Geesh. Is it Halloween already? Clearly, I am ill-prepared, or I would be greedily anticipating the boatload of candy that will soon descend upon our household. Currently I have three Halloween costumes ready to go. And I need six. And of the three that I have, two of them were purchased at Old Navy, weeks ago on sale, in anticipation of my current dilemma. The third costume is a tiny firefighter costume that Dalton wore years ago, that will go on whatever boy it fits. So that leaves me with three bodies that need a costume by this time tomorrow. Well, actually, Dalton and Asher need a costume by tomorrow morning, as their new school has a parade the morning of Halloween. Yes. A parade. Which makes lazy busy mothers like me stand out like the bad seeds we are against the background of super-duper Halloween- costume- makin’- mamas that will be represented in tomorrow morning’s parade. Typically I can get by on my not-so-great costume fabrication efforts since, well… it’s pretty dark on Halloween night. In fact, the darker the better. The flaws one might see in broad daylight will either be completely overlooked or explained away by blaming a hard night of trick- or- treating. But I fear, in the new light of tomorrow morning, I will have no such luck. Tomorrow morning will come, and soon. I just can’t wait to see those darlin’ little ones, proudly wearing the outfits lovingly sewn or created by their mama’s loving hands. And following behind them will be my kiddos, happily trotting along, proudly wearing I have no idea what their new costume, clueless that the night before Halloween isn’t the best time for costume creating.
I present to you Exhibit A. Obviously, I used to care about what my kids wore on Halloween. Here is Tori on her first all-Hallows Eve, decked out in her strawberry finery. It might not look like it, but I worked hard on this little get-up. At least, it was hard work to me. For lack of a red sleeper, I dyed a white one. Myself. And then I lovingly and oh-so carefully applied little seeds of puff-paint magic. And don’t forget to notice the socks. Seeds there, too. And the little stem-hat she had going on?… created by yours truly out of felt by hand? Adorable. And if we can’t all agree she was the cutest stinkin’ strawberry you ever did see, you have to admit getting a giggle from those chubby cheeks. God knows, I love that girl. And if you’re bustin’ on me for the kickin’ infant swing seat she was in, that was it in 1990. Yeah, you’re thinkin’ you’re darn glad times have changed, aren’t you?
So, now comes the punch line: I NEED HELP. Any ideas for easy last-minute Halloween costumes for my boys? I don’t want to go to my neighborhood discount store and get into a cat fight over the last Power R@ngers outfit. Been there, done that. I want to make something fun and handsome, without having to spend $100 at Michael’s. Ideas? Anyone?
For fun, I decided to dig up a few more pictures of my darling girl, taken of her at her 2nd and 3rd trick-or-treating adventures. And also to prove that I did my time creating costumes. These sassy outfits were both hand made by me, baby. With love in every stitch. Do you know how hard it is to sculpt a unicorn horn and ears out of styrofoam???
And clearly, I’m still procrastinating.
A black sweat suit, a cat ears headband and a black eye-liner to make kitty wiskers…a yellow sweat suit some black electrical tape to make stripes on the sweatshirt and some antanaes and you have a bzzzz bee…you can do the same idea to make a pig, dog, monkey. So any animal lovers in your house? Cant wait to see what you come up with! I am out of it this Hallo too. Ah well.
How about wrapping toilet paper around them, fastening it with safety pins and calling them zombie mummies? 🙂
Hi Stefanie,
I wish I had some great ideas, but with only 24-hours left, mine would include going to Jo*Ann Fabric, where I am sure they are almost giving their Halloween stuff away by now. I just had to comment on how adorable Tori was in her little strawberry outfit. Love the chubby cheeks!!
White Sheet = Ghost. Oh wait, you said fun and handsome. Never mind.
How about Mr. Smarty Pants… you can tape, pin or glue Smarties candies all over some old pants.
Or maybe a Secret Service guy… black suit, sunglasses and an ear piece from an MP3 player or something
Obviously my crafty sense is about as developed as my fashion sense.
Here’s a few ideas…one year my mom and dad were a bag of jelly beans…clear trash bag filled with colored ballons. Another year my sister was a box of bandaids and I was a tube of toothpaste…my dad was pretty crafty and he drew on king size pillowcases. We just got some posterboard and made a tube for a hat.
Ok, i am so with you on halloween. I personally hate the holiday and would boycott if i could. But how can you do that when you have ten million kids in your neighborhood banging on your door for four hours?! Anyway, here are some ideas. First, ask your kids. I did that this year and i was shocked at how simple there ideas were and how low their expectation are. My five year old said he wanted to be soccer player. Fabulous for me! He has his soccer team shirt/socks and shoes from a few weeks ago and there you go. (I will add that after a trip to gramdma’s house yesterday he found a felt frog costume she bought on clearance a few years ago and was storing for some day. Well, much to my son’s thrill, that special some day was yesterday and he grabbed it and we’ll use the soccer “outfit” for next year.) Last year, we put on his favorite NFL jersey, let him hold a football and painted those football smears on his cheeks. Free. Done. Loved it. So, pick a sport and throw some jerseys on and your boys are done. Girls, come on…they are so easy! Well, easy if it weren’t for the the girly hormone emotions that generally come with any big event 🙂 :). Do you have dress up clothes? WIth more than one girl, surely you have more than you know what to do with, right? Well, tell them to sort through it all and you may be surprised. I have two girls ages 10 and 9 and they have a BOATLOAD of dress up stuff dating back to when they were learning to walk. My oldest picked out a princess costume from two or three years ago and is calling herself “queen elizabeth”. uhh, if she knew what queen elizabeth looked like, she’d be appallled, but who cares, right? She thinks she is being super creative and I’m letting her think that. Also, have them be a fashion star or singer. Put on the gaudiest/pinky-est outfit and cover it all up with plastic jewelry and a feather boa or cute sunglasses(if you can dig one out of their dress up clothes) and call them one of their favorite singers. Guaranteed that they’ll think they are snazzy. Take lots of pictures for later years…hee hee. Or, have them be something summer-y, like a lifeguard or olympic swimmer. All you have to do is have them put on their swimsuit and add a whistle or gold medal piece of paper around their neck. You’re in the south, right? I bet any kid that is allowed to wear a swimsuit in October will not complain about being cold. You could give them a beach towel to cover up in! So, can you tell I am a totally cheap slacker mom who really isn’t in to halloween?! My kids haven’t figured it out yet though! julia.
How about those Card Soldiers from Alice in Wonderland? Get 2 large pieces of oak tag or any kind of large white paper, cut out desired suit (hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades) from red/black construction paper & glue on OR just draw it on in marker, choose your number & put it in the center. Punch a hole in each of the top 2 corners on both papers, attach with yarn so it can be put over head & VOILA!
If this makes NO sense as it's written, just email me! 😉
I'm sure you'll come up with something great! From the looks of those photos you ARE one crafty momma!! You're just busier now 😉
CLEARLY procrastinating. Three posts in one day???? 🙂
Grant is going to be a "Fix-It Man" – we're going to stick some of his little plastic tools in a belt around his waist, and put him in a flannel shirt, jeans & a baseball cap. 🙂
My older 2 girls are borrowing costumes from friends. Ask around – EVERYBODY has last year's costumes laying around!!!!
Claire is going to dress up as a princess – in a dress-up dress.
I am with you; costumes are EXPENSIVE and I am too last-minute to make anything overly crafty. But seriously – they're trick-or-treating for what, an hour???
Tori was such a cute baby!!!! Always funny how ambitious we are with our first. 🙂
Love,
R
Stephanie,
One of the cutest non crafty costumes we put together was “the middle of the road”. So easy…..we used black sweats for the road and put the bright yellow electrical (I think) tape on the front and back middle of the sweats….making it look like lines on the road. My oldest has a different sense of humor so he loved it!
My nephew was a mummy one year and it was the cutuest thing you ever seen. He was probaly 8. His mom cut strips of sheets and wrapped him. He wanted to make it a little scary so he had some of the strips dyed red to look like they were soaked in blood…..Must have been a boy thing but it was really cute.
A large clear garbage bag filled with colored balloons, holes for arms and feet to stick out, and fastened at the neck with a bow makes a cute bag of jelly beans.
tori = CUTE!
i think the middle of the road idea was funny!
oops! i screwed up my last comment and published too soon. how about dress one in black and tape on numbers to be a remote control? the other kid could go as the TV?
You need to win an award for that cute outfit. I hope it holds together.
My kid is an octopus. It works for us. He was a swamp thing last year.
This is for your older boys, right? I second the idea about spies in suits. Or a couple of kids at my son's school were businessmen in suits. He had a school parade too. A lot of boys wore football "costumes" made of their favorite jersey, black paint & some stuffed their jerseys to look like pads. And some kids wore their sports team uniforms.
Your post had me cracking up! I made my toddler's costume last night. I had grand plans, of course, but it came together at 10 pm. And if you look close enough, you can see the pencil where I traced flower petals on felt for her hat. I messed up so many times that I ran out of felt & could not avoid cutting out the petals without showing a little pencil, which doesn't seem to erase from felt.
I am sure the boys will have a great time no matter what! Post pictures!!
Another blogger told me Martha Stewart had ideas for creating a shark costume out of a hoodie sweatshirt. You could try googling it or going to http://www.marthastewart.com
Just make sure not to misspell hoodie as hodie like I did, you do NOT want to know where that will take you!
Ok, here is an easy on, if you wanted they could be Alvin and the Chipmunks. Easy, just red, blue, or green sweatshirts one with a big yellow A. (My five year is Alvin–cheap-o costume).
One could be a loofa–that bath thing. Get some of that netting fabric, can’t think of the name. Kind of wad it up and pin it to their clothes, and add something to their hair for the cord it hang from.
Oh and one of my favorite ever simple costumes was this: dress kid in jeans and jean shirt (or any blue shirt and pants) and scatter cotton balls all over them and give them a spray bottle of water and they are partly cloudy with a chance of rain. 🙂
We did the funniest thing last year. We had just moved and we had NOTHING, so I took out the old streamers from a bday party and used the white to make our son a mummy. Cute and it worked. My other son wants to be a bag of garbage this year. (don’t ask) He said he wants to use a garbage bag and stick newspaper in it to make it look full then have banana peels and such sticking out.
My favorite magazine (Family Fun) has loads of great costume ideas, including cheap ones (yay!) and last-minute ones (bigger yay!). Check out their URL: http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/specialfeature/halloween_ms_costumes/
Good luck. Can’t wait to see the pictures! I sheepishly did not make any costumes this year, and bought or borrowed them: ninja, Darth Vader, and Ariel … not too original, but that’s what they wanted to be, and that’s all that matters! Have a happy and safe Halloween!
Whoops, that URL in my previous post is (no spaces):
http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/specialfeature/
halloween_ms_costumes/
check out the cutest little laundry basket you have ever seen:
http://leatherwoodland.blogspot.com/ (my niece)
How about a spider? Black sweatshirt and pants, stuff two pairs of black tights with newspapers and pin them onto the sides of the shirt. Then take some thread to “link” the legs together to have them hang off the sleeve of the sweatshirt…they will move when the wearer moves his/her arms.
Or do as my mom always did…go as a hobo…wear grungy clothes and put a bandana on the end of a stick!
Good luck!
I know you may already have one by now.. but, Broughton was Indiana Jones this year & it was OH, SOOO simple! Go to my site for the pics. Or… There's the Cowboy custume! Good luck.
Love the cute Strawberry!
My son was a lego once. It was super easy and you can be any color! There is a pic on my blog if you want to see.
3leftsandaright.blogspot.com
If they have a cowboy hat, they could dress with that, a vest and boots and a bandanna. Or maybe scrounge up pirate items.
Love the strawberry!
can’t really help you but my brothers used to go as pedestrians when they were crunched for time. Super easy…hard to explain…we also used to raid my dad’s army foot locker every year…army men were big around these parts(I was supa cool as mine had my last name on them)
Love Tori’s little costumes…also love your boxer. I have a 10 year old boxer who I have renamed Shredder tonight…she shredded a window blind today…that was fun to clean.
ok, I think the bag o’ jellybeans and the laundry basket ideas are pretty creative! We JUST finished pulling the costumes together for my kiddos. Christian just HAD to be a nerd with the rest of his buddies in the neighborhood. It was easy to pull together and is pretty funny…a plaid shirt, some too short pants, white socks, a bowling championship tie, some suspenders, pocket protector (with a pocketful of highlighters), big black glasses “fixed” with tape in the middle and some Billy Bob teeth. Oh yeah, don’t forget the “Kick Me” sign taped to the back 🙂 One last thing, we parted his hair down the middle slicked with some gel… Can’t wait to see pics!
Kim
Gee. just get a white, king size sheet and cut 6 eye-holes in it for ONE very odd ghost. OR NOT. heh. Best I can come up with!! hee, hee!
Hugs~
Shanna
I know it is late, so if you still need one, how about a “black eye pea”. Put make-up around their eyes, and cut a big letter P out and wear it like a necklace, kind of like a rappers necklace and dress in all green. Also just pay attention to what they have in their closets. Old sport uniforms, cheerleader outfits, etc. Also their is always garbage. Wear a garbage bag with tights or sweats and pin garbage all around, such as empty chip wrappers etc. If you do it in white, you can always be “white trash”.
Easiest and cheapest costume ever!
Get a piece of black felt. Cut out a Large Capital P
Pin it to a sweatshirt.
Paint a black circle around one eye.
Voila… Black Eyed Pea
Stephanie!
I am impressed! I have never made anything near like those sweet costumes! Have no clue how! I bought Noah a costume (and was so very picky we had to drive 2 towns away for it!) he won’t wear ou of the house now that he is sick! 🙁 I can’t WAIT to see what you come up with for tomorow!
blessings,
Tami
Noah’s mama
We are the same. My older kids are 20, 19, 17, and 15. THEIR Halloween costumes were amazing. I’d sew them whatever their little hearts desired.
Now I have a 5 year old and a 3 year old. I tried to convince the 5 year old to be a cheerleader (we have several collegiate cheerleader outfits). She said that’s KIND OF LIKE JUST WEARING CLOTHES. That made me laugh. It’s true.
So I did the next lame thing. I bought her a set of kitty ears, tail, and a bow tie (?)to wear with black clothes. But THAT’S not like wearing clothes, because she’ll have whiskers drawn on her face!
I’ll still look like a lame mom. But that’s okay, because everyone thinks I’m her grandmother anyway!
sherri
So you are going to do a new post with pics of the costumes right???!!! I cannot wait to see what you came up with.
Oooh. Now I feel kinda stupid since I did the inside joke thing for my idea and everyone else was so crafty and helpful. 🙁 Oh well.