Easy & Cheap DIY Cow Costume

In honor of Cow Appreciation Day on July 9th, here is an easy and cheap way to make your own outfit and get some free Chick Fil A. I found out about Cow Appreciation Day the night before it happened and didn’t have time to go to the store for supplies that night. Instead, I went the morning of to get these items, made the shirts that afternoon, and went to dinner at 6 pm that night. And I made 4 shirts in total! So not only are they easy and cheap to make, but you can do them last minute too if needed.

What You’ll Need

• Plain white t-shirt
• Black paint
• Paintbrush

PLAIN WHITE T-SHIRT

I got plain white t-shirts for both kids, myself, and my husband all at Walmart, in our sizes and pretty cheap. All shirts were between $2-4 apiece. You can also find reasonably priced plain colored shirts in the crafting section at a craft store like Hobby Lobby.

BLACK PAINT

You can use fabric paint or acrylic. I went with black acrylic paint because I didn’t want the puffy texture of fabric paint. I bought this multi-surface Indoor/Outdoor washable acrylic paint as opposed to just the generic kind. I made sure it said it could be used on fabric and was washable (dishwasher safe, etc) because I wanted to ensure it wouldn’t wash out of the shirt.

Make sure you get enough paint, it can go fast. I bought 3 of the little cheap $0.87 bottles at Walmart to make sure I had enough. I went through one and a half bottles making 4 shirts (sizes: 9 months, 2T, Women’s Small, and Men’s XL).

PAINTBRUSH

Any kind of paintbrush you want to use will work. I used the spongey type of brush (one was round and one was flat). I used the round brush mainly.

Let’s Get Started

STEP #1

Paint the front of the shirt. I did more of a circular motion with the brush and made rounded spots. You can do them however you want the shapes to come out as.

For my kids’ shirts, I mixed the paint with water and the areas seemed to expand after I was done painting due to the water. For the adult shirts, I used straight paint and no water. As a result, the kids’ shirts came out a little lighter and with a grayish ring around the black spots and the adult shirts came out with darker black spots.

The paint bled through the shirt some which made it easier to paint the back since I already had some spots coming through. Just make sure you use something under the shirts so you don’t paint your table or surface being used. I placed a cardboard box under my shirts when painting.

STEP #2

Flip the shirt and paint the back. Repeat step 1 to paint the back of the shirt.

STEP #3

Let the shirt hang dry for a few minutes. I let my shirts hang for about 10-15 minutes. I did this so that the paint wasn’t as wet when I heat treated them.

STEP #4

Heat treat the shirts via a dryer or iron. I chose a dryer for convenience. I put the shirts in the dryer for about 30 minutes to dry and heat treat the paint into place on the shirts.

Now you’re ready to go! We wore our shirts literally about 30 minutes – 1 hour after I heat treated them and they worked great.

And there you have it, an easy and cheap way to make a quick Cow Appreciation Day costume. You can also use these steps to be a cow for Halloween or any other dress-up occasion. Happy creating!