Jurassic Park Family Halloween

I’m so excited to share with you photos from our family costumes this year! As of recently, Nori’s been obsessed with dinosaurs. The sight of one alone will make her shriek and yell “RAWR”! Needless to say, her new-found-love for all things dinosaur inspired our Jurassic Park family costumes. TJ was Dr. Alan Grant, I was Ellie Sattler, and Nori was a baby dinosaur. At the last minute, I decided to DIY an “electrical cage” that Nori would sit in as we wheeled her around our neighborhood. We decided to pass on trick-or-treating for safety reasons, but we had a great time walking around seeing all of the other costumes.

Below I share more details on how to replicate these costumes along with directions for the DIY cage. Hope you all had a wonderful and safe Halloween this year!

Costumes:

• Nori’s Costume | HERE
• Both TJ and my costume were completely thrifted

DIY Wagon:

• Wagon | HERE
• PVC Material | HERE, HERE, and HERE
• PVC Cutter | HERE
• Cardboard Box | HERE
• Black Paint | HERE
• Paint Brush | HERE
• Rope | HERE
• Glue Stick | HERE
• Free Jurassic Park Printable | HERE
• Zip-ties | HERE

The wagon was 100% inspired by Pinterest. I came across so many great ideas, but none of them had detailed directions on how they made it. I pulled some inspiration photos and decided to just wing it. While it’s not perfect, I still love how it turned out. I unfortunately didn’t take photos as I built it so I’m going to try my best to explain the steps in detail below.

• For the front and sides of the wagon, I cut out panels using a cardboard moving box. I applied 2-3 coats of black acrylic paint and sat aside to dry.
• Once dry, I glued the words “Jurassic Park” to the front panel.
• I punched holes in the corner of each panel and used zip-ties to attach them to the wagon.
• For the “electrical fence”, I used PVC material from Home Depot. I used a combination of tees, pipes and sockets. I believe the fitting sizes were 1/2″, however be sure to test the pieces out in the store to make sure they fit into each other. The exact number of PVC items you’ll need will be contingent on the size of your wagon. For reference, I used (14) pipes, (6) tees and (4) sockets.
• I connected a single pipe to the bottom of tee. I then took another pipe and cut it into three even pieces using a PVC cutter. I attached two of the cut pieces to both ends of the tee (see below):

• I then attached a socket to the end of one of the cut pieces and another tee to the end of the other cut piece (see below):

• Continue repeating steps above being sure to add sockets to all four corners. You can make the electrical fence how small or wide as you’d like. I didn’t use sockets and tees on the bottom of the electrical fence since it wouldn’t be visible from inside the wagon.
• Once the pipes were all connected, I painted the fence with a light coat of grey paint. I couldn’t find an exact link to the paint I used, but any non-toxic paint will work.
• Once the PVC was fully dry, I wrapped twine around the pipes which would serve as the “electrical wire”. I then attached “Danger 10,000 Volts” signs to both the front and back of the wire.
• That’s it! I sat the completed electrical fence inside the wagon and we were ready to go!

Xo,

Brooke