So many hours of my life I will never get back...

...and totally worth it for the smile alone.

As are most three-year-old boys, Little G is mildy obsessed with the movie Cars and its star, Lightning McQueen.  So when Halloween rolled around, it was not a surprise that he asked to be Lightning.  I looked around the internet and only saw one Lightning McQueen costume that was fabric and got low ratings because it was floppy.

So I took to Pinterest and Google Image and not only found an AMAZING costume, but a full account of how said costume was made.  I procured a stroller box from a friend having a new baby and we were off!

At this point in the process, Little G couldn't contain his excitement and kept insisting he drive it.

By far, the hardest part of this costume was getting the top of the car cut correctly with the appropriate angles so that it would fold into the right shape.

Once I added the hood, it really started to look like Lightning

2 coats of primer and three coats of glossy red paint!!

I made wheels in Illustrator, got logo graphics from a Cars listserve and printed them and mod podged them on.

I was starting to worry about how I would attach straps until I realized I had a cheap (less than $5) backpack from when Little G was at camp over the summer.  I just cut the top and bottom of the backpack off and that allowed the straps to attach from underneath to the car.

Little G and his dad had such a fun time trick-or-treating that the next week he asked me to make him a Tow-Mater costume so we could go out and get candy from people's houses!

The only drawback was that our neighborhood is very hilly and many of the houses are up several stairs - most of them are up entire flights of stairs.  My poor husband had to carry Little G up and down all of those stairs because Little G couldn't see the ground around his costume...oops.

The Ladybug got to represent Pixar too.  She was Boo from Monsters' Inc.  Sadly, she had a fever so she didn't get to enjoy trick-or-treating.

I keep joking that Little G is going to be Lightning McQueen for Halloween until he is 18, but really, the joy in his face when I showed him the final product was totally worth the hours it took to make it.

 What was your favorite Halloween costume from when you were a kid?