Tuesday, November 1, 2011

A Homemade (and free!) Halloween

Luckily for the trick or treaters (and their parents), the weather decided to cooperate last night.  It was a chilly night, but that just makes for more fun!

My guys decided they wanted to be an astronaut and a space alien.  Fitting really.  I found a couple of examples in the book cute and easy Costumes for Kids , and though the heads did take some time to dry, the project itself was very simple.




For the astronaut, I used my son's karate gi.  I used safety pins to attach a felt design I made onto the front of the gi.  The air tanks were a big hit and were made by spray painting a couple of recycled pop bottles white.  I used blue electrical tape and a bit of hot glue to hold them together.  I picked up a piece of flexible tubing in the free box of a recent yard sale, and taped that to the bottom of one of the bottles.  The helmet was made using paper mache over top of a large balloon.  We painted it white and trimmed the openings with blue paint.


For the alien, I followed the instructions in the book and made a tube out of green fabric in my fabric box.  I cute out some circles and glued them on.  His head was made following the same techniques as the helmet but I cut out a mouth shape and added some paper teeth.  For the eyes, I took a few plastic Easter eggs from my cupboard and hot glued a pompom on each.  I insterted a twisted pipe cleaner into the bottom of the egg, and inserted the other end of the pipe cleaner into a slit cut in the top of the head.  The eyes were a huge hit with neighbours and friends!

Everyone loved the costumes, and the kids enjoyed the process of making them.  That is one of the things I most remember about Halloween as a child, making our costumes.  We didn't have huge stores in those days where you could spend hours selecting a costume.  We came up with ideas and used what we had to bring the idea to life.  Sure it takes a bit of work.  But the costumes were unique, free, and hopefully the boys will remember the time we spent together making them.  That is better than candy any day!

http://todayscreativeblog.net/ http://www.craftyconfessions.com/ http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/ http://www.notjustahousewife.net/  ladybug-blessings http://athomewithk.blogspot.com/ http://www.gingersnapcrafts.com/ http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/ http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/ 

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