How to make a Disney Bolt costume (and Rhino, too)

I have had a  lot of traffic on my blog recently from people searching Google for a Disney Bolt costume.  A lot of traffic.  This blog post is for those of you out there searching to buy a Bolt costume, or who have asked me if you can buy mine.  Hopefully if you don't sew, you have a neighbor or mom who does, because this really is an easy costume.

I made Zachary this costume 2 years ago (along with Noah's Rhino costume).  Our family loves the movie Bolt.  I think every kid loves that movie.  There is no Bolt costume you can buy, so I used a pattern and made my own.

I used Butterick 3238, which is still in print.  I made the bunny costume, but I changed the shape of the ears, and used the tail from the cheetah.  I made the costume out of non-pill polar fleece: white and just a bit of pink inside the ears.  I drew a lightening bolt and cut it out of a scrap of black polar fleece, and then used a satin stitch to applique it to Bolt's side.

On the hood, I bought some 1-1/2 inch red grosgrain ribbon and stitched it around the neck edge of the finished hood.  I tucked the raw edges under, and edge-stitched along the 2 short and 2 long sides of the ribbon.  I had a scrap of silver fake leather left over from a previous costume project, and I cut out a circle and used a black sharpie marker to illustrate Bolt's name on the tag.  I then stitched that just below the ribbon at the center front.

So there it is.

Now for Rhino.

The easiest thing to do would be to use the same Simplicity pattern and use one of the other critters for the basic pattern.  I did this for the hat, but I changed the shape of the ears a bit and moved them toward the center.  However, I wanted Rhino to have really short legs, so I used this Simplicity 3639 (which I just happened to have from a previous costume) pattern for the body instead.  I modified the arms, of course to not come to a point and to have an elastic casing at the wrist.  I left off the tail and then made a little pink ball of a tail and stitched it on the back instead.  

I used light brown fleece for the front, darker brown for the back, arms and back of the ears, and pink for the mittens, ear fronts and spats.

Hope that helps!  If you are lucky you can get the patterns cheap and fleece half-price.