This is a special guest post written by Sara. Enjoy!
I don’t know about your kids, but Halloween and Christmas get my brood excited. Who doesn’t like getting gifts and collecting candy? Over the years I have found myself making many of the children’s costumes. I could never quite justify the prices versus the quality of the store bought costumes, unless of course you go to one of the high dollar stores. You know those new Halloween costume places that have really cool costumes but take a huge chunk out of your paycheck? I am not saying I haven’t done that but it has been rare. Besides, my kids think I’m a creative genius when I come up with fun halloween costumes on my own, and they love giving me new ideas. If you want to be super mom this year just give it a try. Besides, don’t you want to get into the spirit of the holiday?
Cupcake Costume
An extremely cute costume for girls or very young boys who do not have a say in what mommy puts them in! Use a large upside down lampshade for the bottom; spray paint it any color you want.You will need to attach a couple long pieces of material to the lamp shade as suspenders to hold it up, fastening it to them with safety pins. Put matching solid colored pants or tights underneath. The top of the costume is made with the sheets of artificial snow that you put around the tree or decorate with at Christmas. You can get it at the craft stores. It comes in a long sheet which you can just stuff down into the lampshade and keep wrapping till they are nice and fluffy and pin it together with safety pins. Or you could put some other form of stuffing underneath and just wrap the fluffy white stuff over it. Make a hat the same way and add a cherry on top. Use the foam sticky sheets in multi-colors that you can get at the craft stores and cut out “ice cream sprinkles” to stick to the fluff. What a cute little cupcake!
Grape Costume
Here is a really easy costume but oh so cute. You need either a purple or green matching top and bottom or matching leotard/tights. Then attach the balloons to the outfit to be green or purple grapes. Fasten three at top, two in middle, and one at bottom on both front and back. You can also make a green felt hat for the stem. There you have it, you have transformed into a bunch of grapes!
Bunny Costume
This is another one that is basically tights and leotards, and you can pick any color bunny you would like. Just get a large pom-pom from the craft store for the tail and some light weight wire to form the ears, covering them with fabric of the same color. You can attach them to a plastic headband. They also sell ears separate in most of the Halloween sections if you would rather purchase. Draw whiskers and a dot of pink on the end of their nose. That’s all there is to it.
Superman Costume
I got out an old comic book and checked out his outfit. I went to a fabric store and got a remnant of yellow material to cover a belt and for the background of his S. I picked up a larger piece of red for his cape and the S on his chest. I looked at the comic book and traced out the image of the S and cut it out. I bought some blue tights and leotards, it’s sort of a royal blue if you look at his outfit, and tacked (or you could use safety pins) it onto the leotard. I found a red pair of boys underwear and pulled them up over my daughter’s tights. I also found a red pair of adult socks which I pulled on over her rain boots and tucked in top. The socks get pretty messed up at the end of the night, so don’t spend a lot for them. I cut a cape out of the red material with a couple ties to tie around her neck, covered one of her belts with yellow material. And she flew all around the neighborhood trick or treating.
These are just a few suggestions for homemade Halloween costumes that I have come across over the years. There are so many ideas and some that I am sure you have thought of yourself. It is so much fun to think up and create these costumes with your children. Have fun!
Author Bio
Sara is an active nanny as well as an active freelance writer. She is a frequent contributor of http://www.nannypro.com/. Learn more about Sara on her about page.
