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DIY Dog Halloween Bandana & Dress Up Ideas

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Dog DIY By Jocelyn Okamoto 3 min read September 30, 2022

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DIY HALLOWEEN BANDANA 1

With Halloween right around the corner, I wanted to share a couple of simple and fun ideas for your pups.

If you haven’t seen our DIY dog bandana tutorial, please check that out here. It will have a more in depth tutorial on how to create and sew a custom bandana for your pup!  

But now, let’s share some spooky pup celebration ideas!

Supplies:

  • Cotton Fabric
  • Matching Thread
  • Fabric Markers or Acrylic Paint & Fabric Painting Medium (Puffy Paint also works!)

Directions:

halloween dog costumes

For the ghost themed ideas.  First I sewed a bandana out of white cotton fabric.

I tried using a fabric marker, but realized it bled and I wanted a clean graphic look.  Instead, I used the fabric marker to write the base of my word in block letters only and painted the rest of the word.

halloween bandana for dogs

I mixed acrylic paint with a bit of fabric painting medium, which you should be able find at any craft store.  I filled in the block letters, then drew in some uneven and dripping portions of the text for that spooky look. 

bandanas for dogs
diy dog bandana

 Let this dry overnight and you’re finished!

diy instructions dog costume
dog with diy bandana

Ok, this one is technically not a bandana but I couldn’t help making a little ghost costume. There are no real measurements or anything for this. 

I just draped a piece of white fabric over Luca and eyeballed a place for his snout.  Then draped it over him again to get a general idea of where his eyes would be then cut out circles accordingly.  This was super fun and would work for a photo or short clip, but trust me he didn’t keep this on for long!

diy dog costumes
dog ghost costume

Next up similar to the word “Boo!” I thought a Jack-O-Lantern bandana would be cute and fun.  

I sewed an orange bandana as my base.  Then sketched out my face design on a piece of paper and traced this onto the front with a fabric marker.  

costumes for dogs
doggie halloween costumes

I kept the face simple, knowing my marker bled.  I wanted to keep the cheeks open, but since my paint bled a bit while my brush was too wet, I filled them in.

I think the painting method works best for simpler designs, but overall I loved the clean graphic look it gave!

dog bandana for halloween

What I love about painting or drawing on bandanas is that they’re super kid friendly too!  You can use fabric markers or puffy paint and have a lot of fun customizing these.  

Lastly we have the candy corn bandana!  For this you will need: orange, yellow and white fabric.

dog bandana supplies

I started by basically dividing my base bandana pattern into 3 even pieces then adding a 1/2” seam allowance all the way around. *Note I will not go too heavily into detail since I made an error doing this, which definitely became more evident with the way I wanted to finish the seams.

bandana plans for dogs
diy dog bandana instructions

I wanted to keep the inside of the bandana clean so I sewed each piece together with a French seam.  This is where instead of sewing right sides together, you sew wrong sides together, trim the allowance, fold and press the seams back the other way (so right sides are together) and sew together leaving no raw edges.  

As you can see, each tier got smaller and smaller.  Luckily, I tend to create my bandanas a little bigger and on the loose end, so I was able to trim this excess and the bandana worked fine.  

diy dog instructions for costumes
hallloween costumes for dogs

*If I were to do this again, I would actually just sew 3 rectangular strips together with French seams that were a bit larger than my pattern piece. 

Then cut out the triangle shape and proceed with sewing the bandana together as usual, making sure that the middle section is measured to the correct length with the seam allowance.

halloween dog costumes
dog halloween instructions for costumes

What I love about these bandanas in general is that they’re really forgiving.  They’re also really easy to make and customize for your pups and I honestly had so much fun making these!  

dog costume ideas
dog-and-owner-halloween-costumes
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