Homemade Halloween Costumes

I LOVE to make my own Halloween costumes if I have the time.  This year I didn’t make the costumes but Drew and I made wizard wands – pretty easy and lots of fun!! I found this great tutorial on wand-making and we whipped up a bunch for ourselves.  All you need is paper, glue, an old pencil, a hot-glue gun and some metallic paint.  I deviated from the instructions a bit – I found it was helpful to roll the paper up with an old pencil.  It also gives the wand a little more stability. A close-up:

and in-action! and from the Halloween archives…I made the bee and the dragon costumes

Liam’s bee was made without a pattern.  I used a vest for a guide but made it much larger so that he could wear a black sweatshirt under it. The ‘wings’ are black gauze pinned on with a safety pin.  He had an adorable set of antennas made from a headband, pipe cleaners and puff balls, but it ‘bugged’ him and he wouldn’t wear it.

The dragon cape was from a pattern (Butterick BP 184).  I added the ‘scales’ (is that what they are?) using triangles of heavy duty felt.  Drew wanted to ‘breathe fire’ so I sewed strips on red satin onto some elastic that fit over a flashlight.  There was a green satin mask too. These homemade knight costumes, complete with decoupage shields, were from a neighbor’s birthday party (2 boys with very creative and ambitious parents!)  My boys didn’t use them for Halloween but they’ve been great dress-up costumes!

I say homemade beats off the rack any day!