Turtle Shell Backpack

While looking at My Little Pony stuff in Hot Topic, my son saw a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack. Price tag: $44.50. Much too much money to spend on a backpack for a 3 1/2 year old who doesn't really need one. It looked simple enough to make one so I promised him I would...and he didn't let me forget it!

Turtle Backpack at Hot Topic

I started with an existing backpack:

 the plastic cover is slowly coming off, making it the perfect candidate for a makeover.

After cruising google search for "turtle shell backpack," I found a tutorial by The Almost Perfectionist for a turtle costume. Her directions were awesome and only needed a little tweaking to attach to a backpack.

how I tweaked the costume tutorial to fit the backpack

The shell pattern was eyeballed from this turtle color page on sweetclipart.com.

Then, the finished deal. It was tricky to get good pics because my son wouldn't stand still...he's all boy!