This is a sponsored post with Amazon as part of Forward Influence. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

I LOVE Halloween and DIY projects are by far my favorite project to work on! To make things a little more interesting, I created this DIY Comic Book Halloween costume out of some Amazon smile boxes. Below, I will walk you through step-by-step instructions for how to make your own diy book “boxtume”!

I recently discovered some AWESOME DIY costumes made out of Amazon Prime smile boxes and it inspired me to make my own this year! I hoard Amazon Prime smile boxes to re-use especially during the holiday season! I’m so thankful for Amazon Prime because it has saved me SO much time finding the allergy-free ingredients that I bake with and the 2-day shipping is such a life saver living out in the country!

One year, we re-used our Amazon Prime smile boxes to create a life-sized pixelated Christmas tree. Some years we build and decorate snowmen and boxy pumpkins. Most years I use them to re-wrap gifts in! And with 3 kids at home, we’re always using them to create forts, boats, and other kid-friendly works of art.

This year, I wanted to do something special for my middle son, who is really into comics, animation, and drawing. We decided to make a DIY Comic Book Halloween “Boxtume” out of recycled Amazon boxes!

He helped me come up with the design ideas and I brought them to life for him! We thought it would be clever to incorporate a 3D feature (the magnifying glass) that my son’s face could peer out of. You don’t have to be a fancy artist to make your own comic book Halloween costume!

In fact, you can use the book shape we made below and create your own favorite book costume. Check out our easy-to-follow tutorial below!

Materials Needed:

empty Amazon Prime smile boxes
permanent marker
paint – house paint, acrylic paint, (or colored paper)
paint brush
scissors
masking tape
hot glue with glue gun
round styrofoam wreath or embroidery hoop

Comic Book Halloween Boxtume Directions:

1.Decide your design! This can absolutely be the hardest part if you aren’t sure what you want! I start by simply drawing a rectangle box on a sheet of paper and then drew any ideas that came to my head! Sketch out any writing or artistic designs that you want to add or print them on the computer for tracing or glueing.

2. Measure your costume!For the comic book part of this costume, we used a large Amazon Prime smile box that we had ordered some tents in. For a tween/teen/adult, I recommend making your comic book Boxtume 28 inches tall and 13 inches wide for most sizes. Make sure you make it wide enough for the person wearing it! At this size, my husband was easily able to fit into the costume as well as my tween (although it was slightly large on him).

3. Paint your background! I personally love the popping colors of house paint or acrylic paint, but you can make your DIY Comic Book Costume even quicker by using construction paper or bulletin board paper! OR even by glueing on fabric! There’s no wrong way to do this! Since I had an extremely tight turn around I decided to go with a solid color comic book instead of the popular multi colors with extravagant designs.

TIP – Tight on time? Print out images online and glue or tape them on!

4. Prepare your magnifying glass! I really wanted to incorporate a 3D element to our DIY Comic Book Halloween Costume even though we were on a tight schedule, so I chose to go with a pre-made styrofoam round wreath that I painted black. The magnifying glass handle was simply a 3D rectangle that I made with our Amazon Prime smile box scraps.

TIP – You could also simply paint a magnifying glass on or cut one out of cardboard. Just leave enough room for a face!

5. Cut out any holes BEFORE putting your box together. I HIGHLY recommend cutting out your hole for your magnifying glass BEFORE you make your 3D box if you’re using recycled Amazon smile boxes that you’ve cut up. Make sure there’s enough room for a face! You can use scissors, but a hobby knife will give you a more precise cut.

TIP – Lightly draw in pencil on your box before painting for a cleaner look!

6. Build your box! Once you’ve cut out any holes you want and you’ve done all of your painting or drawing, then you’re ready to put your box together! Now is the time to reinforce any weak spots with masking tape and/or hot glue. This is also a great time to hot glue on any 3D elements.

7. Work out the kinks! While we were waiting for our 3D magnifying glass to dry, we decided to try on our costume. We realized that my son’s head goes up too far into the “comic book” so we came up with a quick fix! We used another box and cut a small hole out of it for the top of my son’s head. Then I glued the box inside the comic book costume. You can see this below.

You can see the box I cut a hole out of for my son’s head down inside the comic book Boxtume. You’ll notice I have plenty of tape to strengthen any weak spots and I also used a hot glue gun to reinforce it.

8. Don’t forget the “pages”! It’s the finishing touch! I had several amazing ideas for the edges of the comic book costume but ultimately decided to dry brush on white paint for ruffled pages and was thrilled with the look! It really completed the Boxtume!

TIP – You can also glue on tight folds of white fabric to simulate book pages!

Don’t forget to take plenty of pictures of your children in their costumes before they head out to trick or treat! Not only will you have beautiful memories of your kids all dressed up, but you’ll know they were wearing an art project that used recycled boxes!

It’s such a FUN way to re-use your Amazon Prime smile boxes! I’m betting you get quite a few during the year! I’m currently working on making a spooky grandfather clock and hanging bats out of the rest of our Amazon Prime smile boxes! They are perfect for last minute costumes and decorations!

Details make the difference! Simple things to add to your comic book like a bar code, a price “sticker”, a volume number, page edges, foot prints, question marks, etc. can make all the difference in bringing your DIY comic book costume to life!

Check out these other amazing Halloween Boxtume ideas and even more amazing Halloween Boxtume ideas here!!

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