How to make a gruffalo inspired dress up apron for creative storytelling.
My 3 year old and 6 year olds LOVE of The Gruffalo – a character in the children’s book by writer and playwright Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffle. This costume was inspired by the main character, the Gruffalo!
I wanted to create a dress up costume for my little enthusiasts to act out not only the stories of The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child, but also to create their own stories.
I took some pictures of the process in case you wanted to make one for your little ones too! Hopefully this rudimentary tutorial will inspire you to put your own spin on the Gruffalo!
Step by Step instructions
Materials Needed
1. TRACE a kid apron onto the brown fabric
I’m on the Eco/ budget – friendly reusing crafts, so I just traced a kid sized apron and used the only brown fabric I had left in a large piece. Short on time? Don’t know how to sew? – skip to the bottom for some ideas!
2. Make the facial features. Eyes, nose, teeth, wart, horns and ears.
Sketch the face pieces onto the correct color materials. Sorry guys, no pattern – Gruffalos don’t need to be perfect, just ask one yourself! I cut 4 ears, 4 horns and 2 noses so that I could sew them together with fluff. The horns, wart, teeth, eyebrows and mouth are felt so that the edges wouldn’t fray.
After cutting the pieces out, I sewed the ears, horns, and nose pieces together with right sides together and batting leaving the bottom open for turning right side out.
I then added the wart on the nose (after the above step was done) sneaking a bit of batting in the middle as I sewed it on so that it would puff.
I then pinned on each piece and stitched them on with my machine. It’s a little rough on the edges – but hey, it’s a GRUFFALO! I decided to only stitch the bottom on the small teeth so they would stick out a bit. He looked a little too happy, so I added a brown felt tongue too!
Last, but not least, I added the whiskers with black fabric paint.
This is so cute! I love it! What a great retelling tool! I am going to pin it.
Oh my goodness – this is absolutely adorable!
I LOVE this! Pinning it 🙂
Amanda you blow me away with your creativity! Can't wait to see your post with the finger puppets. This would make a fun teacher or librarian gift too!
Thanks! We love it too!!!
You are sooo sweet!
Thanks!
Awe thanks Kim, you always know how to make me smile =)
That apron is just too awesome for words. It would make a great gift with a copy of the book.
I work at a public library and have done an annual Boo-Ha-Ha story time the week before Halloween. Costumes for the attendees is optional and I am terrible at coming up with ideas for myself so I rarely wear a costume. I think I am going to make one for myself – adult size. I recently read this book to all of our local elementary kindergarten classes, so many children will know who the character is. Thanks for your inspiration
Thanks so much for this! I’ve just made it in adult size for my daughter who works at a nursery. It was so much fun to make!
I was so happy to find this will because I was trying to figure out how to make The Gruffalo for my son’s book character day and it came out so amazing only thing I would suggest is updating the list for things you need because I had to get creative with the black pieces because the instructions did not have that we need black flet but it came out super cute and it was just like the Gruffalo