How To Make A Parrot Costume For Less Than $10 - San Francisco

STEP 1 - Let It Go

As sublime as the $70 factory-made parrot costumes may be, you’re going to have to relegate yourself to reinventing your image. Remember, much like a unique and precious snowflake, you will be the only one of your kind.

STEP 2 - Choose Your Muse

To my amazement, the living form of my parrot vision was discovered easily on a homemade costume website.

Somewhere, in the abyss of Middle-America, my one-year-old alter-ego roams the streets.

STEP 3 - Obtain Cut-Rate Fabric

Go straight to the reject aisle, and gather all the most obnoxiously-colored scraps. Felt, and spandex are definite winners, as are colors with names like “Cha-Cha Orange” and “Suspicious Snowball Yellow.”

Don't Feel Bad...

You might feel like you have annoyed the store owner when she is forced to measure 21 oddly-shaped scraps of felt, all to find you owe her $4.65. Just seek comfort in the fact that you’re nowhere near as annoying as the theatre guys who are about to come in to buy stuff for their Hello Dolly set.

STEP 4 - Grab Some Parrot Accessories

If home-ec wasn’t your forte, ditch the needle and thread, and pick up some fabric glue. And remember, there’s no such thing as having too many googly eyeballs.

STEP 5 - Brainstorm

Ideally, when you return from the fabric store it should look like a Teletubby threw up on you. Lay out your fabric, and choose the biggest piece for your body.

STEP 6 - Make body

Sew or glue fabric into a bulbous sack, with a hole here and there for appendages.

STEP 7 - Conceal poor craftsmanship with feathers

Remember that time when your aunt called your guidance counselor to have an intervention because she thought she caught you sniffing glue while making your history fair project? No? That’s just me? Well, if only Auntie could have seen me feathering.

STEP 8 - The head

Accept the fact that your parrot head is going to look like a green chef’s hat with a beak.

If anyone asks if your costume is homemade, quickly change the subject, or pretend you don’t speak English.

*BONUS STEP*

If you’re feeling ambitious, cha-cha orange spandex makes great leggings, and you can take all of the extra scraps and use to to stuff your parrot belly.