DIY Terrarium Halloween Costume

Ahhh! Halloween is almost here, and we have been hard at work making all our costumes to inspire everyone. Today we are revealing one of our final DIY costumes of the season and it’s a real treat! Since we absolutely love succulents, and pretty much anything involving cacti, we created a terrarium featuring our favorites! It’s not easy for me to pick a favorite, but I think THIS might be it. I mean, it’s perfect for me because I already have a cactus tattoo to match!

Roughly 24″ x 40″ acetate sheets (we bought 4 of these from Blick)
Gray acrylic paint
Utility knife
Green, yellow, and pink foam sheets (we got these from Michaels)
Green, yellow, coral, and pink construction paper
White foam board
White paper crinkle filler (here)
Green ribbon
Hot glue gun
Foam ball
Thin tip sharpie
Paintbrush
Clear shipping tape
Paper patterns for terrarium housing

1. Print and cut out the attached pattern for the terrarium housing. Feel free to scale the size of the pattern up or down to make the final terrarium bigger or smaller. With your clear acetate, trace the pattern with sharpie 12 times.

2. Cut the pieces out of acetate, rub off any sharpie with your fingers, and set aside. Print and cut out the circle pattern here. Again, feel free to scale this up or down to fit the size of the terrarium you want to make. Trace the circle onto foam board and cut it out with a utility knife. Cut a hole in the middle of the foam board big enough for you to step through, leaving a ledge for your plants to sit on in the front.

3. Space out evenly and hot glue the acetate pieces around the top of your foam board circle, almost like the petals of a flower. Once they are secured down, bring them up to form the terrarium housing and tape each piece together with clear shipping tape until all acetate petals are taped together.

4. Clump together your white crinkle paper and hot glue as much of it as you can to the inside of the terrarium, covering the foam board. This will be what your plants sit on so make sure this is secure before moving on.

5. To make the foam cacti, cut out two tall U-shaped pieces. Cut a slit from the top to the middle of one piece, and a slit from the bottom to the middle of the other piece. Slide these together and hot glue them to hold them in place. Make paper flowers or use pom poms for the top of the cacti.

6. To make the paper plants, cut multiple shapes and sizes of leaves out of colored construction paper. Hot glue the leaves to a circular base, bending the leaves and staggering them so they look like a real plant.

7. To make the rocks, cut a foam ball in half. Using a utility knife, create faceted edges on the foam ball until it resembles a rock. Paint the rock gray with acrylic paint and let it dry completely before placing in the terrarium.

8. Measure out how long you want the ribbon straps to be and hot glue them to the top of the terrarium housing before gluing the plants in. To finish the costume, arrange and hot glue the plants and rocks to the white crinkle paper.

I hope you guys are enjoying all of our DIY costumes this year, and I’m super excited to see if any of you make them! If you do, make sure to use our hashtag, #awwsamcostumeparty, and we may feature it in our round-up after Halloween! And as always, let me know if you have any questions in the comments!