Frugal Halloween Costume Ideas

Oh, wonderful fall! How I love this time of year. The leaves are changing making beautiful new colors everywhere I go. There's also a feeling of nostalgia I get every year at this time, memories of homecoming dances, Halloween parties and high school football games.

My kids have helped me to grow to love this time of year even more. Decorating for Halloween is always fun and turning my kids into cowboys, witches and pumpkins is sometimes a trick and always a treat! This year however, I'm having a little bit of trouble. My kids are really having a hard time deciding what they want to be for Halloween.

It's important for me that I know in advance what they are going to be. Although I lean towards the option of homemade costumes, my creativity in this area is dwindling because I have five kids and seem to have used every idea at least once. But, I hate to buy something that will get worn a few times at the most so buying a costume is usually out of the question unless I find one marked down after Halloween.

If you're on a tight budget or are lacking in creativity, here are some frugal Halloween costume ideas that you can use:

Bag of Jelly Beans: This one is more for a girl just because they will be wearing white tights. Get a see-through trash bag and cut two holes in the bottom for legs. Slip the child's legs through and measure where their arms will be and cut two holes for the arms. Fill the bag with different colored balloons and staple together when full. This could be a free costume if you've got all of the supplies!

Bumblebee: Use a black trash bag and cut arm and leg holes in it. Wrap it with yellow felt or material for the stripes. Buy some of the antannea head bands at the store. Were with yellow leggings.

Skeleton: Last year I dressed my son as a skeleton and this is what I did: I found a picture of a skeleton in the encyclopedia and had it enlarged on a copier. Then I cut the pieces out and traced them on contact paper. Then I cut them out and attached them to black sweats and painted my sons face white. The costume turned out really good, but the only problem was I couldn't get his "bones" to stay on all night. If I did this costume again I would stitch them on.

Cowboy: This one is easy for us because my son has all of the cowboy stuff including the shaps, spurs and cowboy hat.

Butterfly, Angel, Princess: This one will work if you already have a leotard and tights that fit your daughter. Just look for the wings at Wal-mart. If she wants to be a princess make or buy a wand. You can make a wand with a wooden dowel and a glittered star attached to the end. If she wants to be an angel, you can buy a halo and if she wants to be a butterfly, paint her face like a colorful butterfly.

Scarecrow: Dress your child in an old, oversized long-sleeved shirt and a pair of big, worn jeans. Stuff their shirt and jeans with toilet paper (or any stuffing you'd like). At the end of their sleeves and bottom of their pant legs, stuff a little bit of rafia around their wrists and ankles. You could even unbutton one of the buttons on their shirts and shove some rafia in there. Top the costume off with a straw hat.

Nerd: Borrow an old pair of cat-eye glasses from your parents. Dress your children in miss-matched clothes and put tape in between the eye's of the glasses and a pocket protector in the shirt pocket. Make sure the pants are too short and the socks are pulled way up!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shannon is webmaster to a website that offers Premade Scrapbook Pages that tell interesting facts about the day a person was born or married