Maybe you don't do trick-or-treating, but do a harvest party at your church. The church we went to in another town held one of these every year. Our child did dress up for this event, too.
If it's a priority to you to buy a fabulous factory-made Hallowe'en costume for your child (read-spend a lot of money), that's up to you. But if you're looking for a frugal alternative, let's brainstorm a bit and see what we can come up with.
When our kids were young we came up with some very frugal costumes. We never spent more than $2 per costume, and many years spent nothing at all. Here are some costumes we used:
- mummy -- wrapped child up in 1 roll of bath tissue
- robot -- cut holes in large cardboard box, for head and arms. Taped stove knobs on front. Drew "technical" stuff on front, sides and back. Wore box over gray sweats.
- skeleton -- dressed child in black sweats. Cut out bones from white contact paper, and adhered to sweats. Made skull mask out of a paper plate.
- mad scientist -- borrowed lab coat from work. Used rubber tubing as props. Spiked up hair all over to look Einstein-ian
- geek -- dress clothes, bow tie, black glasses "fixed" with duct tape, pocket protector in shirt pocket, calculator on belt in holder
- ghost -- white sheet-turned curtain lining, turned ghost costume. Ghost has since been reincarnated into Goddess toga, and Julius Ceasar toga
- princess -- doesn't every little girl have a bunch of princess dress-up clothes?
- ballerina -- same as above?
- fairy -- leo and tutu, wings made from poster board and ribbon straps
- flower -- white sleeper pjs (from Value Village), with a yellow, petaled hood made by moi (I was quite proud of this!), out of one of my maternity t-shirts
- a hand-me-down tiger suit that 2 of my kids wore multiple times each (came from a cousin, she wore it once. My kids loved it so much they asked to wear it year after year, go figure?!
- an artist -- beret, wore one of husband's old white shirts, for a smock, liberally splattered with paint, and carried a "palette" cut out of white poster board, along with paintbrush
- hula dancer -- swimsuit plus a "grass" skirt made out of a roll of green crepe paper and elastic waste
- black cat and bat pair (obviously this was they year both daughters had some black clothing, leggings and long sleeved tees). I made cat ears from black poster board and glued onto a headband. I made bat wings from a black garbage bag, using black electrical tape to secure the top edge of the "wings" to her tee shirt sleeves and neck.
- butterfly -- she wore colorful clothing and wore dress-up wings that she already had
- Tinkerbell -- green dress, with an over-skirt I made out of the lime green lining of a jacket that was handed down to me, that I would never wear. I think we made some green wings that year from green poster board.
- Oreo cookie -- 2 sheets of black poster board, cut into circles with Oreo motif drawn on in felt pen. This was worn sandwich-board style (shoulder straps made from some white fabric stapled onto poster board), over white turtleneck shirt and jeans
My Hallowe'en costume designing has centered around using clothing and props that we already had or had access to, supplemented with homemade cheap accessories made from posterboard, plastic garbage bags, cardboard boxes, sheets, and clothing destined for giveaway.
Kid costumes only need to survive a 3 hour window. But they do need to be safe. Things that could be a tripping hazard, highly flammable, strangulation hazard, masks that obscure vision, all need to be used with great care.
I am a bit worried about fire and kids. So that possibility was always on my mind. The hula skirt we made from crepe paper was probably the most flammable item we made, so we made it on the short side, so no pieces of paper could accidently come in contact with a candle in a jack o' lantern sitting on the ground. The bath tissue mummy, could have also been a fire hazard, so we made this costume stop at the waist, and child wore very light gray sweat pants. And as it turned out that evening, it rained and rained and rained. By the time we got home, the bath tissue was as inflammable as any could be.
The only actual mask any of my children wore was the skeleton mask that my son made from a paper plate. He wound up removing it halfway through the evening, because it was sweaty. We never did any masks after that.
We never had longish costumes that could pose the possibility of tripping. Our costumes never came below the knees (mostly because that's how much fabric or other materials we had on hand, but not being a tripping hazard was a nice bonus).
None of these costumes would win any prizes, but my kids were always very happy to have them. I think kids are easier to please than we adults know.
Some things to keep in mind with kids' costumes and trick-or-treating. If your children are quite young, you have the opportunity to keep their costume and candy expectations small. From very early, we put it in our kids' minds that costumes would be home-made from what we had on hand, from a thrift store, or, handed down.
Kids like to help make these things (kids like making stuff in general). So we always encouraged their help with the making. When my son went as a skeleton, I drew the bones on the contact paper and he cut them out and stuck them on his black sweats. The year my daughter went as an Oreo, all I did was help attach the straps to the poster board. My son's robot costume was designed by him. All I did was cut out arm and head holes. He did need an adult to do the winding of the bath tissue when he went as a mummy. As much as possible I got the kids to help me with this. Their part in it gave them pride of ownership in the project, and satisfaction with their costume, regardless of how perfect or imperfect it looked.
We also limited how many houses our kids went to in the first few years. We set the limit to one house per year of age. So when my kids were 3 years old (first year trick-or-treating) they got to trick-or-treat at 3 houses, 4 years old, 4 houses, etc. About age 9 we changed the trick-or-treating limit, not to how many houses, but a time limit, increasing as they got older. Mostly, with these limits, we wanted to minimize the greed-factor. A little bit of candy and treats are fine, but a huge sack full for a young child is just too much.
Now it's your turn. What inexpensive costume ideas have you used, seen or thought of?
Kid costumes only need to survive a 3 hour window. But they do need to be safe. Things that could be a tripping hazard, highly flammable, strangulation hazard, masks that obscure vision, all need to be used with great care.
I am a bit worried about fire and kids. So that possibility was always on my mind. The hula skirt we made from crepe paper was probably the most flammable item we made, so we made it on the short side, so no pieces of paper could accidently come in contact with a candle in a jack o' lantern sitting on the ground. The bath tissue mummy, could have also been a fire hazard, so we made this costume stop at the waist, and child wore very light gray sweat pants. And as it turned out that evening, it rained and rained and rained. By the time we got home, the bath tissue was as inflammable as any could be.
The only actual mask any of my children wore was the skeleton mask that my son made from a paper plate. He wound up removing it halfway through the evening, because it was sweaty. We never did any masks after that.
We never had longish costumes that could pose the possibility of tripping. Our costumes never came below the knees (mostly because that's how much fabric or other materials we had on hand, but not being a tripping hazard was a nice bonus).
None of these costumes would win any prizes, but my kids were always very happy to have them. I think kids are easier to please than we adults know.
Some things to keep in mind with kids' costumes and trick-or-treating. If your children are quite young, you have the opportunity to keep their costume and candy expectations small. From very early, we put it in our kids' minds that costumes would be home-made from what we had on hand, from a thrift store, or, handed down.
Kids like to help make these things (kids like making stuff in general). So we always encouraged their help with the making. When my son went as a skeleton, I drew the bones on the contact paper and he cut them out and stuck them on his black sweats. The year my daughter went as an Oreo, all I did was help attach the straps to the poster board. My son's robot costume was designed by him. All I did was cut out arm and head holes. He did need an adult to do the winding of the bath tissue when he went as a mummy. As much as possible I got the kids to help me with this. Their part in it gave them pride of ownership in the project, and satisfaction with their costume, regardless of how perfect or imperfect it looked.
We also limited how many houses our kids went to in the first few years. We set the limit to one house per year of age. So when my kids were 3 years old (first year trick-or-treating) they got to trick-or-treat at 3 houses, 4 years old, 4 houses, etc. About age 9 we changed the trick-or-treating limit, not to how many houses, but a time limit, increasing as they got older. Mostly, with these limits, we wanted to minimize the greed-factor. A little bit of candy and treats are fine, but a huge sack full for a young child is just too much.
Now it's your turn. What inexpensive costume ideas have you used, seen or thought of?
