Anyone Making Their Halloween Costumes?

I always do and I go way overboard and spend twice what I would spend had I bought one. Ok, I really like it. We have been various butterflies (last year a blue morpho that I made out of a giant kite (think 6 foot wingspan!), fairies, a peacock (used a feather fan for tail),that was an amazing costume! For the first time, she wants to be a scary something this year! I will be working on the most amazing vampiress suit I can dream up.

I have always found it more expensive to make a costume than buy them. When my kids found out I can make them they picked the craziest things to be that you just can't buy. :(

Thankfully this year they are buying. :)

ooh, tell me how you are going to make the Smore costume. That sounds like something my son would be very interested in! I'd love to hear your ideas!!!

i am not a sewer, so we either "create" or buy. my favorite are the ones we come up with. :) mine this year i think is going to be pretty cool, Prof. Trelawney from Harry Potter, i went to the thrift store and found some earth tone clothes and scarves, and i will get a wig and some big round glasses. think it will be great! my favorites that my son wore were #1, an angel/devil baby (i was a devil, hubby was an angel), i bought him red pants and a white top, made little cardboard wings, and bought him some horns and a tail and it was the cutest ever! that was the year he was 1. when he was 3 he was a rock star - SO cute - jeans, work boots, and cutoff white teeshirt, some fake tattoos, and i put a red bandana around his head (with his curls sticking out the top). he carried his toy guitar and it was awesome :)

now he is FIVE and insists he wants to be Ironhide from Transformers...so we bought it. bleh. oh well! it will still be a blast..i love halloween :)

I've mad and I've bought. Seems like I spend more time and money when I make costumes than if I just bought the darn thing. My own fault, i go overboard.

When I was little i spray painted a big cardboard box silver, cut holes for my head and arms and glued things on it to make myself a robot. Or we would be cheerleader, football player, things we already had all the stuff for

a s'more! cute idea. How are you planning to do it? I'm picturing you would be making a sandwhich board made of two big pieces of carboard for the graham cracker, held on with straps over the shoulders. white turtleneck for marshmellow and a brown pillow for the chocolate - or reverse, brown shirt, white pillow. .

I make my kids costumes and it's SO much fun and they end up being way better than the cheap looking store bought ones! Even if you don't sew, you can come up with good ideas! One year my sister and I had her son and my daughter be Raggedy Ann and Andy and they were SO cute! We died mops red and made wigs out of them! There are lots of easy sewing patterns too that you can use.
Dressing up is fun no matter what and they are going to be adorable either way! :o)

A S'more sounds so creative, you HAVE to make it!

When my daughter was growing up we worked with what we had and bought accessories if needed. When she was 8 I bought her a beautiful iridescent white dress for the holidays, and the following Halloween she was a Fairy, the dress had gotten short, we put tights under it, her ballet slippers, a wire tinsel halo in her hair and she carried a wand, our only expense, a dowel at the hardware store that we sanded down, painted and sprinkled with glitter. One year someone gave me a clown costume, she wore it with big shoes, we purchased an inexpensive makeup kit, and found a multicolored wig for next to nothing, voila, and she won for best costume in her grade. We did stuff like this every year, I never spent a lot on things she'd only wear the one day..

With the little guy I bought a giraffe costume at Children's Orchard for $6 two years ago, last year I found a Chewbacca one there for about the same price. He'll be 2.5 this year, and I plan to make his costume, not sure what yet, possibly he'll be a Hershey bar ; )

I say, take the time to look online for children's costume ideas, ask your kids which ones they like, and make it into a family time making them together over a weekend, and cherish the memories!

I made my daughter's first costume and first ren fest costume, a fairy and pirate respectively. She's 4 now and I'm going to make her a Storm from X-Men costume. My grandma gave us a plain white sheet to use for the cape and I found some plain white shirts, one tshirty and one sweat shirt. I'm going to make all the stuff to put on it and then decide the day before which shirt she'll probably need depending on the weather. I still haven't found white pants yet, but I'm sure I will.

DS (5) was a lion last year. I bought a yard of really fluffy felt fabric at JoAnn, an amazingly convincing mop head from target (the perfect mane). Add stapler , glue gun and 30 minutes (30 minutes on October 30) and voila - lion. Plus 5 minutes with some eyebrow pencil.

My daugher always has at least 2 costumes! 1 mommy made and 1 store bought. I have my own business/website and make sell TONS of costumes every year so my daughter gets her pic and then of course wants one of those overpriced itchy polyester ones too! This year mommy is making ALICE in wonderland and the store bought costume is MONSTER HIGH girl :)

I have made and bought. Last year because we had just added our newest son, and it went so well....our family became (at least the kids) the 7 dwarves. Each of the names went perfectly with one of my children Sleepy being the baby of course. Then I found a pattern and made them a hat in their favorite color. They wore their hat and had a white shirt that we ironed on the name and we were done. This year I can't come up with anything themed like that so we will probably be going through our collection of things and seeing if we can make what we have work for someone this year. Good luck. I personally think that they are more fun when you come up with the ideas together and work out a way to make them together too. If you have to buy a piece here and there, not a big deal, but they are also more unique than seeing 5 Disney princesses exactly alike purchased from Walmart. So I would say if you have a costume contest that you want to win....make it, if you just want to dress up and go, buy it.
J.--SAHM of 7

I've never gotten to buy a costume.....my children always want to be the oddest things. recent choices:
box fan
mace - the medieval weapon
haunted house
yellow monster with purple spots
rudolph the red nosed reindeer
brown fruit bat (yes, he was that specific and carried fake fruit around)

anyway - let them decide what they want to be and then decide on whether or not you buy the costume based on their choice. while i have thoroughly enjoyed making their costumes every year, I'd be ok with getting let off the hook. :)

I made my daughter's first Halloween costume. It took several hours (which I had) and cost about $35!!! The next year I found one new, at the store for half price ($15). After that I found costumes at yard sales that we keep in the costume/dress up box ($2).

I grew up with handmade costumes with whatever we had on hand. I plan to be more creative when the girls get a little older and I get a little more time on my hands. I also like the girls to decide what they want to be and we go with that....creatively and cheaply. I would like to stay away from the overly commercialized characters. :)

Most importantly....HAVE FUN!

How fun! I'm making ours this year... we have a Dr. Seuss theme. The two girls are Thing 1 and Thing 2... and one of us will be the Cat in the Hat. The other of us will be either the little boy/main character from the story - or the mom.

I made almost all of my girls halloween costumes. In the past they have been a Hershey candy bar, a Christmas tree, penguin, shopping bag that said to Born to Shop, a beanie baby, vet and many more. Now that they are in college it is up to them. LOL

I've made the following costumes for myself- statue of liberty, a yellow taxi cab with workng headlights, a wolf, a dragon, a lobster, a chicken, and a vampiress. I bought a colonist costume for last year, and this year, I bought a princess one to go along with baby as dragon, and hubs as a knight. My price point for all of these was about $15 or less, when you consider all of the materials, and acoutrements. The DIY ones obviously took some time, thought and effort.

Enjoy Halloween in any event.