Wonder Woman Costume with Homemade Headband, Cuffs and Armbands!

This is the third post in our Wonder Woman-themed party series for kids.  We were inspired by the fantastic Wonder Woman movie out this summer.  (You can find our first party post for free cupcake toppers here and our second post on the photo backdrop here.  If you haven’t seen the movie yet (what are you waiting for?) you can read our thoughts (about age appropriateness, etc) here. 

You can’t have a Wonder Woman party without dressing up as our heroine, right? Her costume is the BEST. We couldn’t very well celebrate this great movie without at least attempting to recreate part of her costume.

In this post we created a foam headband, cuffs and armbands as well as a smaller headband that we could give away to our guests as a party favor because who doesn’t want to go home with Wonder Woman headband?!

For our guest of honor we created a spray-painted gold headband that was a little bit more difficult to create than our easy printable headband (see that tutorial below). But we’re going to share how we did it because it turned out so cool!

What you will need to create this foam headband like you see above:

• sticker-backed craft foam (we used black and spray-painted it gold for a burnished effect)
• gold spray paint
• 1-inch wide strip of swimsuit material (also known as scuba knit) about eight inches long (we spray-painted our material gold but we don’t recommend it since the paint came off on our hands. It did look cool though!) If you can’t source swimsuit material (usually found at your local fabric store) you could opt for elastic thread. It won’t be as comfortable but it will still work.
• our handy printable for creating a foam headband
• exacto knife and a self-healing mat or cutting board
• small hole punch

First position the printable on your black foam.  Then carefully cut out the shapes with your exacto knife. Make sure you are working on a self-healing mat or cutting board so you don’t ruin your table!

Once your pieces are cut then take them outside and give them a quick coat of gold spray paint. Do not take the pieces out of the foam until after the paint has dried.

After the paint is dry, pop them out of their foam and one by one stick the pieces together starting with piece number one as your base (see printable for numbers). Carefully layer the pieces onto the base until you have the star on top. Punch two small holes on each side of your back piece. This will be where you insert the swimsuit material for your headband strip.

Thread the fabric strip through the the holes and tie at the back of your wonder girl’s head. This goes under her hair and the star piece goes in the center of her forehead like so:

 

Now let’s create some Wonder Woman cuffs and armbands!

For this portion of the craft you will need:

• Several pieces of large 9×12 pieces of craft foam (no sticker back) (We used 3.)
• our arm band printable
• our wonder woman cuff printable (x2)
• scissors
• swimsuit material or elastic thread
• hole punch
• double stick tape (or spray-adhesive if you have it)

First print out your printables (see above). You’ll notice that the arm band printable has a large version of the Wonder Woman headband too. You can use that if you don’t feel like creating the spray-painted foam version we showed you first.

You’ll also notice that the Wonder Woman cuff sheet only has one arm cuff on it. You will need to print two of these. (You might want to make sure you have plenty of toner before you get too invested in this craft!)

Cut out all your pieces. Then line all the sides with double-stick tape. (If you have spray-adhesive this might go faster than tape but make sure you are spraying on a surface you don’t mind ruining. Spray adhesive can be messy!) Once all the edges are taped, turn over the printables and lay them down on your craft foam. Position them so that you save as much space as possible.

Then cut them out with an exacto knife or scissors! You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how easy craft foam is to cut. It’s the perfect medium for this costume.

Once all your pieces are cut out, then punch them on each side with your small hole punch. Thread the holes with appropriate lengths of swimsuit material strips (or elastic thread if you don’t have swimsuit material) and knot them. These strips allow your guests to easily slide the arm cuffs and arm bands onto their arms (and headbands onto their heads) without damaging the printable foam pieces or being too uncomfortable. Repeat as necessary.

And if you haven’t had enough crafting you might want to make a slew of these smaller headbands for your guests so they can pose in front of your super cool photo backdrop wall and pretend to be Wonder Woman too! Just follow the same directions as the above arm bands and arm cuffs.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our Wonder Woman-themed party series (find all the posts here)!