are some of our favorite family costume ideas. Some are incredibly easy, and some are pretty over the top, but all are DIY costumes you can put together at home!

Group costume Flintstones

Here’s an entertaining costume concept: the modern stone-age family, the Flintstones! Cartoons are a reliable source of inspiration when it comes to group costume themes. After all, most cartoon characters only have one outfit, right?

group costume KISS

If you are into pop culture references, how about a rock band? Kiss is actually an easy one because all you need is some face paint and wigs. They’re one of those bands that are iconic, and instantly recognizable, and it only takes a little bit of effort to get the effect.

Last but not least, here is our no-sew witch costume from last year – seriously, can you even tell that there was no sewing involved? We kind of impressed ourselves with the results of this DIY costume, since it was way cuter than anything we saw in the costume shop!

witch costume

My Favorite Sewing Tools

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More Halloween Costume Ideas

Did you make your own costumes growing up? Nowadays it can be pretty convenient to pick up a costume at a shop or order online.

Every year, so many kids stop by our house for trick-or-treating, and they always look precious in their costumes. But I especially love the next-level, unique costumes that are made at home, because that’s how memories are made!

Homemade Halloween costumes remind me of my own childhood, with the days and sometimes weeks leading up to Halloween spent excitedly dreaming up and preparing the perfect costume.

Sometimes you really have to go the DIY route, depending on what your kids want to be. I have gotten some oddly specific, downright weird requests over the years. Looking for a really original costume check out these Word Play Costumes.

Something I like to do it have some quick and easy basics in my toolbox when making costumes. Such things include my no-sew tutu.

I love these easy and DARLING Halloween costumes that use a box:

  • Doll in a box costume – This is just the cutest way to reuse a shipping box I’ve ever seen! If you have a pretty princess at home, make Halloween extra special with this “boxtume” that turns her into a living doll!
  • The Claw costume – Transform into a claw game machine using a recycled box, some paint and reflective tape, and a bunch of old toys. How creative is that?

Are you gearing up for Halloween, and considering creating a costume at home? Any butterflies in the house this year? Leave a comment and share your Halloween butterfly wings with us!

For more Butterfly Ideas check out these butterfly coloring pages.

If you’re seeking more Halloween-themed activities for your crew, kids will love these Halloween coloring pages. These free printables are the perfect way to keep kids busy on Halloween while they’re waiting for all that candy!

If you are hosting themed parties be sure to print these Halloween Costume Awards! Guests will love them.

I would love to keep you fully stocked with creative ideas, yummy recipes, fun crafts, and loads of free printables. Subscribe to Skip to my Lou to get new ideas delivered to your inbox. Follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram for all my latest updates.


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Comments

  1. Really i appreciate the effort you made to share the knowledge. This is really a great stuff for sharing. Keep it up . Thanks for sharing.

  2. This butterfly costume is so colorful and creative! I love that it’s no-sew, and that your child can help make it too.

  3. Oh my gosh my daughter is going to love this, she’s OBSESSED with butterflies. Thank you for such a cute idea!

  4. This is so cute. And I love that the kids can be involved and color it themselves. And I love that there is no sewing involved.

  5. OMG, you guys as KISS . . . I”m laughing . . .

    Love it that Bella got to help make her costume. She’s a beautiful butterfly!!

  6. How clever and easy this is. That is what Halloween should be about, fun and stressfree.

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