Halloween is full of scares, frights, and fun! What shouldn’t scare you though, is the cost of Halloween costumes. Instead of generic over-priced costumes, check out these benefits and tips for cost-effective homemade Halloween costumes.
What Do I Dress Up As?
Figuring out how to dress up for Halloween is easily the most difficult part of any costume. What will stick out? What will be different? What will people see and think, “Now that’s” clever.”
You can find inspiration for your homemade Halloween costume from just about anything, but pop-culture is a good place to start. The trick is thinking of something that’s well-known, but not overdone. For example, Batman is well known, but it may be a bit overused.
Maybe pick something from pop-culture that’s so classic that people will love it forever—Mary Poppins for example. Or choose something that people were crazy about when it was brand new, but they haven’t thought about it in a while like the movie Inside Out.
There really is no limit to what you can do, but it’s more fun to have a costume that not every other family will be wearing this year.
When you’re designing your costume, reach for the stars! A more complicated costume doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend more money, It just means you have to be more creative.
Another option for deciding on a Halloween costume is to look at what you did last year. It may not be the most fun way to do Halloween, but recycling a costume is always cheaper than getting a new one. Having a fancy new Halloween costume for your neighbor’s Halloween party is not worth breaking the bank over.
Putting Your Costume Together
So you’ve finally decided on your costume idea? Now, where do you go next? After a quick look at Pinterest, run down to your local thrift or second-hand store. Not only are thrift stores an excellent place to go to find practical stuff you need at a serious discount, but they’re also a great place to find materials to design your unique and inexpensive costume.
Here’s an example. One Halloween, a young couple decided to take their inspiration from Pokemon and dress up as Ash Ketchum and Pikachu.
Both of their costumes only cost them about $10.00, and they couldn’t have had more fun running around the corn maze.
All they needed to buy was a blue jacket that they could cut the sleeves off of to make a vest, a red baseball cap, and a yellow sweater. Pikachu’s ears and tail were just cardboard painted yellow, Pikachu’s red cheeks were done with lipstick, and the symbol on Ash’s hat was drawn on with a marker.
It was a solid costume, and it cost very little. With a bit of creativity, there’s no reason you couldn’t dress up as anything from a family of characters from Wreck-it Ralf to a standalone character from The Lord of the Rings.
Family/Friends Activity
Not only is making your own Halloween costume much less expensive, but it’s also a lot more fun to do as a group, and will definitely make for a more memorable Halloween. Teaming up with friends or other families and sharing resources is also a great way to make costume-creating less expensive.
If you design and create your costume with friends, you’ll see that making the costume for a Halloween party is just as much fun as the party itself. Plus, on top of feeling good about how awesome you look, you can be proud of the work that you put into it.
Price Differences
Maybe you think that all of this sounds like too much work; like it takes too much time and you’d rather buy a costume and not worry about it. Let’s try to convince you otherwise.
Buying a pre-made Ash and Pikachu costume could easily cost you $50-$60 dollars for both. A trip to the thrift store and an hour of your time is definitely worth that $40-$50 discount.
Halloween is a fun holiday. It’s a chance to be creative, be social, and have fun. That said, don’t forget that spending money on an amazing Halloween costume is a want, not a need. If you had to choose between going to work in an awesome costume or buying groceries, buy groceries and stay out of financial trouble.
That said, be creative and have fun with your costumes. Shoot for the stars and have fun along the way.
