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I was hoping to have all of our Miles From Tomorrowland Halloween costumes completely done and posted by now, but it has taken me forever to finish all of them, and step-by-step tutorials for every last thing would be pretty tedious for all of us. But this is worth sharing, I think, because it is really easy to do, and you’ll only be able to find the supplies in stores for a few more days. So here’s a very picture-heavy post on how to make a Questcom.
What’s a Questcom? It’s a wrist communicator, and it looks like this:
The Disney Store Miles costume comes with a Questcom printed on the sleeve, but it’s much more fun to have a “real” one, right? And they make one that you can buy in the stores, but when you need one for each member of the Callisto family, it’s much more cost effective to make your own out of – what else? – parts from the dollar store!
This is the main thing you need from Dollar Tree, and it will make TWO Questcoms!
First, you’ll need to remove the little plastic strap things they have on the backs.
Next, take a utility knife or a pair of strong scissors and cut the arm plate down. I followed this groove and used the piece at the bottom.
Discard the top piece (or put it in your scrap pile to experiment with later) and keep the one that looks like this:
You’re going to want to cut some additional holes to add another wrist strap to the back. I used a utility knife and just kind of eyeballed it.
The cuts probably won’t turn out perfect. I had the plastic crack and try to split a few times. It’s ok, most of that will be covered in the end anyway.
Next, cover the whole thing in black electrical tape. Smooth all the bubbles out as you go, stretching the tape a little if you need to.
It’ll look like this when you’re done. You can leave some of the grooves uncovered if the tape doesn’t cover the whole thing – you’ll be removing it from there anyway.
Now, take your utility knife and make sure you have a really sharp blade in it. Slice through the electrical tape along the sides of the grooves and remove it. You’re trying to keep the majority of the piece covered in black.
In progress:
Then cut a larger rectangle out of the top portion so you have a good spot for your buttons.
If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can cut out two circles on the sides to mimic the original Questcom design. Go slowly and cut carefully. You can do it! I did this freehand, but you can draw it out first if that makes it easier.
All set! Now we’re going to add some buttons. I used these awesome glitter glue sticks that I picked up at the dollar store, but a plain hot glue stick will work just as well.
Start building up nine square-ish piles of hot glue in that white rectangle on top.
That was a particularly good one straight out of the gun. Most of them won’t look perfect, though. Mine ended up like this:
It’s fixable, I promise! While you still have the glue gun out, you can choose to add some more decoration if you want. I filled in these little vents at the wrist.
Now, take your utility knife and trim the excess hot glue from your buttons if they weren’t square and they all ran together.
See? Much better! Now we’re going to add color. I just used a lime green Sharpie and colored in some of that exposed white plastic, including in between the buttons.
Almost finished! Now we need to add some elastic to replace those bulky plastic straps to keep it on your arm. I used whatever was hanging out in my sewing bin, which I think was 3/8″ wide.
Thread it through the holes, leaving as much slack as you need for whatever size wrist you’re working with, and hand-stitch it a few times to secure it. Repeat with the second strap.
And that’s it! You have a nifty new Questcom to add to your collection of Miles From Tomorrowland accessories.
It would go beautifully with your DIY Bracelex for Loretta and your DIY light-up space helmet that you’ve no doubt been slaving over all week ;).
