I have committed myself to hand-making my son's Halloween costumes for as long as he'll let me - LOL - and I've been thinking about what he might be this year. We tend to stray away from anything mainstream. Looking for CREATIVE, UNUSUAL ideas... Naturally, he gets to decide if he wants to be what I suggest, but to date, he's loved my ideas... I know that won't always be the case, but I'll go with it for as long as he does!!
Right after the last summer olympics, my son was Michael Phelps. Nude body suit, blue Speedos with red & white felt stick-on stars, a blue swim cap w/ red & white stars, goggles, and 13 gold medals. Didn't see a single other Michael Phelps that year, and really thought people missed the boat! (And NO, we didn't include any bongs in with his costume - LOL)
Last year, he was Popeye, with the muscled, tattooed arms, spinach goodie can, and all.
What's your child being for Halloween this year? Or what are some of your SUPER-CREATIVE ideas from past years?
Just a little fyi... my son has a few dvd's of old cartoons, and he loves The Flintstones, Popeye, The Smurfs, Betty Boop, etc. So while the other kids may not have quite known who he was, he definitely knew who he was dressed as, and he loved his costumes. As for Michael Phelps, no, at age 2 1/2, my son didn't know who Michael Phelps was, but to this day, he still remembers and talks about being Michael Phelps. So I do get that the fun of Halloween is about letting the kids be what they want. Thus the reason I said that I will only make suggestions... and if he likes my suggestions, GREAT. If not, he can choose his costume on his own. And I'll STILL enjoy making it for him, if I can, and I'll enjoy the festivities with him just the same. I don't NEED the accolades for making a creative costume. I enjoy making them, and I enjoy being creative and thinking out of the box a little, rather than picking up the first Spiderman costume I see at Walmart. And I do think that my son will appreciate that someday. I know I loved that my mom always made my costumes, rather than making me wear one of the dreaded store bought costumes. No offense to anyone who buys store costumes. They have come a very long way. To each his own.
Thank you all for sharing your neat ideas and suggestions. :)
Hi L.,
Some things we have done are a bag of Jelly Beans (clear trash bag with different colored balloons), Fred Flintstone, Robot (made out of cardboard boxes and different colored building blocks), this year my son will be Mario from the video games.
I hope it helped.
L.
My son chooses who he wants to be every year since he was 4. Here're his choices:
- Stitch (from lilo & stitch)
- Inuyasha
- Mater Chief from Halo
- 10th Doctor (new Doctor Who)
One year my son was a fireman and wore his raincoat that looked like a fireman's jacket.
One year he wore his Tae Kwon Do uniform
One year I found an 'Desperado' jacket for 5 bucks and a belt.
This year my daughter is going as a cat. I just found a cute dress at Kohls.com that has a cat face on it! Pair it with some cat ears and I'm done!
I like to do handmade costumes but am not super crafty, so everything usually starts out as a hooded sweat shirt and sweat pants LOL
when my twin DD's were almost 2YO, they wore red sweatshirts and sweatpants with "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" labels (circles cut out of DH's old white t-shirts, lettered with sharpie marker!)
when they were 4 they wanted to be Murray and Anthony Wiggle so I got them the proper color t-shirts, made Wiggles logos out of paper and masking-tape looped them to the shirts, and paired the shirts with black leggings (and of course DH and I had to be Greg and Jeff to complete the group LOL)
A couple times DD1 has been a cat - black leggings, black hooded sweatshirt with felt ears sewn on the hood, face paint whiskers
DD2 has been a bee -same black hooded sweatshirt but with yellow felt stripes duct-taped to the torso, headband with antennae, and wings from a dress-up costume
This year I think one of them might combine black sweatpants and white hooded sweatshirt with a few embellishments to make a Panda costume, not sure about the other one.
When my three boys were younger they were cavemen for halloween. I made costumes out of cut up brown towels. Used spiking gel to mess their hair up and drew a heavy unibrow on with eyebrow pencil. They each carried a little stuffed dinosaur that they had. Everyone thought they were very cute.
My mother used to make all our costumes too! I was in the paper when I was little for the "Best Costume"...my mom made me be "Big Ben" the clock...she made the costume out of an old VW hub cap!
She also made me a HOBO one year and tried painting my face with shoe polish...I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS....it stings really bad and left me with a wicked rash for days!
Unfortunately, I am not that creative...I too take them to the Halloween super store and let them pick their own!
I love homemade costumes...last year the hubby was a viking and I made his horned hat out of duct tape. WE just used scraps of cloth for the cape and made a sword out of cardboard. My son was a garbage man. I covered his wagon with a box that we cut to look like a trash truck. He put his candy in the hopper and everything. My daughter was Little Red Riding Hood and I was the Big Bad Wolf. The year before that he was Buzzlight year...thanks to Radio Shack and Daddy he even had a working laser. I made the costume out of sweats and foam. This year we have a group costume. The hubby wants to surprise everyone, so I am sworn to secrecy. Lol
I LOVE this website for ideas and instructions.http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/ Some of it is waaayyy over the top, but fun to look at. And some are ideas need to be improved on. But there is a lot to see in one spot and a lot of creative people share their ideas.
Happy Halloween!!
Maybe you didn't see the Phelps costumes because they were all out at the bars? haha (a friend and several other men in their 30"s-40's dressed up as Phelps after the Olympics)
Our son seems to have a Mexican theme going on (only Mexican food didn't make me sick while pregnant, not knowing his gender we called him Chimichanga, he was born 10wks early on Cinco de Mayo and he looooves Mexican food (esp rice & beans)). For his first Halloween he was a chili pepper, for his second he was a taco. I was going to get him a cactus costume for #3 and laughlaughlaugh at him trying to walk in it. Butttt, the past 2wks he's fallen in love with the movie Happy Feet, memorizing all of the dance scenes & sequences. So, now I just might have him be a penguin. Hard to believe its so close, blah!
Good luck! I wish I could make costumes (no matter how easy they claim to me, I mess them up) and loved that my mom made ours until high school.
I wish I had a picture...during trick-or-treat a couple of years ago, we saw an amazing robot costume, I can't remember if the boxes (smaller one for the head) was painted or covered in aluminum foil, the arms & legs were the metallic flexible dryer vent, and the "ears" were made from silver plastic drinking cups.
I haven't gotten that creative with custumes for my girls yet, but so far they have been home-made using a pattern.
Good luck!
Ha! We are not super creative! We take the kids to the store and let them pick out what they want. Good for you, have fun deciding. I'm sure you can google it and lots of ideas will come up too.
I let my kids be whatever they want to be and it is usually someone that all of the other kids have heard of such as a Star Wars character. My neighbors do something creative every year that all of the parents swoon over but none of the kids even get what it is supposed to be. Their kids tell them they love it because their mom is SO excited to sew it for them and it is their yearly ritual but I always wonder if the kids are really happy being Pippi Longstalking (complete with a red dye job on a 4 year old) and Pippi's monkey and telling all of the other children what they are only to be met by blank stares or would they reather have been a disney princess that year.
Just something to think about.
