Monday, November 02, 2009

creative costumes that cost less...

I see no sense in spending loads of $$ on costumes. Growing up, I wore costumes that utilized what we had around the house. I think I was a gypsy for most of the Halloweens we got to dress up and trick-or-treat. ( My mom developed a crazy "Halloween is for the Devil" attitude when I was about 10 so we stopped celebrating Halloween.) My gypsy costume was an old broom skirt, my moms makeup and big hoop earrings, and a bandanna. It was fun and it worked!
This year Erin decided she wanted to dress as Alice from the Twilight series so we searched online for some costume ideas and decided on a dress with a black sweater, tights, and ballet flats. We also thought that dramatic makeup and flipped out hair would add the perfect touch. So we searched at Good Will and Salvation Army for the dress and sweater because she already had the shoes and tights, but we found nothing. I just happened to glance on the dress isle at work last week and found the perfect dress and sweater in the clearance section! I spent a total of $9.00 on the sweater and dress thanks to my employee discount. Erin was thrilled when I brought the treasures home! I think the results were fabulous!

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Hayden's costume ended up being a bit tricky. I knew I wanted him to be a bear because he makes this funny "roar" noise all the time. I had some material I thought would be a great bear costume and planned on sewing something up, but ended up running out of time and energy thanks to a house full of sick people and two jobs. It was the day before the Parker Halloween Parade and I had nothing for him to wear. Again I scoured the isles of Ross hoping for something. I found a brown sweat suit that made the perfect base to his costume. To that I added a toilet seat cover. No, not the paper kind you sit on, the fuzzy fluffy kind that is popular with grandmas and aunts. I'm not really sure it has any viable purpose, but I found one for 99 cents and though it would make a perfect belly, ears, and tail. So I cut it up and safety pinned it on the brown suit and wala! For around $5.00 I had a costume for Hayden. I just slipped it over his clothes, added a little brown nose and freckles and he was ready to go. Again, the results were fantastic! The best part is, I bought the suit a little big so he can wear it this winter!

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4 comments:

Kelli said...

We didn't celebrate after about 1st grade for the same reason when I was growing up. So, I don't really have many memories of dressing up/trick or treating, so I have so much fun doing this with the kids! My three have costumes they wear year-round (Spiderman, Snow White and Cinderella) that my in-laws bought them, so that's what they were. It was easy. But for my sister (who's 13) we did the same thing you did w/Erin. She wanted to be a cat, so we just bought a black dress (which was on the clearance rack at Target for 3.24!) and some clearance black flats for around 4.00 and added tights that she already had. I did have to buy a headband w/ears that came with a little tail, but it was cheap and with a little makeup for whiskers and such she looked great. Plus, she can re-wear it all, which makes me so happy!

Great job. :) And the kids looked so cute!

aola said...

you are a genius! they both look great.

My Mom always made our costumes and I made Charlie's when he was small. I came up with some rockin' ones, too - Gene Simmons one year, Zoro ... wish I had pictures. My boys missed out on all the fun because of my idiot years...

Kristen said...

Brilliant! They look awesome. You are so smart. :)

My mom is still on the Halloween is the devil kick, so...I get ya. We didn't even do church harvest parties or candy (from about first grade on). Dude!

Sandra said...

Thanks ladies!

It seems we all have backgrounds where Halloween was considered "evil". I just don't get it. It's a fun time to dress up and pretend and get free candy. What is so bad about that?