Photo showing parents and daughter each dressed in their Daddy Shark Mommy Shark and Baby Shark homemade cardboard costumes

Holidays

Baby Shark (and Family) Costume DIY

We couldn’t very well make a Baby Shark and family jack o’ lanterns and not the Halloween costumes! We know you can buy them for twenty bucks at your local Halloween store or you and the kids can also make more original ones. Here we teach you how to make large cardboard versions of Baby Shark, Mommy Shark, and Daddy Shark.

Supplies needed to make Baby Shark and Family Handmade Costumes:

a large piece of cardboard (3 feet is great) (If you are having trouble sourcing large cardboard, ask your local large-format printer for scraps. Often they will give you their scraps for free!)
paint in all the shark colors (yellow, hot pink, blue for the shark bodies and white, black and red for details. We opted for both spray paint and acrylic but you could use all acrylic if you like)
smooth foam balls for eyes
box cutter or exacto knife (have a responsible adult use)
large self-healing mat (or a large piece of paneling)
glue gun (optional)

Let’s get started!

How to make Baby Shark and Family Handmade Costumes:

First, cut out your shapes. Yes, I’m asking you to freehand this. If you are not the drawing sort of crafter then you could use an overhead projector and trace an image that you download from a google search onto your cardboard.

Cut out a little half-circle where a hand can go. Your handle position can be above or below where the fin will start. I tried both and didn’t really have a preference. In fact, making a fin can be optional all together. You can opt to paint on your fin and skip the 3-d fin but I thought they added a nice touch.

For fins cut out large triangles with fat bowed sides. Make the side that attaches to the shark extra long so it can be fitted to the shark via a slit. If you have your handhole going below the fin you’ll need to cut a hole in the fin for a hand to go through too. (See above.) You might even want to test them out on whoever is wearing the costume to make sure the hand holes are just right.

Next paint all the pieces and parts! (Paint both sides for optimum costume-viewing, letting each side dry in between of course) We opted to paint the full-body one color first with spray paint and then paint the white underbelly on top with a brush and acrylic paint but you can do it any way you like. Maybe taping off works for you.

Now it’s time to cut the eye sockets for your smooth foam ball. Measure your ball (ours is 2.4 inches wide, as it says on the package). You will want to cut a hole that is just slightly smaller than that. If you don’t feel like doing the math on that, an easy way to cheat is to find a glass that fits your ball perfectly (see our whiskey glass above) and use that to draw a circle. Then cut slightly within that drawn line to insure the eye-ball will have a snug fit.

Now finish up painting your details. Darken up the yellow paint with a bit of red for the baby shark nose hole and gill details, add black to your hot pink for mommy shark’s nose and gill and black to your blue for daddy shark… Paint a big black circle on your smooth foam ball for an iris. Since the ball is going to show through both sides of your cardboard, you’ll want to make sure your black circle is big enough to show up on both sides of the cardboard.

When the eyeball paint is dry, fit the foam ball into the eye socket. If your eyeballs don’t fit snuggly, you can always add a bead of hot glue to hold them in place.