Halloween is fast approaching, and it’s time to get the costumes ready. My kids and I usually make their costumes at home – it’s not always cheaper than buying one, but it’s a lot more fun and a great creative outlet. The hardest part, usually, is keeping the cost down. It’s easy to spend more making a Halloween costume than it would have cost to buy one. Here are some tips to make Halloween costumes for you kids on a budget.

Know Your Skills and Limits

What are you good at when it comes to costume creation? Can you sew? Paint? Mold? Carve? Build? What about power tool use? How good are you or your kids at each of the skills you will need to make their costume?

You don’t want to get to a point where you realize you’re in over your head on making a costume. There are plenty of instructions online to help you do more than you might manage otherwise, but that’s not always enough.

Pick a Costume and Stick With It

My rule for making costumes for my kids is that as soon as we have made a purchase related to their costume, it’s final. The same would go for if we started making things from supplies we already have at home. The kids can change their minds as often as they want until the costume is started in any form.

Get Ideas Online

There are many place online to get ideas to make creating a homemade costume easier. Whatever your idea is, look it up online and see what other people have done.

This can save you time and money. Some ideas will cost more than you want to spend – lots of people are serious about their cosplay, after all. Other ideas will be perfect for your budget. At the very least, getting ideas online will give you a better idea of what you’re getting yourself into before you spend any money on it.

Look at What You Already Own

Many homemade costumes can be made from things you already have around the house, at least in part. When we made a Millie from Team Umizoomi costume for my youngest daughter one year, a part of the costume was her bike helmet, to give her the big head look the characters on the show have. I covered it in fabric and attached red ribbons for the hair. I had to make the dress, and she used pink pants and a long sleeve shirt to complete the costume.

Check your garage too. PVC pipe can be painted to make a walking stick, for example. Craft supplies and toys can be used to make all kinds of things. Parts from old costumes can be used to make new.

Know Your Budget

Once you reach the point where you’re buying things for costumes, know how much you’re willing to spend. If you’re trying to keep the cost down, make sure you know what a similar store bought costume would cost, and see what you can do to keep your cost below that.

If you have to buy a lot for the costume, this may not be easy. Store costumes are made from very cheap materials as a general rule, unless you go with something really fancy. The fabrics and other supplies you might buy to make a costume yourself can add up very quickly.

Consider Which Purchases Can Be Used For Other Events

My son made a steampunk costume last year. We had to buy the clothes for him, but the dress shirt and pants were suitable for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and so their cost was simply a part of buying clothes for the holidays in general, rather than an expense just for Halloween.

You may also be able to upgrade a previous year’s costume into something for this year. My son hasn’t outgrown his steampunk clothes from last year, so he may be simply adding more accessories to it this year so it doesn’t look quite the same.

Shop Used

Thrift stores have all kinds of costumes and clothes that can be perfect for your costuming needs. You may be able to find clothes or accessories on the cheap that are perfect for your needs.

Keep It Simple

The more complicated you make the costume, the more you’re likely to spend on it. If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine, but be prepared for your costs to go up as you add details.

My oldest daughter made a Tardis dress costume using a blue dress she already owned and some paint. Effectively a free costume, as we already owned everything she used. It only took her a couple hours to paint it, but she got so many compliments on it. She hates dresses and had no intention of ever wearing it again, so this was a great use of the dress. This was probably the least effort we’ve ever put into a costume, but it worked wonderfully.

The post How to Make Homemade Halloween Costumes on a Budget appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

My oldest daughter loves fairies, and sometimes she likes to make fairy houses. You can buy fairy houses for the garden, but I think it’s more fun when kids make their own.

This can be very much a found items kind of project. My daughter usually selects a shoebox or other small box, and decorates that. Small rocks or bits of wood can make a path. She used to make traps for them too, until I convinced her that one should not attempt to trap magical creatures unless prepared to take the consequences of annoying that creature. Better to treat them well.

The post Fairy Houses – Day 24 of 30 Days of Keeping Kids Busy During the Summer appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Paper airplanes are simple, cheap entertainment. They’re best when kids are old enough to fold their own, but still pretty good if you have to take a minute and make one for a younger child.

The key here is finding a good place for your kids to fly them. My kids like to launch from upstairs, as the downstairs room by the stairs goes the entire height of the house and is long enough for a good flight.

If this turns out to be a popular activity, there are books and websites to help kids learn how to fold more paper airplane designs.

The post Make Paper Airplanes – Day 18 of 30 Days of Keeping Kids Busy During the Summer appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Sidewalk chalk is one of those classic toys for kids. The mess is usually easy to clean up.

There are some really fun types of sidewalk chalk now, such as some that comes with glasses to make projects look 3-D. It’s a really nice effect, although not utterly necessary.

You should be a little careful, of course. My kids have been known to drawn on exterior house walls or on the fence, and it doesn’t come off those surfaces so easily. If the kids are out front, you should also consider how neighbors feel about it. Some people can be touchy about chalk drawings staying out longer than the kids who drew them. There are times when it’s more polite to hose down the drawings promptly. I think it’s silly, as chalk goes away pretty fast on its own, but others disagree.

For those who are really into it, there’s a recipe for ice chalk that also looks like a lot of fun for the kids.

The post Sidewalk Chalk – Day 17 of 30 Days of Keeping Kids Busy During the Summer appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Kids enjoy stringing beads during a wide range of ages, especially girls who might actually wear any necklaces they make. There are beads appropriate to all ages, although if you have multiple kids you might find the younger ones eyeing the older kids’ supplies pretty hard.

Have a good place set up for the beads when they come out. We store ours in a large plastic container with a lid, so it doesn’t spill when put away. Spills are enough of a problem when they’re being used, I don’t need to clean beads up when the kids want to use them. You don’t want the beads rolling all over the floor or sprinkled all over the carpet.

I tie a bead to one end of the string for younger children. The holes on beads for younger kids are often too big for a knot in the string to do the job.

Chenille stems also work well for beading. The beads don’t slide around as much as they do on string, so it can be a bit easier for kids to manage.

For older kids, consider introducing them to wire bending and beading. This is only for kids old enough to safely manage the tools, but it’s a lot of fun.

The post Stringing Beads – Day 12 of 30 Days of Keeping Kids Busy During the Summer appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

My kids love to do all sorts of crafts. We keep a good range of supplies, from specific projects the kids have picked out to generic supplies they kids get really creative with.

The hardest part is keeping the craft supplies from being a total mess all around the house. An over the door shoe organizer can be really handy for keeping crafts organized, especially if you have a somewhat discreet yet handy place for it. Ours is near the front door. It may seem as though that’s too visible, but with the layout of our house, it really isn’t. It hangs on hooks in the wall rather than the over the door hooks. It’s right where the kids play with toys and do the less messy crafts.

Make sure you have a drop cloth or some other way to keep the kids from destroying your flooring if they’re working with clay, paints or anything else that might be bad for your floor. You can even have them set up outside some days.

The post Crafts – Day 8 of 30 Days of Keeping Kids Busy During the Summer appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

My kids like to paint. I think most do.

The key to kids painting without a big fuss is having a great place to do it and plenty of supplies. We have a plastic cover for the table so the kids can paint there without ruining anything. We also have a good supply of paints, including a rather nice watercolor set. The solid paint is thick enough that my kids have used it for a few years and still aren’t close to hitting bottom on it.

We also have an easel. It’s great for letting the kids paint outdoors. You have to not care about paint on the lawn, or spread out some plastic to protect the patio, but it’s not a bad way to go when the weather isn’t too hot.

The post Painting – Day 1 of 30 Days of Keeping Kids Busy During the Summer appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

My youngest has known since July what she wanted to be for Halloween this year. She wanted to be Millie from Team Umizoomi this year. It’s been “Mommy, where’s my Millie costume? Mommy, where’s my Millie costume?” a couple times a week lately. Only trouble is, no one makes them yet. I had to make it myself.

I really like how it turned out. It was a lot of work, but came out well.

Shirt and pants were easy. Pulled them out of her regular wardrobe. Not like it’s at all hard to find pink pants and long sleeve tops. A pink sundress, however, turned out to be impossible to find by the time I started looking. Everything had the wrong kind of print, nothing plain and no floral patterns. I had to make that myself.

I found a cheap sundress pattern, and some pink floral print fabric. I bought more than needed for the pattern, as Millie has that hood. Sewing the dress was basically following the pattern, although I wish I had flared the skirt out more. Following the pattern exactly left too little room for my active girl to run, and she has already pulled some of the stitches on one of the side seams at the bottom of the dress.

The head was a real bear to make, but I love how it turned out. First round, I just made a hood. It had to be separate from the dress, because the dress zips up in back. I just used a hood from one of her other outfits, cut the fabric a bit bigger than the outline, and added straps to the front.

Hated the way the hood looked. It just didn’t give enough of the “Millie” impression to me. The head was simply too small. If you know the show, the characters’ heads are huge, and I wanted that look in the costume.

Then inspiration hit while picking up the kids’ toys one day. I found her bike helmet. Made a cover for it, including a strap to go under her chin and fasten at the side. That was really tough, as I had no pattern. It was estimate, cut, sew, put on the helmet, adjust, sew, cut, pinch, tack down… until the thing finally worked. The chin strap fastens to one side, as it was easier to make a single strap and add velcro to the side than it was to have it fasten under her chin.

The ribbons for her hair were tricky too. I used wired ribbon for stiffness, but it needed more for that first part. My husband got the brilliant idea to trim some strips of hardware cloth, cover them with painter’s tape (couldn’t find the duct tape), and make a little pocket for them to go into the ribbon. These bent nicely into shape so that the ribbons went up for a couple inches before curling down. I cut slits into the fabric of the hood, and bent the hardware cloth into an L-shape. The hardware cloth was hot glued to the helmet so that everything would stay in place, and the ribbons stitched to the hood to make it all look good.

The yellow around the face is just regular ribbon, but I cut up a headband to make the yellow ponytail holders. It just gave them more dimension. Fortunately, the straps to the bicycle helmet just so happened to be yellow too, so they blended in nicely.

This is the most effort I’ve ever put into a homemade costume, and I’m so glad it worked out. Nice part is, the dress can still be worn anytime. A few kids her age knew exactly who she was, and just loved the costume.

The post Showing Off My Daughter’s Homemade Millie (Team Umizoomi) Costume appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

It has been a long time since I posted a kids’ craft, but one we did at my daughter’s preschool this week is too cute to resist. As one of the other parents there noted, it’s not often you make a decoration that’s appropriate for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. This little guy really works for all of those. He’s also really easy to make.

Pine Cone and Cotton Owl

Supplies

Pine cone – open enough to stuff cotton into
Cotton balls
Popsicle stick
Yellow construction paper
Black construction paper
Orange construction paper
Scissors
Glue

Instructions

Take a handful of cotton balls and stretch them out. You want the cotton really loose. Kids enjoy this part. How much you need depends on the size of your pine cone.

Holding the pine cone carefully (some are spiky), wrap the stretched out cotton around it. Stuff the cotton into the pine cone using a popsicle stick. Use less cotton if you want a more brown owl, more if you want him more white.

Cut two circles out of the yellow construction paper. Size will depend on the size of your owl, but ours are about the size of a quarter. Cut two smaller circles out of the black construction paper. Cut a triangle out of the orange construction paper for a beak.

Glue the black circles onto the yellow to make eyes, then glue to the owl. Glue the beak beneath the eyes. Allow to dry.

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This is a fun way to mess around with the paints your kids already have. Kids like blowing bubbles, after all. You’ll need:

Bubble solution
Tempura paint
Straw
Shallow bowl
Paper
Newspaper or other protective covering for work area

Put the bowl on your covered work area. Pour in the bubble solution and add enough of one color of tempura paint to get to the color you want.

If you can trust the kids to not inhale this mixture, let them blow bubbles until they’re just over the rim of the bowl. If you think they’ll try to drink it or inhale by mistake, blow the bubbles yourself.

Have a child gently place the paper over the top of the bowl. The bubbles will pop and leave color on the paper.

You can repeat this on the same piece of paper with other colors. Just be sure the paper doesn’t get too soggy.

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