Photo by Euart
Somehow this year Halloween has snuck up on me. I can hardly believe that it is just a little more than a week away. The stores are full of brightly colored bags of candy and racks of poorly made character themed costumes.
Honestly? I try not to buy into the madness. I like to help the kids make costumes out of things we have on hand instead of buying one use costumes that will rip in an evening and not fit the next year.
This year Princess has decided to be a rock star. Again. Although she tried to talk me into buying an entire new outfit I resisted. We compromised with her putting together a “stylish” outfit from things she already has, using leftover glitter hairspray & real makeup, and maybe ONE new sparkly accessory. Preferably from the Dollar Store!
Buddy has waffled. First he wanted to be a ghost, so I headed out to find a sheet. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a plain white sheet at the thrift store? Everyone buys colors or patterns now. I finally found an off white/cream sheet for $3.
Then he changes his mind and says maybe he’d rather be a robot. I had visions of a complex costume involving tin foil & boxes and an inability to bend ones knees. . . so I bring up the ghost idea again hoping to do a classic parental redirect. He says “Maybe I can be a Robot Ghost!”. Great, so now I envision the robot costume, done in white with white face paint and hair color. . . I decided to let the topic rest for a few days.
This last Monday Buddy came up to me and told me he had made a final decision on his costume. “Mama” he says “I want to be a giant EYEBALL!”.
Alrighty then!
Original dreams of a wire frame and cloth or white trashbags bowed to reality. . . there is no need to make this whole concept harder than it has to be. After all this costume just needs to stand up to a 15 minute parade in school and then an hour or so of trick o’ treating. So I am going with a simple sandwich board style creation.
Here is my concept:
Yes, I know, this is a truly terrible graphic.
I plan on making it out of cardboard and maybe using duct tape (love duct tape!) to make the straps. He’ll just wear solid black underneath.
In my circle the adults don’t usually dress up for Halloween-we are too busy shuttling the kiddos around for trick o’ treating and then trying to keep them from pinging too much on sugar at the annual family style party afterwards. That may change as the kids get older-I personally would love an excuse to get all dressed up!
There are plenty of inexpensive and clever costume ideas that can be made out of items you either already have at home or can pick up for a pittance at a thrift store.
Inexpensive Halloween Costume Ideas
Gypsy: Take a flowy skirt, white top (off the shoulder is nice but not necessary) & tuck some scarves into the waistband. Add a scarf around your head, some hoop earrings & bangles and go heavy handed with the eyeshadow.
FBI Agent: Wear a suit & sunglasses, thread one earbud up under your shirt into your ear. Spend a time covertly talking into your watch.
Farmer: Get denim overalls (or just jeans), plaid shirt, bandana & a straw hat. Have a piece of hay in your mouth and carry around a pitchfork or a watering can as a prop.
Farmer Variation I, Scarecrow: Add straw (or brown paper bags cut to look like straw) around wrists & ankles. Use eye liner to draw “stitching” around neck and on cheek.
Farmer Variation II, Cowboy: Add cowboy boots and a Stetson
Hooker: Buy the tacky clothes you can find at the thrift store, add too much makeup, jewlery & hairspray.
Doctor: Buy at the thrift store or borrow from a friend scrubs &/or a lab coat. make a nametag on the computer & use a childrens toy stethescope around your neck.
Doctor Variation, Mad Scientist: Give yourself some crazy hair with lots of gel, give lots of wild eyed looks and carry around a beaker-if you can add dry ice to have smoke pouring out the top all the better! Feel free to print out a name tag on the computer “Dr. Frankenstien” or “Dr. Insanity”. . .
50’s, 60’s, 70’s or 80’s: The thrift store has a plethora of out of date clothes! Find the best stereotypical example of a bygone decade and wear it with pride!
Bridesmaid: Most women probably have something in the closet to use for this one. Dress in that lime green dress, shoes & purse that your friend Sally INSISTED you’d be able to wear again-see! She was right!
Bride: Pull out your old wedding dress, or if that is sacriledge then find one at the thrift store. Add Dollar store flowers, a veil or tiara (cheaper the better-again dollar store is your friend)
Bride/Bridesmaid Variation, Beauty Pageant/Prom Queen: Add a sash (paper or fabric, lettering can be done with a metallic sharpie)tiara, bouquet of fake roses and borrow some rhinestone jewelery. Throw in your best Pageant wave & you are ready!
Nerd: Pants hiked up to high with the hem too short, white socks with dress shoes, masking tape on your glasses, a pocket protector (or pocket full of pens, and a bad shirt. Grease your hair back into a true nerdy hair do and spend a lot of time laughing nasally.
Classic Reporter: Wear a suit and a fedora, tuck a sign that says “press” and throw an old 35mm camera around your neck.
80’s Jogger: Find an old track suit (velour preferrable!). Add running shoes and wrist/head bands (can be quickly made out of a terry towel if necessary). Say things like “no pain no gain!”
Chef/Cook: Apron & Chefs hat (if you can find one). Carry a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon.
Playboy Bunny: Black leotard or bathing suit, nylons, heels, bunny tail (Made from cotton balls?) and bunny ears (headband & construction paper?)
Variations on all: Zombie or Vampire version. Just add gorey face paint and fangs as necessary.
What other ideas do you have for easy & inexpensive Halloween costumes?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/euart/ / CC BY 2.0
Another great one for anyone who ever played sports they can be a famous player or just a generic “soccer player”. One year my sister was an undead soccer player. It was a big hit and she already had all the soccer gear & a soccer ball to carry around!
I think I may have used this tip last year but here goes, my son wanted to be the Incredible Hulk before it became popular with all the movies made and no costumes were available at the time in a toddler’s size, we bought a green turtleneck and purple athletic pants from a thrift store. We took sandwich bags of cottonballs and pinned them strategically under the turtle neck for his muscles, painted his face green, ripeed up the athletic pants, then listened to his roar!! It cost well under ten dollars and he reused the turtle neck for a couple of years. This year he is a zombie, I invested 5 dollars in some face paints, and his sister is using some of the paint to revamp her witch costume to be a sparkly witch. I think most kids at certain ages enjoy being one particular thing over and over with a new variation. Have fun being creative out there!
One of our twin daughters’ favorite songs is “Ladybug Picnic”. So this year my wife is going as a ladybug and I am going as a picnic. For her costume we went to AC Moore, got a short sleeve red tshirt, a long sleeve black one for under it (both only a couple dollars), some felt to cut up as spots, antennae from the dollar store, and we borrowed wings. The wings if purchased would be the most expensive part, but they have them at WalMart or the various Halloween stores for not that much. Her whole costume was maybe $10 (if that much, not counting wings). For mine we got a cheap vinyl table cloth from WalMart and used our hot glue gun to attach a bunch of plastic forks, knives, spoons, cups, and plates. We are considering that I will carry a picnic basket to hold candy as the girls collect it or to the parties. Since we have the basket the whole costume was less than $10. Now the geek in me wants to carry an ipod and speaker playing the song. 🙂
Catherine-The sports figure idea is fantastic! Most kids have that stuff in the closet somewhere, and it would be easy to pick up something similar for an adult at a Thrift Store
Amyrlin-Oh yes, I remember you mentioning the hulk outfit last year! Thanks for sharing it again for the rest of the readers. It is amazing what you can do with a bit of imagination.
Ok I think mine is a repost as well but here goes: a jar of jelly beans. Simply take a clear plastic trash bag and cut head and arm holes. Put on the bag and fill it with small inflated colored balloons. Tie off the bottom. Woo hoo you are now a jar of jelly beans. Enjoy it for less than 2$.
Your son is a genius! If I am not a zombie nerd next year I will be a giant eyeball 😉
My memories of childhood are filled with homemade creative costumes from the thrift store. Mom was great at it! One year my sister was a one eyed one horned flying purple people eater, all made from thrift store or at home materials (except we bought some clay to make the big one eye for her forehead.) The possibilities are endless with some scissors and paint. It was so fun making the costumes, much better than buying one off the rack! Thanks mom 🙂
My son just went to a halloween party as a skeleton.
We used black sweats and I put felt bones on the front and reflective mylar bones on the back. I made felt bone “feet” that laced onto his black tennis shoes and made a white felt hood with long white ties. This kept the hood on and wound around his neck like neck bones. I also put reflective bones on a pair of stretchy black gloves we already had.
I had a bit of leftover white face paint so I painted hist face and added in black eyeliner “orbital sockets” around his eyes and drew in teeth over his lips. Honestly, this make up took about five minutes and the costume took an afternoon to cut out bones and glue/stick them on the sweats. If I wanted to be really thrifty, I could wash out the glue to remove the bones and use the sweats again. As this is the third year we have used this costume, it’s saved me tons of money.
For my daughters, “Pirate Wenches” were always popular costumes – just add a pirate hat to the gypsy look and “Mad Scientists” were also good. White lab coats (borrowed) over geeky outfits with bow ties, goggles and crazy laughter make for a great older teen/adult costume.
Decades costumes are such a fun idea — I went as an 80s girl one year and it was such a fun, easy, cheap costume to do.
I’m also working with H-E-B and they have a lot of cute, inexpensive costumes that are worth checking out too: http://heb.com/mealtime/celeb-halloweenCostumes.jsp