DIY Halloween Costumes for an Eco-Friendly Halloween
The nights are drawing in, the air feels colder, and kids are snuggling under cosy quilts in the evening. It’s Autumn, so it’s almost time for Halloween! Easily one of our favourite holidays of the year, Halloween is so much fun with children of all ages. You can enjoy a day out to a pumpkin patch, choosing the biggest, smallest, most perfect or weirdest pumpkin you can find. The kids can draw designs to be carved into them and decorate the house with spooky faces, and of course there’s trick or treating to be done!
Here at Kabode we love the creativity that comes with Halloween and planning out eye catching costumes, but we are not big fans of the plasticy costumes often found in supermarkets, which get worn just a few times and then thrown away. These are commonly made from poor quality materials that use valuable natural resources both in the manufacturing process and in the fabric itself. What a waste!
We’ve rounded up some inspiring DIY halloween costumes that can be out together from clothes you already own, or made out of reused materials. Although you might not relish the idea of sewing and crafting, many of these can be made in less time than it takes to go to the supermarket, and cost less than buying new. You could also get the children involved in the making process, for a fun rainy day activity - they’ll be super proud to show off their creation on the spookiest night of the year!
Stick Man
This first one was made by Heidi, a member of the Kabode team, and her Stick Man loving son. Putting some old cardboard boxes to use, they decorated them together and made a costume any Julia Donaldson fan would be proud of.
Home Made Face Paint
With face paint, you can be anything you like, but did you know you can make it yourself? A simple recipe of cornstarch, lotion, flour, water and food colouring can give you a totally new look. Turn your little one into their favourite superhero, cartoon character or animal by painting their face and dressing them in appropriately coloured clothes. We found a recipe for home made facepaint here.
Brolly Bat
This ingenious bat costume by Mother Natured repurposes an old black umbrella into a stunning bat costume, complete with detailed wings that can open and close! Not only is it very very cool, it requires no sewing so it’s perfect if you want to make an impact without using a needle and thread.
Scuba Diver
Rescue those plastic pop bottles from the recycling and put them to use as part of a simple scuba diver’s outfit! Another costume which relies on imaginative accessories to dress up simple black clothing, we love the added details of the candy catch bucket and goldfishing net on this version featured on Delineate Your Dwelling.
Stick Figure
Need a quick and easy fancy dress idea for the whole family? Turn yourselves into stick figures! Easily achieved by sticking black electrical tape onto white clothes, or white tape onto black clothes. You could use the same technique to turn yourselves into skeletons if you want to up the spook factor!
Goldfish
Ok it’s not spooky, but this DIY goldfish costume featured on Womans Day is just so cute! It gets a 5 out of 5 for impressive crafting, but it’s actually made from coloured coffee filters attached to an orange hoodie, with eyes glued on top of the hood. Simple but effective!
Mad Scientist
Let your crazy kid out of the lab in a home made mad scientist outfit. Use a charity shop white blazer or one of Dad’s old white shirts, and decorate it with scientific symbols and spilled ‘chemicals’. You could fray the sleeves to give it that really crazed look. Grab some goggles from the garage, and give your scientist plastic cups and bottles of ‘potions’ (coloured juice) to carry/drink. Small clear bubble tubes work really well with this costume too, as they look like test tubes.
Werewolf
Another classic Halloween look which comes together easily with a bit of facepaint and some old clothes, the werewolf is an icon of old halloween movies and a lot of fun. What kid wouldn’t want to go around the neighborhood after dark howling at the moon?!
Halloween has become a holiday that creates a lot of single use plastic in the form of sweet wrappers, decorations, LED candles, costumes and accessories. We hope that these costumes have given you some inspiration for ways you can cut down on the waste by reusing things you already own, putting together items from the charity shop or using materials that can be recycled after the 31st of October. There are all sorts of ideas for lovely Autumn and Halloween decorations made from dried leaves, pine cones and twigs as well as coloured card and paint, so consider how you could celebrate the spookiest night of the year more sustainably this year.