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Last Minute Halloween Costumes
Last minute Halloween costumes, like this homemade train, can be great fun!
Last night as we were tucking her into bed, my three-year-old announced that she wanted to go to school the next morning dressed as a zebra. Or a giraffe. Or a train.
“I want you to sew me a zebra costume, Mommy!”
Her dad saved the day with an awesome last minute Halloween costume: a cardboard box transformed into a colorful train.
Are you on the hunt for a last-minute costume? Here are some simple, cheap ideas for delightful costumes:
The Train: This one looks so great it’s hard to believe how easy it was. Simply cut half the bottom out of a rectangular cardboard box, and tape construction paper or felt around the edges to make the colorful sides. You can add headlights and a grill if you feel like getting fancy with your paper cut-outs. Trim the cardboard flaps into circles for wheels and color or paint them black.
How is the kid going to wear this costume, you ask?
My husband attached a fanny pack that looped through the back of the cardboard box to hold it around our kid’s waist. The fanny pack makes a great place to stash trick-or-treats, but you could use a simple belt too.
Professional Parent: This is a classic: dress your child up as your profession. Whether you’re a doctor, a secretary or a dancer, you probably have the tools and clothes of your trade around the house. Nothing is cuter than a kindergarten-sized mad scientist!
Medusa: The ABC story I linked above has a great recipe for a quick and easy Rapunzel costume. If you’re feeling a little more daring (and less coordinated), you can skip the braiding and use that leftover yarn to create wild Medusa hair for your little darling. She’ll be the terror of all the Percy Jackson clones roaming the neighborhood!
Zoo Animals: ABC lists “giraffe” as one of their top picks for last-minute costumes. This is clearly because the writers of that article have never had a little girl ask them to sew a giraffe costume the night before the school Halloween party.
Zoo animals do make for pretty easy costumes though, because they’re so iconic. An old white t-shirt and leggings can become a zebra with the magic touch of a sharpie. A pair of scissors can transform that yellow top you haven’t worn in years into a fearsome lion’s mane in minutes. Any preschooler will recognize these costumes, no matter how crudely put together they are. Score.
Dress-Up Potluck: Finally, when looking for a last minute Halloween costume comes down to the ten minutes before you walk out the door, there’s your dress-up chest. Somewhere, your kids have a stash of costume pieces: cowboy hats, fairy wings, ballerina tutus. The stuff they play dress-up with, the leftovers of Halloween’s past. In a pinch, put these to good use, and assemble a costume just like you would an outfit for the day: is everything clean? Warm enough? Covering top and bottom? Great! We’re costumed. Let’s go trick-or-treat!
Halloween costumes can be a joy to create and wear, but the real fun of Halloween is trick-or-treating with your friends, not worrying yourself sick over the details of a costume that will be worn for only a few hours.
Photo: Sierra Black
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[...] Cheap ideas for delightful Halloween costumes [...]
Last Minute Halloween costumes » last minute halloween costume ideas, easy halloween costumes, easy halloween costumes for adults, last minute halloween costumes for adults, easy to make halloween costumes | scarlett journey commented on Oct 29 10 at 8:11 pm[...] Cheap ideas for delightful Halloween costumes [...]
Last Minute Halloween costumes » last minute halloween costume ideas, easy halloween costumes, easy halloween costumes for adults, last minute halloween costumes for adults, easy to make halloween costumes | American News BUZZ commented on Oct 29 10 at 8:11 pm[...] Cheap ideas for delightful Halloween costumes [...]
Last Minute Halloween costumes » last minute halloween costume ideas, easy halloween costumes, easy halloween costumes for adults, last minute halloween costumes for adults, easy to make halloween costumes | Family Magazine Blog commented on Oct 29 10 at 8:12 pmLinda commented on Oct 29 10 at 12:50 pmI made a manga character costume for my 10 year old son (we’ve been gradually picking up pieces at thrift stores and at the fabric store for a few weeks) and we put it all together pretty easily on Wednesday evening. That being said, I expect my children to give me an adequite amount of notice for things like this. Demanding a new, handmade (or store bought, for that matter) costume the night before an event would be considered really rude and inconsiderate behavior in our house & I would not reward that behavior by rushing around like a madwowan in order to placate my child. I don’t like the message that sends.
Sierra Black commented on Oct 29 10 at 1:01 pm@Linda: even for a three-year-old? I’m pretty sure she didn’t know the Halloween was happening the next day until we talked about it at dinner. I mean, she knew there was a costume party sometime, but she’s a little fuzzy on the whole “days of the week” thing. I think it was more my job to be on the ball about it, with a kid that age.
Linda commented on Oct 29 10 at 1:44 pmYes, it was your job. If you don’t mind doing things like that at bedtime the night before, then okay. I would be totally stressed out by something like that, which is why I said “in our house” in my comment. I need time to plan and process things so, I’ve taught my kids to let me know their needs ahead of time. So yes, I would perceive that as really inconsiderate.
Julia @ http://notlikeacat.blogspot.com/ commented on Oct 29 10 at 2:14 pmWhipping up a costume the night before is more fun and more creative. :) Also, I don’t think 3-yr-olds can be called “inconsiderate” for not having a great sense of days of the week and advance planning and such.
That said, I spent the past few weeks making a cardboard-box fire engine costume for my 2-yr-old. I love box costumes! This morning, though, he wanted to be a cow. (Fortunately, it’s not the first time he’d mentioned the cow thing, so I’d obtained a cow costume from someone a few weeks ago and it was ready to go.)
Gretchen Powers commented on Oct 29 10 at 2:42 pmHmmm…I don’t know that a 3 YO is *rude* for this, however, I would just explain to the child that mommy has been working on costume X and so costume X is what they are going to be this year. Problem is, you would have had to be working on the costume before hand, getting the kid excited about it, etc. isn’t that part of the whole thing, the anticipation and getting ready? But, of course, everyone does it differently and I think the tips for last-minute costumes are smart.
Andrew Bons commented on Oct 31 10 at 1:08 amI like this last minute halloween costumes video tutorial:
http://newsnow7.blogspot.com/2010/10/last-minute-halloween-costumes-for.html
I did 3 halloween costumes on 60 minutes
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