Halloween of 2017 my then 5 year old wanted to be Lightning McQueen from Disney Cars. He had always been Cars obsessed so I wasn’t surprised at this request. I couldn’t find a costume anywhere so I figured I had to make one.
To top it off, he decided his best buddy little brother had to be Lightning’s best buddy, Mater.
I didn’t really even know where to start so I took a couple of their toy cars and took photos of each of them from an angle that would work to turn into a 2D design. I turned it into a simplified pencil outline and then enlarged it.
Next it had to be scanned into the computer. I took certain detailed parts to make colorized decals for ironing on. I left other lines to be sewn into the felt for a quilted kind of look.
They needed backs too. I couldn’t just just give them one sided costumes.
And how about that tire candy bag? A plastic pumpkin just wasn’t going to cut it!
Ultimately, after all the work I had already invested into the patterns and since it was already digitized and on my computer, I rationalized that it wasn’t much more work to just finish it up as a PDF for other people to be able to give their kids the McQueen dream too.
The PDFs will tell you how to resize the patterns to get the best fit for your little Cars fan. The Mcqueen costume above is on my 5 year old. The Mater costume is on my one year old and was sized down from the original file I made.
The best part? It’s Free!
I put it in the files of my community Facebook page so it’s easy to access and share and free for everyone to enjoy!
The only thing I ask is that you tag Hateruma Handmade on Facebook or Instagram when showing off your finished costumes.
Click on the links above to be taken to the free PDF files that you can download to use to start making your very own costumes!
