Create a Great, Inexpensive Halloween Costume This Year

In the past few decades, Halloween has grown from a relatively tame night of kids playing dress-up and pulling pranks to the second largest holiday celebrated in our country. Halloween parties have become a popular alternative to trick-or-treating as parents worry about their children accepting candy from strangers, and many costumes rival those created for big screen movie productions. Just drive through any middle class neighborhood on Halloween night to see children, teens and adults who have been transformed into frightening zombies and mummies, princesses complete with sparkly tiaras, and superheroes that look perfectly capable of raising their arms above their heads and taking off in flight. Creating a great Halloween costume though doesn't have to break the bank. You can use things around the house, in your attic, and from yard sales to create a terrific Halloween costume that will impress your friends and get screams or laughs from everyone.

Popular culture can provide terrific inspiration for a Halloween costume. Associated Content producer RS has written a great article on creating a "Bald Britney Spears" Halloween costume (read it here.) If you use your imagination, you can come up with your own interesting and fun Halloween costume. Just go out and purchase any celebrity magazine, open it up, and let the ideas start flowing. Become Angelina Jolie by drawing on some tattoos with eyeliner, wearing a long, black dress, and look around at yard sales or in your child's toy box for dolls of different races and colors. Take about five or six of them. If you have a "Brad Pitt" to tag along, that's great too! Paris Hilton is passé (though she doesn't seem to think so), so let's just nix that one this year. But the popularity of Disney's High School Musical this year should give the kiddy set and preteens lots of ideas to play around with this Halloween.

Traditional Halloween costumes can be fun, too, with some adjustments to personalize them. Kids always have sports uniforms lying around from current or past seasons. Becoming a zombie football or hockey player for Halloween can easily step it up a notch. Buy some white body paint from a party supply or department store (it is not recommended that you purchase this used or reuse makeup from previous years). For a hockey player zombie, purchase a foam hockey puck (usually under $1) and cut it to the contour of your child's head. Use spirit gum to stick it onto the forehead and paint the child's face, neck, hands, and arms white. For added effect, draw dark circles around the eyes and paint the hair so that it looks sticky and dirty. Football or baseball zombie Halloween costumes can be created by painting a footprint across the child's face.

A Greek god/goddess Halloween costume can be simple and inexpensive as well. The child should wear a plain, white t-shirt underneath the Halloween costume. Then, using an old, white sheet (or about 3 yards of inexpensive white fabric from the fabric store), drape the sheet over one of the child's shoulders and either sew the sides up with a sewing machine or use safety pins to pin the fabric closed down the sides. Sandals of nearly any type compliment this Halloween costume well. A cheap strand of a silk ivy vine painted gold make a lovely wreath in the hair. To transform the god/goddess into a statue, paint all exposed skin white with body paint.

These are just a few ideas for creating a great Halloween costume. Great ideas can be transformed into reality using a little creativity, imagination, and some treasure hunting around the house.