we have many years behind us with less than five bucks to put together costumes for all 3 boys, and their creativity turned out to be the best part, they were always SO PROUD of themselves with their costumes. Discovered:
paper lunch bag makes GREAT frankenstein head/hat, just crayons to color green and black hair;
cardboard box and school supplies markers/paint made a truck costume that won an award;
black garbage bag Darth Vader helmet and cape was VERY showy;
underwear on the outside of your pants makes any superhero (if you have a good sense of humor);
firepit charcoal and messed up hair with a "Dr." nametag made a great Mad Scientist.
The kids all got lots of candy, that was their most important part. Once I spent a lot of effort on buying and fixing up a costume for one 7 year old, but the mood of the day got the best of him and he went out trick or treating in his own creation anyhow.
I love to sew and paint, but honestly, the costumes they did on their own are their favorite memories. One of my kids had a disability for a few years, but he still loved to do his own thing! I'm always there to help. Last year I made a fantastic cherokee costume for the 3rd grader, because he was into it in social studies and also discovered our cherokee heritage in the family tree, so it became a lovely project he still talks about. One year I made plenty of money and DH took them shopping in "Hell" for costumes and kept calling me from his cell phone,"well, we just left one hell and now we're spiralling down that dark abyss by the Sears store, yep here we go into another hell" . Unfortunately, its easily our whole grocery budget to shop at those stores for costumes. But the year they did that they can laugh about their visits to hell. Luckily, we have the best library EVER, and our current 7 year old is WAY into holiday cookbooks and holiday storybooks, can't wait to hang out for a few hours in the Halloween aisle of our library! The kids almost always got their ideas from there, come to think of it......,
