tractor mac halloween costume

<This costume was from last year and before I had a blog. Sharing inspiration more than detailed instructions.>
My son loves "Tractor Mac" books!! I think he owns most of the collection and plans to ask Santa for more this year. He even had the pleasure of meeting the author, Billy Steers, last year which was thrilling for my baby boy. SO, I shouldn't have been surprised by his answer when I asked..."What do you want to be for halloween? You can be ANYTHING you want.", his immediate reply was TRACTOR MAC!! I had a moment of panic. I did say anything! I went to Pinterest because that's what we do...right?! I found two examples of ideas for a starting point and we went to work. It was actually much easier than it might look! We happened to have the perfect box with carrying handles for the part my son used to "drive" his tractor. the nose of the tractor is a narrower box that was hot glued and ducted taped to the other.
 
I spray painted the body red. This was probably the most time consuming part because the cardboard really absorbed the paint making several coats necessary. The tires and steering wheel I cut out of cardboard, notched the larger back tires for a little more realistic look, and spray painted them black. I painted red rims with silver trim onto the tires and hot glued them to the frame.

This is where my husband decided to step in!! I was simply going to hot glue the steering wheel to the frame, but he thought our son needed a working or moveable wheel. He used old plastic pipe we had to construct the steering wheel shaft and the exhaust pipe. The steering wheel was attached to a small, shorter piece of pipe that fit into the the steering shaft so it could easily be turned...just like a real one! I printed the a picture off the internet of a motor from the side of a old tractor. 

For the face details I turned to the illustrations in the books and a actual toy Tractor Mac. I used poster board to make the eyes and drew on the detail with marker. For the grill I cut black construction paper into strips and hot glued them to the frame. The mouth was cut from the same poster board as the eyes and I had detail with a black marker.
I cut half circles, painted them red, and glued them over the eyes to give him a little more personality. My son wore overalls(Tractor Supply), a flannel(Walmart), cowboy boots, and of course his Case hat.

Little sister wore overalls(OshKosh), flannel shirt(H&M), cowboy boots, and carried a Tractor Mac toy to go along with big brother. These picture were taken after four halloween adventures, and the tractor held up amazingly well!! Thanks so much for stopping by. Audra

Everett meeting the author of "Tractor Mac", Billy Steers.



Tractor Mac birthday party post coming soon.