When it comes to Halloween costumes, we always decided to make our own because we felt it was foolish to spend $35 and up, for a costume that our child was only going to wear one time.
Over the years, my sister-in-law and I have made numerous costumes for our children and I thought I would share a few simple ideas with you.
If you are concerned about safety, I recommend purchasing some reflective material patches at your local fabric and crafts store, and sew or glue them onto your child's costume.
This safety measure will help car drivers to see them at night as they are crossing the street.
I always recommend that a responsible adult accompany children on Trick or Treat night.
Here are the Halloween costume ideas we came up with over the years.
Lady Bug - You will need: red leotard, red tights, 4 sheets of black felt and fabric glue.
Cut out some circles and ovals from the felt and glue onto the red leotard so that it looks like lady bug spots.
To make antennae, purchase a black headband, 2 round 3" diameter Styrofoam balls, 2 pencils, black acrylic paint and gorilla glue.
Paint the Styrofoam balls and pencils black and let dry.
Glue pencils to the center of the Styrofoam balls, let dry and then glue the pencils to the top of the head band.
Note: You could use the same concept above and do a bumble bee and substitute the red clothing items with yellow clothing items and make black felt bee-style stripes.
Construction Worker - You will need: denim blue jeans, white T-shirt, flannel shirt and a yellow plastic hard hat found at a discount toy store.
You can borrow a man's tool belt or purchase a canvas-style apron with pockets at a local craft store for a few dollars.
If desired, visit your local dollar discount store and purchase a plastic tool set to stick into the pockets of the tool belt.
Golfer - You will need: khaki colored pants, polo-style shirt and a plaid golfers cap.
You can purchase plastic golf clubs and balls at your local dollar discount store.
We made our own golf bag by emptying out a large round cardboard tube and painting it with acrylic paints.
Punch a hole in each side of the tube and attach twine for a carrying strap.
You can fit 3-4 plastic golf clubs into the holder and have your child carry it over their shoulder.
Nurse - You will need: white skirt, shirt, tights and shoes which your child most likely already has in her closet.
To add to that, purchase a child's size nurses cap at a costume store along with a plastic doctor's kit at your local dollar discount store.
We also accented the white shirt with a name badge and a red felt first-aid cross that we hand drew and safety pinned to the shirt.
Mummy - You will need: white clothing, white ski mask, white sneakers, several rolls of white first aid bandages and numerous safety pins.
We cut the bandages into 12-24" lengths and safety pinned them around the legs, arms and abdomen of the outfit.
We chose to use fabric glue to attach them to the white ski mask.
If you are making this costume for a small child, then I recommend using non-toxic fabric glue instead of the safety pins.
Black Spider - You will need: black jeans, black sweatshirt, 2 pairs of black little girls tights, 1 bag of fiberfill stuffing, black thread.
You need to cut the panty portion off of the tights and just use the legs.
Stuff each leg firmly with fiberfill and then sew the end shut with thread.
Do this for a total of 4 spider legs.
You will want to hand sew (or machine sew) the stuffed legs onto the sides of the black sweatshirt about 4-5" below the sweatshirt arm.
If desired, you can paint the child's face black or lime green with face paints.
Crayon - You will need: your choice of colored clothing, we selected orange to fit with the Halloween theme, along with several sheets of black felt, fabric glue and a black fabric paint.
Grab one of your child's crayons and use it as an example on how you should cut out designs from your black felt.
Attach those designs onto the clothing items so that it resembles a crayon.
You can use the black fabric paint to paint on the crayon-makers name on the front of the shirt.
To further fit with our theme, we machine sewn a triangular hat out of matching orange felt, so that 'our' little crayon had a pointy crayon top.