Ms Frizzle & Magic School Bus DIY Costume (No sewing required)

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you’ll know that the fiance and I do DIY costumes every year for Halloween. It’s my favourite tradition of ours, and always so fun to look for materials and plan out the costume! Last year, we went as Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus! As with all the costumes, no sewing is required.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t planning on writing a post and did not end up taking photos of the various steps involved. On the plus side, the costumes were fairly easy to make.

Let’s start with the Ms. Frizzle costume!

Supplies needed for Ms Frizzle costume:

Black dress – I got mine from Old Navy
Felt paper in various colours
Scissors
Hot glue gun
Sharpie
Orange wig (optional) – I got mine from Amazon

Instructions:

I chose to go with her outer space outfit. Using the sharpie, draw various planets and shapes with the felt paper such as stars, circles for planets and suns, and triangles for the sun rays. Feel free to mix and match different colours. Make sure the shapes are big enough so that you could see them from far away and in photos.
After drawing the shapes, use scissors to cut them out.
Lay out the black dress on a flat surface. Test out the layout of the planets and stars and where you’d like to put them.
Once you’re happy with the positioning, use the hot glue gun and glue everything down! Glue down the outer area and edges to ensure that none of the felt paper droops down.

Supplies needed for Magic School Bus costume:

Giant rectangular cardboard box that you can comfortably fit inside
Smaller rectangular cardboard box that is the same length as the giant cardboard box
Yellow paper roll from Michael’s (or yellow paint)
Duct tape
Construction paper: black, red, blue, orange, light blue
Sharpie
Glue stick
Cardboard knife

Instructions (Again, sorry for the lack of photos! I wasn’t planning on writing a post last year and didn’t take any photos in the process)

Combine the two boxes with duct tape. The giant box will be where your body fits into and the smaller box will be the front of the Magic School Bus.
Wrap and cover the two boxes with the yellow paper roll. Alternatively, you could use yellow paint and paint everything but that takes longer as many layers are likely required to make the paint opaque.
Use a sharpie and trace out where you will cut the holes on the top and bottom of the giant box for your body to wear.
Use a cardboard knife and cut out the hole at the top and bottom of the giant box. Save this cardboard for the rear view mirrors.
Cut out various shapes with the construction paper for the front windows, side windows, car lights, eyes, grill, etc and glue to the boxes. Refer to the picture for the shapes.
Use a sharpie to draw grill lines for the grill.
Using the cardboard that was cut out for the body holes, draw rear view mirrors on the cardboard.
Cut out the rear view mirrors on the cardboard.
Use the yellow wrapping paper and wrap the mirrors.
Glue the mirrors on the large box.

There you have it! The Ms. Frizzle costume is a lot easier and faster than the Magic School Bus.

I hope this was helpful in your Halloween costuming. If you do end up using this guide, show me the result via email, hello (at) curiouslycarmen (dot) com.