I unabashedly love Halloween and have every year since I was young. I love the decorations, the movies, and the feeling of a last family outing before tucking away for the winter months. Mostly, I love the costumes (I have had mine planned since March). There’s so much fun in seeing your friends, family and neighbors express themselves through a creative design or matching outfits. Here are some ideas from round the internet to get you started.
Where Are the Waldos?
This is a super easy and cute costume for families with one or two small children who don’t quite have a handle on costumes yet. All it requires is few white and red stripped shirts, or a onesie for the kids, jeans, some black rimmed glasses and a beanie. If you’re not really adept at knitting, you can purchase the beanies on Amazon (it also comes with fake eye glasses in case you don’t have your own).
They’re Creepy and they’re Kooky
Whether you’re a fan of the original series or re-boot from the 90’s, this is a funny and fantastic costume for the whole family. A suit and mustache for Gomez, a long black dress and wig for Morticia, a collared dress and braids for Wednesday, black and white striped shirt for Pugsly, a brown robe for Fester and (voila!) you have the whole family ready to go! Also, a long blond wig is perfect is you have a toddler that would make a great Cousin It.
Planet Earth
This one requires a little more work, but worth it if you want to try your hand at papier mache and you can get the kids to help in all the messy fun!
What you will need: Newspaper, flour, water, white glue, paint brush, paint and an inflatable beach ball (size depending on how big you need to make it)
- First you want to lay out newspaper, even better, a painting tarp down on the floor or workspace to prevent stains
- Take the other newspaper and rip into long pieces, you will definitely be needing a lot so don’t skimp. Set aside.
- Make your mixture in a large bowl with 1 part flour and 1 part water, you will probably need to refresh the mixture throughout the project so don’t worry about how much you make at the start. You can also add some white glue for a sturdier solution.
- Blow up the beach ball and spray with cooking oil to make it even easier to remove once you have your structure completed
- Take individual strips of newspaper and dip/drag through your solution, slide off any excess of the mixture by running the paper between two of your fingers and then lay flat on the beach ball trying to get it as smooth as possible.
- Repeat this action until the ball is covered three times over and set aside to dry (this takes about a day or so).
- Once dry, you’re ready to paint your base layer of blue.
- Once the base layer of paint is dry, take a safety pin and stick through the structure to pop the beach ball inside. Cut a large hole in what will be the bottom of the costume and pull out the ball. Fit the structure over your child to calculate where to draw the arm holes and how big to make the top hole and cut using scissors or a utility knife (Make sure no one is in the costume when doing this!)
- Now you can fully paint your Earth costume! It doesn’t have to be perfect, a basic outline of continents will get the point across. Fit your globe over your little one and get to Trick or Treating!
Parents can join the fun by dressing in yellow and white to go as the sun and the moon.
You can also use this to make a number of other costumes: A baseball, ladybug, Basketball, add a silver beanie and make it a light bulb! There’s lots of possibilities!
Rooooaaaarrrr!
Jurassic Park remains one of my favorite movies of all time and the costumes of the non-dinosaur cast are surprisingly recognizable. Here’s how to have a little fun with it this Halloween. Similar to The Adams Family most of this can be found in your closet. A pink button down shirt died at the waist, aviator sunglasses, bandanas tied around the neck, fedora, all of the khaki you can find a purple cap and a striped shirt is really all you need – plus some dirt for added effect. A few ways to add even more to the costume:
- Dinosaur: This is great if your kids are in a dinosaur phase and parents want to get in on the fun. You can find low priced costumes for the kids and have the parents dress up like the archeologists!
- Specific Scenes: Carry a large flashlight and a cup of water to recreate the infamous T-Rex scene or glue a green Lego onto a metal spoon so that you can look like your Jello is shaking anytime your neighbors open the door (they may just wonder what you’re seeing behind them!)
However you chose to spend your Halloween this year it’s always a great time to spend with family and friends. Be spooky, be safe and have a great time!