Dressing Up Like My Hero: Kermit the Frog

He’s honest, humble and kind; he looks out for his friends and sticks up for the little guy. You could have blue fur, yellow feathers or giant gold teeth, and Kermit is still going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Oh yeah, and he believes in the power of rainbows.

Here’s how to make a Kermit outfit:

1. Dress all in green. Whatever you have in your closet will work, and if you need more green you can easily find some at your local thrift store. These are actually my husband’s shoes, but with thick enough socks, they work great. Or maybe you could borrow somehthing from this amazing woman. Be sure you’ve got a green hoodie on top, because you’ll need the hood for the head. I got this one at American Apparel years ago.

2. Form Kermit’s signature head shape (sort of a diamond-like football) by collecting two lightweight plastic bowls. These are take-out bowls I washed out after getting salads to-go at my local grocery store. Place a bowl on each side of your head, pull up the hoodie, and tie it tightly to hold the bowls in place.

3. Make the pointy collar by getting some green foam or felt in sheets and cutting them into 6 long isosceles triangles (about 18 high and 8 inches wide). Punch holes close to the corners of the bases, and then use green ribbon to thread through the holes and hold the triangles together. With all the triangles pointing toward the sky, tie the ribbon snugly around your neck on the outside of the hoodie. Then fold each triangle down and arrange until you’ve reached maximum kermieness.

4. Get the eyes right: a little crooked is best. You’ll need to saw a ping pong ball in half, and then bore a little eye hole into the center of each half. Use a Sharpie to make the frog pupil shape (a circle with a skinny oval running horizontally through it). Find a pair of wireframe reading glasses (these came from the drugstore), punch out the lenses, then glue the ping pong balls on. Be sure to hold them up to your eyes to make sure the eye holes line up with your actual line of sight before gluing.

5. Stay out of traffic (insert Frogger reference here), especially since you’re going to have trouble seeing and hearing. But that’s a small price to pay for all the kindred spirits who’ll want to high five you and tell you Kermit was always their favorite. If you run into another muppet, don’t hesitate to do a slow motion run towards one another and embrace in a colorful hug big enough to make Jim Henson proud.

This song always gets me…

For reference, visit Kermit’s entry on the Muppet Wiki.