Ten-minute Halloween Costumes!
Whether you’re invited to an impromptu Halloween party or are just tired of spending a fortune at costume shops, consider these creative costumes that are assembled from gear you already have around the house. Modify them with makeup and accessories to give them your own special style!
- Super Fan
o Supplies needed: Your favorite team sweatshirt, hat, foam finger and face paint.
o Assembly: Dress in your most outlandish combination of team colors and paint your face and body to match. Extra points for recreating the team logo across your face!
- Boxing champ
o Supplies needed: baggy gym shorts, tank top (for the ladies), white socks and sneakers, bathrobe, felt lettering, tape for hands.
o Assembly: Cut the letters of your last name out of felt or paper and attach them to the back of the robe. Dress up as the champ and tape up your hands for battle. Add face paint as desired to achieve a post-fight look.
- Roman god or goddess
o Supplies needed: a large flat sheet or 5-6 yards of fabric, any small-leafed, green plant (or a coat hanger and fake leaves), chunky gold bracelet, sandals.
o Assembly: Wrap the sheet around you toga-style. Weave the plant into a laurel or shape a coat hanger in a circle to fit your head and attach leaves to it.
- Spider
o Supplies needed: Black clothing and makeup, four long black socks or legs cut from black tights, SCOTT® Towels, black yarn.
o Assembly: Stuff SCOTT® Towels into the socks or tights to make four additional legs. Pin them to your black shirt, two on each side, about eight inches apart. Loop the black yarn around each leg and attach it to your real arm, so that all three arms on each side move together.
- Scarecrow
o Supplies needed: overalls or baggy jeans, flannel shirt, floppy hat, loose straw.
o Assembly: Dress as usual, then stuff loose straw around your collar, coming out of the front of the shirt and coming out of your sleeve. (Note: skip the straw if you have allergies!) Practice walking as if you have no skeleton.
- Woodland Creature
o If you’re talented with face paint, you can become virtually any animal, depending on the color of your outfit. (Green = lizard, black = cat or skunk, brown = bear or puppy, white = bunny, red with black felt spots = ladybug.)
o Supplies needed: a leotard and tights or plain sweatshirt and pants in a matching color; face paint.
o Assembly: You can find photos of painted faces on the Internet, including this step-by-step demonstration of a tiger.
- Dice, Lego block or Robot
o Depending on what size box you have in your basement, you can be almost anything you want.
o Supplies needed: a box you can climb into, box cutter, paint, contact paper, markers, aluminum foil and disposable bowls. Assembly: Carefully cut out holes for your head and arms. Wrap the box in white contact paper (for the dice), foil (for the robot) or paint it whatever color you’d like (for the Lego block). For the Lego, attach small disposable bowls in two rows down the front and paint them too.
- Bunch of Grapes
o Supplies needed: Green or brown shirt, pants and stocking cap, and a bag of green or purple balloons.
o Assembly: Get dressed in your “stem” outfit, then blow up the balloons and pin them all over your clothes. (If you’re driving to the party, have a friend pin on the back balloons when you get there.) Alternate: Use multi-colored balloons and climb feet-first into a dry cleaning bag to become a bag of jellybeans. Tie it off at the neck with a colorful ribbon.
Question: What great Halloween costumes have you made from household supplies?
