What Are Your "Hip" Halloween Tips and Tricks?!
Ohhh… I am so excited that my favorite time of the year is fast approaching! I absolutely love fall…I love the cool, crisp air; love how the trees change colors; love the scent of pumpkin pie etc. I also love that one of my favorite holidays, Halloween, is almost here. So that got me thinking… what are my kids going to be for Halloween this year?! Although my 2 boys are pretty flexible and up for any sort of manly/scary/gory/disgusting costume, my little Piper is determined to be the oh-so-original glittery/sparkly/pink princess for the 3rd year in a row. Although I would like to make creative and budget-friendly costumes for each of them, I am often at a loss as to where to start. So this is where you come in! If you have successfully made a Halloween costume in the past, please share your ideas, tips and tricks with all of us. If you are a fan of purchasing costumes, where is your favorite place to shop?
Wondering who the cute cowboy is in the picture above?! That’s my nephew, Hudson, dressed as his all-time favorite object… a John Deere tractor! 😀 My very creative big sis, Bryn, created this costume from scratch. All she did was paint 2 cardboard boxes a John Deere green color and then attach them with glue. She used black plastic plates with yellow construction paper for the wheels, black poster-board for the smoke stack (attached to the bottom of the smoke stack was a bag so that Hudson could drop his candy down the smoke stack), and even battery operated lights for the back and front of the tractor! How cute and unique is that?!
On a side note, I’m also always looking for creative Halloween treats and snacks too! If you have favorite Halloween recipes, please share them in the comments!
I get lots of ideas for homemade stuff at Etsy. This yr I’m making my daughter a Cowgirl Jessie outfit. She love Jessie and Toy Story.
Last year my daughter was Angelina Ballerina. She wore a pink leotard, white tights, pink ballet shoes (all stuff we already had) and a tutu from the dress up box. I used an old headband covered with white felt and attached ears made from felt and made a pin on felt tail and we did whiskers with eye liner. She got lots of compliments.
There is a website, can’t find the address right now but I’m sure you could google it, that lists costumes to make using only sweatpants and sweatshirts. They had some cute ones.
I love making our costumes. It may not be always the dirt-cheapest option, but I can come up with a much more special costume that way. Two years ago was my first real attempt; my oldest went as a Jedi, and I made him an ADORABLE Jedi cloak with a tutorial online. Super easy and non-intimidating to make, and it looked really accurate; plus, he could wear normal clothes (just brown pants and a shirt) underneath it, and the fleece cloak kept him nice and warm. Pic here: https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/kiadawel/digiscrap/page16-journal-web.jpg (Scrap page, sorry)
Last year, I made bat capes out of flannel and dressed them in black clothes from Walmart. I would have preferred brown but couldn’t find any. 🙁 The bat capes would have been better in fleece; the ears got pretty floppy when washed. Still, the boys LOVED them, especially my oldest. No pic for that one, I kind of winged it (no pun intended!) — and I should note, I would NOT have done this if we were going trick-or-treating outside at nighttime, but we only go to Dad’s work in the daytime for TorT — no traffic!
This year, I’m making Mario and Luigi costumes for them. I’ll be making the overalls and hats, and if I can’t find the right color shirts I might dye white ones. These ones I’m totally excited about, being a geek at heart. 🙂 I’ve already made the hats, and they came out awesome. Can’t wait to put the whole thing together! And I’m doing it right this year by using fleece, not flannel, so the costumes will be nice and durable.
My son is pretty easy at Halloween he has been a cowboy, deer hunter, a tree, spiderman and a couple of years we have splurged on costumes. Year before last I bought a Jack Sparrow costume at Cracker Barrel it wasn’t super expensive but it was very cute! (although he was very upset that I put eye liner on him LOL) I made almost all my money back by consigning it the next year.This year he is going to be The Joker; I bought his costume at Amazon. When my stepson was young the best costume I made for him was a mummy. We used a thermal underwear top and bottom. I wrapped gauze around the pants and shirt, I used safety pins to attatch it then I wrapped his head and face. It was very cute and easy to do, however, gauze can be expensive. I was lucky enough to be working in the health care field at the time and they donated it to me.
Consigment sales and shops are probably the cheapest place to get ready made costumes and if you have consignment sales in your area you can consign it the next year and make most or all of your money back.
When I was little my mom made costumes for my brothers and me. We were M&Ms…sweat pants and shirt with large stuffed circles with big felt M’s on them. We were Yellow, Orange, and Green, but you could choose any color that you can find sweats in and then match the fabric to make the circles.
I use the very expensive dance recital costumes for my 7 yr old. and 12 yr. old daughters that they only wore once. One is a Jazz dancer and the other a Hip Hop dancer.
I did that with my daughter too, one year! Great way to get an extra use out of it!
My son was Mickey Mouse Last year and I made it with a long sleeve black sweatshirt, long black sweat pants, big red shorts that I sewed 2 white buttons onto, bought cheap white converse type shoes and spray painted them bright yellow, white gloves and then found a mickey mouse winter hat with ears at walmart(live in michigan we wear snowsuits under our halloween costumes…lol) it was very cheap since I found almost everything at Goodwill and he looked just like him soooooooo cute
I am interested in all these ideas for costumes. I paid close to $40 for a Jango Fett costume last year and regretted it all the way to the car! LOL – This year, the boys are totally into Mario Bros. So I like the idea of making overalls etc.
I DO have a cute idea for treats to give out. The past 2 years I gave out the snack size bags of microwave popcorn. The kids seemed to think it was neat and different. This year, I bought a ton of the 16 pk of Crayola Crayons that were .25 and plan to give those out to the younger kiddos. (Not sure if that will be my main give-away or get something for the bigger kids) A neighbor of mine gives out juice boxes.
If you have kids and some time, this is a neat treat to make with crayons, especially all of the old and broken ones laying around the house! Find a tray, usually sold for cookies, in the holiday section or craft store. I always find ones at Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day etc. Find Halloween ones and break up your crayons into small pieces. Fill up the trays with multi colored broken crayons, bake at 300 for about 5 min and let cool. The result is a fun shaped rainbow crayon that kid will love. And kids love to help make this one too! I love doing this when it comes time to make a cute treat for the kiddos at my daughters school, usually makes a great little gift at Valentines Day or Christmas too!
Maybe some Halloween-themed pencils from WGS too.
I use cheap back to school sale stuff. I have tones of crayons and markers. I also do bubbles. Kids love it! Though, I am the mean lady who only gives kids one item! I would love a recipe for something cheap and healthy to give kids for snacks!
One year when my son was about 10, we dressed him in a suit and he went as an attorney. He carried a briefcase and handed out homemade business cards that had his name and “Trust me. I am an attorney”. He has the personality to pull it off and the neighbors loved it.
I LOVE this idea.
This is DS’s second halloween. Last year he was a cute pumpkin that my husband got for free at his work. This year he is going to be a cat. It’s a halloween costume my mom made for me when I was his age.
My husband and I have always gone as stuff we already have. We have traveled to many diff countries. So one year we dressed as Egyptians & last year I dressed as a Latin American indigenous woman.
Not sure what DH & I will do this year. I’m off to start looking for ideas!
For an appetizer/ party food, one year we took “taco eyeballs” to a party. You make meatballs,then top with a drop of sour cream, a sliced olive and a drizzle of salsa or hot sauce. Very yummy and easy and they look great! They were gone before I even went to get some for myself!
I look forward to reading more of these comments!
I usually make our costumes as well. However, often times it ends up more expensive than buying them.
I like doing a theme for us. One year I was Strawberry Shortcake and my daughter was Custard the cat. Luckily she was still small and I found a pink/dotted sleeper at Carter’s.
The next year, I was Rainbow Brite and I made her Sprite. The following year, she was a bee, me a flower and my husband a beekeeper. I believe the next year, I was a witch and she was a cat. I found a 2 piece top and pant leopard print set at a consignment sale and it fit her perfectly! It had Children’s Place tags. LOL!
I’ve also made family members costumes as well. My favorite was a Care Bear for my younger sister. First, we found what color sweatsuits were available. Then matched that up to a Care Bear. I made a white round circle and attached it to the top for the belly, then made the Share Bear lollipops with felt and attached them. I even put a red felt heart on the hip of the pants. I used a headband to made bear ears. That one was so cute!
Anyone can feel free to email for pics of these, if they are interested. ourniftynotebook at charter dot net
For treats, I usually try to use sales and coupons or go to Sam’s for a huge bag. One year I got a great deal on mini playdough tubs and gave those out to the kids. It turns out the teenagers LOVED them! Who would have known!
Those are really cute ideas! I LOVE themed costumes! 🙂
I usually make our costumes. My son was a baby pirate for his first Halloween. Last year I was going to, but MIL jumped in, and he ended up with 2! His first costume was a monkey, she just added felt hands and ears to a brown fleece hoodie from Old Navy, and a circle on the tummy. Then she made a tail and attached it to brown fleece pants.
The second was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume. She got a green sweatshirt/sweatpants combo and made arm/knee bands from strips of fabric. The shell was ingenious. For the front, it was a 2 circles sewn together. She used a marker to make horizontal lines, then sewed over them. For the back, she made a green pillow and used the marker to make a grid pattern. She connected them with brown ribbon at the shoulders and a belt in the same color as the arm/knee bands.
When I was growing up, my mom made or semi-home made our costumes. One year I wanted to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. We went to the thrift store and found a yellow taffeta ball gown that she embellished, it was awesome!
Freecycle !!! In july, i posted wanting costumes for dressup and got a ninja and skeleton. Another year, i got batgirl.
Last year, my then 21 month yr. old was a chicken. He was so cute! He won our local costume contest. I took a body suit and sewed boa feathers to it, dyed some tights yellow and made chicken feet out of yellow dishwashing gloves.
LOL love it!
One of the coolest things we did last yr in the office-
I got a real pumpkin, made various sized holes all over it and I inserted little grey rubber mice in the holes! Some were face-in, others had their little tails danging out of the holes.
Everyone loved it!
I am NOT crafty-it was a total breeze.
(Mice can be found at Michael’s-in Halloween section in a little mesh bag)
One more suggestion-we’re actually working on our plans NOW for the office.
You can get the Martha Stewart pkgs of either mice, black crows or spooky footprints.
Make multiples out of black construction paper & saturate your room(s) with them!
We had little mice crawling all over our office last year-up the walls, cabinets-EVERYWHERE!
I also suggest you ck out some of the fab VINTAGE HALLOWEEN SITES online. They have wonderful retro items.
My fav folk artist is Johanna Parker-her works feature both Halloween and Christmas!
I actually just stumbled upon some great Halloween deals a few days ago. Our local Party City store (Jax, FL) had all there last years costumes for around 75% off. I got my daughter a Dorothy costume that was $30 down to $10 and my son a Transformers costume for $5!!!
I just had a baby girl last year, so even though my boys are all old enough to choose their own costumes, I may make them go along with my plan this year: Dorothy, the Lion, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man.
Last year after Halloween Walmart had there costumes 90% off I got a bunch of boy and girl costumes for $1.20- $2! Old Navy also had there costumes $2 last year BEFORE Halloween. Way cheap! Plus It is really hard to find boy dress-up.
For my sons birthday in July he wanted Toy Story. Well I found this pattern on Disney for a “Woody Vest” It was a very simple pattern I beefed mine up a little using cow print cotton fabric on the sewing machine so it would last longer. I used “stick” hobby horses I found at Dollar Tree for Bullseye. Red bandanas around there necks, Foam sheriff badges (Micheals) and brown foam cowboy hats I found at Hobby Lobby (40% off coupon of coarse 😉 They looked SO CUTE! I think most of the boys are going to wear theres for Halloween!
https://family.go.com/disney/pkg-disney-crafts/craft-823503-woody-faux-cowhide-vest-t/
I usually do the homemade costumes here. Last year the oldest wanted to be a can of Coke (DH thought it was lame – I said so what the boy liked it and that was all the mattered to me), #2 was the Great Pumpkin rising out of the Pumpkin Patch. This was done by making a fence out of construction paper and using duct tape to attach to a white sweatshirt. Bought 2 pumpkin mobiles at the dollar store and attached small pumpkins to shirt, placed a bigger pumpkin on a hat with a sign saying The Great Pumpkin.
#3 was a ghost using some cheese cloth.
I’ve also done the Mario Bros, a slice of pizza, robot, scarecrow, injured football player, football official. I tried a Bowser one year but my design was too late and not working but the idea is there if one my kids decide on that again. I do not sew beyond a basic hand hemming so it has to be duct tape or glue to get me through the costume.
One year for school I dressed my 6 yr old daughter up as a candy vendor. Put a red and white cheerleading skirt with red leggings a white t shirt and a red had and had a small cardboard box the size of a serving tray with a strap for around her neck. We filled the box with various types of candy. Everyone loved it and it was super easy!
The best costume I ever saw was a stop light. It was a card board box with ends open for head and legs. Cut out arm holes. The front of the box had circles cut out with colored tissue paper for lights. Ok here is the funny part. The boy had a flashlight inside the box that he would shine to make the “lights” light up. HAHAHA!!! It was great! His mom also made him into a pepsi can one year. Mom was creative!!!
Oh I forgot!!! Cut jelly beans in half so they are oval shape and lay them on one side of a circus peanut. Looks just like spooky finders. (The jelly beans are the nails.)
I also saw a mom take dough and bake them into the shape of bones.
I am a teacher and the kids loved them both.
I think it would be fun to do the pumpkin candle idea that was in the All you magazine…clean out the pumpkin and leave a small enough hole on top to place a pretty vanilla candle and set it on a high counter at home…so pretty. I actually have my kids go to our church trick or trunk for safety as well… may want to check it out…see if a local church is doing that…one stop shop and it is so nice to see fellow church friends when walking through the parking lot and letting the kids in on the treats. Happy fall!