How to Dress Up Like 'Charlotte's Web' Characters

"Charlotte's Web," by E.B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams, is a classic children's book. It's hard not to love "Charlotte's Web" characters, from kindhearted Fern to friendly Wilbur and, of course, the wise spider Charlotte who saves the day. If you or your child wants to dress up as a character from this story for Halloween, you should be able to make a costume fairly easily. You may even be able to use items you already have around the house to make your costume.

To dress up as Fern, wear your hair in a ponytail with a red ribbon. In the famous image on the book's cover, Fern is wearing a red shirt with a white collar. Blue jeans and work boots make good finishing touches for a Fern costume. She can carry a bucket or even toy vegetables since she often spent time in the barn with Wilbur, who was a very hungry pig.

The charismatic Wilbur is really the main character in "Charlotte's Web" despite its title. To dress as Wilbur, you can use a headband and some pink fabric or ribbon to make pig ears. Wrap the headband tightly with the pink fabric. Use a small bead of hot glue on either end of the headband to hold the fabric or ribbon in place.

Use two pink diamond shapes to make ears. Lay down the headband and wrap the diamond around it so that the two points meet; they should then look like a triangle. Use glue to attach the triangles to the headband. If using hot glue, be careful not to push the fabric together with your bare fingers, as this could burn you. Instead, use a pencil to push the pieces together.

If you wish, you can use a curled pink pipe cleaner wrapped around an elastic waist band or ribbon as a pig tail. Wear pink clothing mottled with brown fabric paint to resemble a pig. You can use sponges with large-set holes to stamp the clothing with mudlike texture.

Templeton, the rat from "Charlotte's Web," is not the kindest character in the beginning of the story, but he is an interesting antagonist and ultimately does the right thing. Dress as Templeton by using fake whiskers and a rat nose and ears. You can make these much the same way the Wilbur ears are made but use brown or gray fabric instead.

To look like Templeton, dress in brown or gray clothing and create a tail out of a matching robe belt or other fabric. You can wear it on a belt or attach it to ribbon tied around your waist. You can also use pink felt to create a pink tummy and pink inner ears for your Templeton look. Glue these to the shirt part of your costume and the ears of your costume, respectively.

To dress as Charlotte, the savvy spider who saves the day in the book, dress in all black. You can create spider legs using old black tights. Stuff the legs of two pairs of tights with stuffing and then sew them at the center onto the back of your black shirt. This will give you four of your required eight legs. Your arms and legs can be the other four spider legs. Be sure your pants and shirt sleeves are long so that they look black like the legs on your back.

You can also make yourself a spider web. Use pipe cleaners to make a hexagon with straight pieces coming out from the center like a sunburst. Then, use more pipe cleaners to make additional straight pieces parallel with the hexagon in smaller rings until you get to the center of the spider web.

If you really want to push your costume over the top, use thread looped over and around the pipe cleaners to spell one of the messages Charlotte writes in the book, like "some pig" or "humble."