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Sorry if this has been brought up already. I don't remember seeing a thread like this before.
Anyways I was wondering if anyone is making costumes for their kids this year or have made costumes in the past? If so what are you making them or have made them? Any cheap or creative ideas on how you are going to get or got your little gobblin and/or ghool to look like what you are making or made them?
I figured with the economy the way it is we could share some cheap and creative ways of making costumes for our kids.
I am making a Yoda for one of my kids and an Ewok for another.
I was trying to figure out some way of making the Yoda ears, a bunch of different ideas came to mind, like getting a hooded shirt and cutting off the sleeves to make ears to sew on the hood. Or making ears out of some sort of fabric and adhering them to a head band. I finally thought of a unique way of doing the ears and the top of Yoda's head. I'm doing it out of paper mache.
I just took a balloon blew it up a bit larger than the circumference of my child's head and started paper maching the top half. I then shaped some ears out of cardboard and adhered them to the head. I was even able to give the top of his head that weird wrinkling that Yoda has. After it dries I will paint it green and add some tuffs of hair to it. I think it is looking pretty cool.
I'm also making the robe out of cream colored burlap. I thought the burlap looks an aweful lot like the fabric his robe was made out of when he was living in the swamp.
The Ewok costume is going to be made out of faux fur and I'll be using a bear costume pattern I found.
Other costumes I have made were Teletubbies. I just bought a red hooded sweat shirt and red sweat pants. (I also did one in yellow) Then I bought some light blue felt for their tummies. I also got some felt fabric in the appropriate colors and made the ears and their antennnas out of it and hot glued them to a head band.
I also made one of my kids a Siberian tiger by getting a white hooded sweat shirt and white sweat pants. I had extra white fabric laying around to make the tail and ears that I sewed onto the sweat shirt. I then took black acrylic paint and painted stripes onto the fabric.
I also made a Sparky the Firedog costume. Again I got a white sweat suit and painted black spots on the pants and shirt. I then took an old yellow rain coat and added some red reflective tape to it to make it look like a fireman's jacket. I also made some long dog ears and sewed them to the hood.
I also made a knight outfit again using grey hooded sweat shirt and pants. I made the chest and back plate out of cardboard and used duct tape to make shoulder straps and attatched them with those paper clip staple things to look like rivets. I also attatched the front and back together at the sides the same way I did the shoulder straps. I also made a shield out of cardboard and made duct tape loops on the back side to put his arm through to hold it. I spray painted it silver then used those Halloween window clings to make it look like a Knight's shield.
As you can see I make a lot of my costumes out of sweat shirts and pants. I've also made things using footed P.J.s. They are cheap and really easy to transform into costumes.
I miss the days when everybody wore homemade costumes! Now it seems most parents opt for those store-bought ones, or even the kids prefer those to homemade ones. So sad!
Your ideas sound awesome! You should post some pics when you're done!
My guys have decided to be "Evil Tech Support guy" and "Evil Salesman" this year. I'm not sure where they came up with these ideas, but this is what they want to do!
So we've been doing a bunch of thrifting for business clothes. We're going to splatter blood on them and have a bloody hand dangling out of a briefcase. They are going to hand out business cards that they have made with their evil business info on it. They want me to do zombie-type makeup on them, and they want their hair to be all greasy and gross-looking.
This year will be much easier than years in the past! One year one was a Lego brick and another was Speed Racer (from the old cartoon). One year they were a bank robber and a homeless bum guy - complete with a beat-up cardboard sign that said "Trick" on one side and "Treat" on the other. One year they were Harry Potter and Severus Snape. All our costumes are always homemade. I think some of the spirit of the occasion is lost when the costumes are store-bought.
I miss the days when everybody wore homemade costumes! Now it seems most parents opt for those store-bought ones, or even the kids prefer those to homemade ones. So sad!
Your ideas sound awesome! You should post some pics when you're done!
My guys have decided to be "Evil Tech Support guy" and "Evil Salesman" this year. I'm not sure where they came up with these ideas, but this is what they want to do!
So we've been doing a bunch of thrifting for business clothes. We're going to splatter blood on them and have a bloody hand dangling out of a briefcase. They are going to hand out business cards that they have made with their evil business info on it. They want me to do zombie-type makeup on them, and they want their hair to be all greasy and gross-looking.
This year will be much easier than years in the past! One year one was a Lego brick and another was Speed Racer (from the old cartoon). One year they were a bank robber and a homeless bum guy - complete with a beat-up cardboard sign that said "Trick" on one side and "Treat" on the other. One year they were Harry Potter and Severus Snape. All our costumes are always homemade. I think some of the spirit of the occasion is lost when the costumes are store-bought.
I think that you are so right on that one.
I actually love making costumes for my kids and they love it too. There have been a few years when I just didn't have time had we ended up buying store bought. But they like having homemade as no one else has a costume like them. Even when they wanted to go as Snow White, Jasmine or a fairy I still made their costumes and they looked different and even better than the cheap flimsy costumes from the store that everyone else was wearing.
I don't go all out decorating the house up for Halloween. It's just to much work and no-one but us really sees it. So I put most of that time and energy that I would put into decorating the house into making costumes for the kids.
Your kids' costumes sound neat. I really like the idea of them handing out fake business cards.
Well the only thing I have done is that last year I bought a pink t-shirt, orange shorts, yellow socks and white snickers to dress my dd as Dora. She already had the back pack. The only handmade items were the bracelet and map. I also cut her hair like Dora. My dh was worried people were going to think it was just regular clothes and not a costume but it was a great hit at pre-school. It did take a lot of trips to different stores to find the orange shorts in October. This year I opted for walking into a store and purchasing a princess costume. It was a lot less work and even though she will not reuse it like the Dora clothes in the end it is a lot cheaper.
My son wants to be a clown. We are getting a sweat shirt and sweat pants for the body and painting his face. I am buying a makeup kit and doing his makeup.
Last year he went dressed as a girl (it was cute). We got him an outfit at a thrift store and bought him a pink tote bag as a trick or treat bag along with a curly wig.
I actually love making costumes for my kids and they love it too. There have been a few years when I just didn't have time had we ended up buying store bought. But they like having homemade as no one else has a costume like them. Even when they wanted to go as Snow White, Jasmine or a fairy I still made their costumes and they looked different and even better than the cheap flimsy costumes from the store that everyone else was wearing.
I don't go all out decorating the house up for Halloween. It's just to much work and no-one but us really sees it. So I put most of that time and energy that I would put into decorating the house into making costumes for the kids.
Your kids' costumes sound neat. I really like the idea of them handing out fake business cards.
I watched a Martha Stewart halloween DVD the other day and they made a fairy princess costume with paper doilies and sugar packets! It was pretty amazing. They called the segment "Supermarket Costumes" because all the costumes could be made with things you can buy at a supermarket. They also make a knight costume out of foil pans and silver cupcake liners/papers. They made the sword out of cardboard and covered it in aluminum foil... using an aluminum pie dish folded in half for the handle. I'm probably not describing it right, but it was really great! It was this DVD: Amazon.com: The Martha Stewart Holiday Collection - Martha's Halloween Ideas: Martha Stewart: Movies & TV You can rent it on Netflix.
I think fleece is a really great material to work with for Halloween costumes. And you can find a ton of it at Thrift stores!! And if you don't sew, you can use glue, stitch-witchery type iron-on adhesive or even cut little strips and tie your edges together (takes a long time but I've done it and it worked great for a pillow! ) Fleece is warm, comfortable, inexpensive, and easy to work with. It also comes in lots of great colors and patterns. Martha had a quick segment on fleece, too, but I didn't really like her costume ideas.
I'm really please my guys seem less interested in store costumes this year and more interested in raiding our dress up and recycleables bins to try to put something together. I've bought costumes some years, and as long as they're something you can re-use I don't mind too much, but I very much prefer when we create our costume, and I think the best watching the kids when are old enough to invent their own costume, but still young enough to trick-or-treat.
I am making my daughter's costume. She wants to be a red bird with a green belly and orange wings. I bought felt at the fabric store in those colors and am putting it together.
We buy other people's storebought costumes off craigslist for cheap after Halloween and use them for dress-up play though.
I have in years past. I just don't have the motivation this year. I was really into sewing when I had a sewing table and space to do it. Now that I have to use the dining table and pull everything out and put everything back, I just don't do it as much. When I could work on something with a found 10-20 min and then get back to it later in the day, I was more excited about it.
In the past, I have made star wars jedi costumes (super easy to sew from cheap fabric - basically pajama pants and shirts, robes, and any additional swaths of fabric for belts, etc...), rapunzel, magenta from blues clues, bob the builder, and some others I just cannot remember now.
The coolest homemade costume I saw at school a couple of years back was a kid (5th or 6th grade) who was a slot machine, complete with flashing lights.
An adult I know went as Darth Maul one time (unfortunately I did not get to see it but my husband did). He shaves his head bald so he used face paint to do the red and black and then glued nubs to his head. Apparently the superglue wears off in 24-36 hrs. He is over 6 ft tall so the whole look was pretty cool.
I saw a costume at the store that could be fairly easy to replicate, if you are crafty. It was a big wheaties box with a cutout for a face, so the person could be the person on the wheaties box.
this year we are going storebought - my two older ones are going to be characters from harry potter and the 2 yr old is a baby dragon. The other one is wearing an old Anakin Skywalker costume we have used in the past. I am going as a professor from Hogwarts (Harry Potter books) and I do have to make my own. I was hoping to find a black robe but all I can find are capes so I will be pulling out my pattern and making a robe, and I am just going to wear a black turtleneck, black pants or skirt, and black boots. I did buy the hat, and I am going to cover a notebook in cardstock or contact paper and put a title like "Advanced Transfiguration" on it.
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) Fleece is warm, comfortable, inexpensive, and easy to work with. It also comes in lots of great colors and patterns. Martha had a quick segment on fleece, too, but I didn't really like her costume ideas.
