Great Costumes for Less!

Dear Readers,

Do you need help with freezer meals? My friend Susanne over at Hillbillyhousewife.com has a great Freezer Cooking e-book collection that she is offering to our readers for 75% off this week. This Freezer Cooking Collection makes freezer cooking simple, with lots of pointers and recipes to help you get started. It includes 4 freezer cooking e-books and 5 bonus items! Check it out here!

We had a couple of questions about my Pampered Chef party. You can still order until October 30. To order, just click on the item you want to order from their catalog. Then click "how to purchase" and then you will be asked for the show host's name and just type in Tawra Kellam. That's it! Find the catalog page here.

Be sure to check out our Frugal Fall Decorations on the blog.

Also, on the livingonadime.com web site, you can find some great ideas for Halloween Decorations and read about our $25 Halloween Party.

Have a great week!

-Tawra
www.LivingOnADime.com

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Great Costumes for Less!

You can really come up with some cute and clever ideas for costumes, even if you don't feel particularly creative. Don't wait until the night before Halloween to start your costumes. Look at the people and things around you and ask yourself how " how can I recreate this?"

Look at thrift stores and garage sales for costumes. Go ahead and buy the costume or piece of a costume if the price is right. You really can't go wrong spending $0.25 on a piece of a costume. Even if it doesn't work you haven't lost much.

Costumes can be very simple and still make a big impact. For example, instead of the usual witch robes, drag out your elegant black dress and add a witch hat with a veil of spider webbing stretched over your face. Cover the spider web with plastic spiders. For a man, a nice suit and tie and a funny mask makes a good simple costume. For a couple: get a REALLY big sweatshirt, both of you get in it and be Siamese twins!

Some examples of costumes for kids are:

• Sunflower - For the body, use a white sleeper or sweatsuit. Paint the child's face yellow, adding black spots to simulate seeds if you like. Make a flower to fit on the child's head out of felt or glue sunflowers on a white hat.
  


• Angel - Again use a white sweatsuit or long white dress for the body. Make wings out of heavy white poster board and paint the edges gold. Attach tie straps to them that go around the shoulders. You can also shape a metal clothes hanger into a wing. Make two wings, hot glue fabric around them and add straps.
  


• Pea Pod - Cut 2 small foam balls in half with an electric knife or a knife with a serrated blade. (Note: Do this BEFORE attaching them to the child! ;-) Wrap in green fabric and pin them to the front of a green sweatsuit. Make a hat out of 2 shades of green felt and a little brown felt for a stem.
  


• Lion - Buy a yellow hat or dye a white hat yellow. Buy long brown fake fur, yellow fake fur and a yellow sweatsuit. You can get fake fur at your favorite fabric store. Add brown fur to the top of the hat (for a mane), hot-glue yellow fur into a long tail, adding a poof of brown for the end. Pin the tail on the back of the costume. Make an oval of the fur for the child's tummy and use eyeliner for whiskers.
  


• Dalmatian - Pin black felt dots onto a pair of white sweats. Paint black polka dots on the child's face. Add more polka dots to a white hat, make some black felt ears and add black shoes to finish it.
  


• I Paint, Therefore I Am - Glue a copy of a painting with a face on it on a piece of cardboard. (For example, the Mona Lisa). Cut out the face and then use it as a mask with the child's face in the spot where the other face was.
  


• Race Car Stroller - Decorate a stroller as a race car by adding fabric or paper racing stripes and a number. Add two flashlights for headlights, plus some reflector tape. If you want to get really creative, add a wind foil, a foil covered paper towel roller for an exhaust pipe or whatever else your clever mind conjures up. Cut a steering wheel out of cardboard for the child to hold. Your child can wear whatever clothes he wants. Just add an old helmet or baseball cap worn backwards.
  

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Think of themes for all of the kids in the family:

It can be fun for all the kids to dress up in costumes that complement each other. Some sample themes are:

• Superheroes
  


• Vegetables
  


• Candy bars
  


• Rabbit family (or family of animals such as ducks, cats, dogs etc.)
  


• Cartoon characters (i.e. Mickey Mouse, Minnie and Donald Duck).
  


• They could also dress in pairs like a mouse and cheese, a plant and a watering can or doctor and patient. The sky's the limit.
  


• Christmas theme - One child could go as a present, another a Christmas tree, another Rudolph and the 4th as Santa.
  


• Wizard of Oz (We're in Kansas you know! ;-) or another movie theme.
  

It doesn't take a lot of money to be creative with your costumes and you will find that creative costumes are a lot more fun than store bought costumes. Just think about the things your kids like and the materials you have and try to think of a way to make something unique. You'd be surprised about the cute things you can come up with if you invest a little time in the thought.

Remember, the idea is for it to be fun and cute, so don't obsess about perfection and, by all means, involve the kids in making their own costumes. Just make sure you supervise or the costumes may turn out a little too "impressionist!" ;-)